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www.WebWholesalerMagazine.com FEATURES Wuu Jau Company
WUU JAU Company was founded in 1984 by Ben and Margaret Lu, and along with a West Coast branch, Neptune Trading, the wholesaler sells various collector and cutlery items such as swords, daggers, and cross- bows, with one of the world’s biggest selections of pock- etknives and throwing knives. According to Michael Lu, vice president of operations and son of Ben and Margaret, the Lu’s were able to build the company from the ground up by off ering something that was very unique, near their home in rural Oklahoma. “They started selling pocketknives and other smaller things at fl ea markets,” Lu says. “T is was before the Internet and before things were specialized, so if you were a pocketknife or sword collector, it was really hard to fi nd anything like that. You couldn’t just go onto Google and search for throwing knives.” “My parents immigrated from Taiwan in 1977, and
throughout the years we’ve grown at a really fast pace,” Lu adds. “When they came to America, they didn’t have anything, so we’ve defi nitely come a long way. Over the years, we’ve tried to see what our customers want, so we’re always coming up with new things and bringing them to the market.” Because Wuu Jau is still based in the center of the
country, all orders in the continental U.S. will be shipped and received within a week. For consumers on the West Coast, the Neptune Trading import branch and ware- house, opened in 2002, can process orders and provide a more effi cient level of customer support. Lu notes that nearly 100 percent of the two lines’ goods are the same, and a lot of customers buy from both companies; the only diff erence is a few of the products Wuu Jau sells
can not be sold in California due to state laws. With more than 2,000 items on the active products
list, Wuu Jau is constantly trying new things, get ing feedback from customers, and reworking ideas. T e company is currently developing a line of high grade and high quality hunting and out- doors knives, for a line called Buckshot Knives, aſt er see- ing a big demand. Lu notes that Wuu Jau will generally order a test batch to see how a product fares, and once it has been approved, the wholesaler will offi cially add the line. For Buckshot, the products have already been received and will be added within the next few months. Wuu Jau has also updated
its Live Action Role Playing (LARP) line, adding new foam swords and axes in the past few months, aſt er see- ing a huge jump in demand by fantasy fans for material that will stand up to abuse. “We’ve been carrying foam weapons for a while, but because people want to fi ght with them, we were get ing returns with the weapons all busted up,” Lu notes. “T ey looked like they had been stuck in a garbage disposal, so we went to China to see if we could come up with a new material to make merchandise that was more durable and lightweight, and we’ve come up with this new material, our own blend of high density polyurethane. It’s really promising, and we’re the only company on the market with this material. It’s kind of like the material mat resses are made of, but with a lot higher density, so it holds up bet er.” Wuu Jau recently switched to new accounting and
warehouse soſt ware, and with it comes a revamping of the company’s website and online ordering. Lu says the goal is to increase visibility and add more features,
Continued On 42 40 February 2012
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