New World Order | Must Read New World Order With its acquisition of BrightStores, OrderMyGear is taking amajor swing to conquer the online storemarketplace. by Jonny Auping There should be a word for the absence of recent tension in a room. Perhaps “relief” is the closest description. Whatever the word, you could feel that dynamic in an OrderMyGear conference room on an early December afternoon in Dallas, only a few weeks after the announcement that OMG had acquired BrightStores, a Denverbased provider of online company stores for promotional products distributors. At the table were OMG President Matt Kaplan and Mykayla Goodwin, vice president of strategy. Conferencing in from Denver was Tanya Ignacek-Sutton, vice president of BrightStores. The three executives had gotten to know each other over the years. Rivals turned teammates. “There’s been a friendly relationship for quite a while, but there’s a component as well of, ‘Boy, they are a fierce competitor,’” Ignacek-Sutton says. Both had been competing to serve clients in the industry. There didn’t seem to be any slowing to OMG’s growth and resources, but BrightStores strength was in serving distributors in promo, and the OMG top brass was at least a little envious of their competitors’ savvy in the market. The two companies even had history in that very same conference room “I met Dan [Halama, BrightStores’ founder and former president], three years ago,” Kaplan remembers. “We sat in this room. At that time, I never thought that we could get to a place where we would be together. Did I ever hope and dream? Of course.” The coming together of the two technology platforms will target the online needs of promotional product distributors, apparel decorators and team dealers. PPAI • JANUARY 2023 • 71
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