Vendor Profile: Capsmith Let Capsmith Provide the Headwear Your Customers Want

By Susan Mease

If you are looking for baseball caps, trucker hats, visors, bucket hats, trapper style hats or any other kind of head covering to advertise your business or promote a tourist destination, you need to talk to Dan Smith, the owner of Capsmith.

Smith started his business in 1995 and now his wife, son, and daughters have joined him for a true family-owned business. He has 30 employees including six inhouse artists, a feature he believes makes him different from his competitors and is an indication of the future of the business as artwork and new designs. They don’t manufacture anything and most of their items are imported, but that in-house art department means there are always new designs and colors even though 90% of their business is baseball-style hats.

Capsmith started off selling just to wholesalers and distributers but are now doing a lot of private label work and also sell to chains like Ron Jon Surf Shops all along the East Coast and Riley’s, a restaurant chain in upstate New York.

Headwear has become more of a fashion statement in recent years and Capsmith has responded with new colors and new styles. The company is debuting cowboy straw hats with color sublimation that Smith hopes will be a hit for Spring Break. They are also starting to offer more caps for kids. Color My Cap is designed for the specific retail business it’s going to – for example, a fish design for aquarium gift shops. Each cap comes in a bag with eight permanent, toxic-free markers to color your own cap. Similar to the Color My Cap will be hats embroidered on the front with a destination such as Myrtle Beach and the child colors the rest.

Capsmith also offers face shields, DanBanna motorcycle bandanas, flags, masks, ice towels, winter beanies, and Dakota Dan furry trapper hats.

Steve Olive, owner of Caribbean Gifts & Things, a wholesaler and distributer based in the United States Virgin Islands, brags that he is customer number 22 for Capsmith (there are over 18,000 now). He described Smith as “a really good guy who trusts people and is always willing to help people.” Olive remembers that his first order was three or four dozen caps and now he orders at least twice a year and it’s a lot more than three dozen hats. Capsmith’s art department comes up with the new designs each season.

Arlene Dean, owner of Beach Club Promotions in Ormand Beach, Fla., echoes many of Olive’s sentiments. “We’ve worked together at least 25 years and become friends. The prices are good, and they go above and beyond to help us out, and the service is excellent.” When Dean’s husband died, Capsmith made a special hat in his honor, an action she termed “really sweet.” Their biggest time of the year is Daytona Beach Bike Week when Capsmith provides hats, do rags, beanies, and flags, but Capsmith also does private label stuff for Beach Club Promotions.

Smith said they have stayed busy even through the pandemic, a fact he attributed to his employees and the new art department. However, after talking to these long-time customers some credit must go to his