With these orders in his pocket, Trask traveled to Maine and made a cold call on the L.L. Bean shoe buyer, knowing that Bean was interested in unique merchandise with a sporting image.

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And there's little chance that Carson's image or The Tonight Show logo will adorn merchandise either.

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Watson is even trying merchandise tie-ins with record companies to link Sunglasss image to trendsetters in the entertainment world.

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Excess inventory sold by several dozen big companies--including Home Depot, Dell Financial Services, IBM and Sharper Image--accounted for 4%-plus of gross merchandise sales in the first quarter, up from about zilch a year earlier.

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Chenoweth designed an awareness ribbon that incorporates the image of a prosthetic leg, and last year received a large order for merchandise.

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