Silly Bandz have lots of fanz

Bay area schoolchildren are flocking to Walgreens stores in droves - but not for vaccinations.

The draw is a must-have bracelet. And a Walgreens manager says the store is doing everything it can to keep up with the demand.

Silly Bandz, multicolored silicone bracelets, come in a variety of shapes, from cowboys to sea creatures, letters to musical instruments. On your wrist, they look like regular bracelets. When you remove them, they twist back into shape.

"It's the craze, it really is. I get moms coming in, dads coming in, as soon as they find out that we've got them," said Chuck Siminski, manager of Walgreens at 15602 N. Dale Mabry Highway.

"We went to four different Walgreens a few weeks ago searching for those things," said Tiffany Thomas of Tampa.

The hard-to-find fashion accessory of the moment is available in several Bay area stores, including Walmart, if you get there at the right time.

"It's going school by school," Siminski said. "Word travels so fast, they know right where they are, they don't even have to ask (where the bracelets are) when they come in."

Silly Bandz, made by BCP Imports, have been on the market for about a year and a half. The company has manufactured a variety of products during the past 12 years, several made of silicone, President Robert Croak said.

Kids from preschool to high school go to Walgreens every afternoon hoping to add to their collections. They search through the packages, which cost $2.99 for 12 bracelets, to find the ones with the most variety. Some of the shapes are rare, such as the hedgehog, making them more "valuable," Siminski said.

What do they do with the bracelets?

It depends.

"People come to school with money to buy them from other people," said Quintin Graham, 10, a student at Learning Gate Charter School. The average price is 25 cents each, he said. The rare shapes are worth more. You may have to pay double or trade two bracelets to get one of the most-coveted shapes.

Some kids play a game with them: If you guess the shape correctly, then the owner has to accept a trade from the guesser, said Janice Ramos, an employee at the Carrollwood Village Walgreens, 13130 N. Dale Mabry Highway.

Emily Melendi, 15, is a sophomore at Tampa Catholic, where the bracelets are also popular. But the students don't buy them to trade - most just wear them because they like the way they look, Emily said.

"When you see someone else wearing them, you look to see which ones they have, and then you might trade if they have one you like," said Jenya Graham, 13, a Learning Gate Charter School student.

"My mom gives them to my little sister as rewards when she does well at school," said Kendall Melendi, 15, a sophomore in the Hillsborough High International Baccalaureate program. Kendall wears them, too, and likes showing off the ones that no one else has.

Wholesale distributors are trying to ration the supply to be fair, Siminski said, but some stores may be out of luck.

Walgreens stores in other states are redirecting their supplies to Tampa stores, where demand is much higher than in other areas. Siminski's Northdale store has sold more than 2,000 packages in the past month, he said.

"I'm taking an entire district's order, 1,700 packages, that didn't sell there," he said.

Rival Crazy Bands, a division of InVision Enterprises, is known for its glow-in-the-dark version.

"Silly Bandz was first on the scene, but we aren't afraid to admit that," president Gina Childers said. "Since October, Crazy Bands has sold over half a million packs to stores all over the country."

Larry Vinson, manager of Hallmark at Citrus Park Town Center, said his store has carried the glow-in-the-dark brand of bracelets since January. Sales have picked up at the store over the past few weeks as word about its supply has traveled, he said.

Stores have good reason to keep up with the demand. "The profit is huge on them," around 70 percent, Ramos said.

Silly Bandz became popular in the South, mainly in Alabama and Mississippi, Croak said. The product also took off in New Jersey and Connecticut, and sales are spreading rapidly throughout the country, as well as in Europe and parts of the Middle East, Croak said.

Croak declined to say how many packages his company has sold or how much money it has made.

But since the product line has exploded, he said, other companies have begun manufacturing and marketing shaped silicone bracelets. "But since we had such a long head start, we have the strength of quality, brand recognition and superior design," he said.