New Hyde Park resident Mary Putre has been in the business of inventing for almost 30 years. Now she’s facing the prospect of advertising her products on a much larger platform.
Putre is in the final stages for an opportunity to appear on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” with only a date to be set for her to appear on the show.
“It’d be a real dream,” Putre said. “And an amazing opportunity.”
The particular product that Putre would be showcasing is a new take on the classic snow shovel.
The EZ Throw Snow Shovel has 12, eight-inch long and half-inch wide slits that prevent slush from clinging to the shovel face.
Putre began pursuing the shovel design because of the physical toll conventional shovels exact, she said.
Putre said she developed the shovel after several trial and error moments in her garage, drilling holes into shovels until a design proved fruitful.
Aside from Shark Tank, Putre is looking for angel investors and considering a Kickstarter campaign to fuel the production of the shovels, for which machine tooling alone could cost up to $50,000, she said.
Putre has been an invention entrepreneur since 1989, starting with an idea for revenge from when she was a child, the youngest in her family.
“No one would ever change the toilet paper roll when it ran out,” Putre said. “That was a huge pet peeve of mine.”
Putre used this motivation for revenge to invent one of her first products, “Revenge Toilet Paper,” a gag-roll of tissue that simply will not rip or tear.
Noticing the success of the infamous pet-rock by Gary Dahl in 1975, Putre brought the toilet paper to market. It would even end up featured on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on Dec. 18, 1991.
Putre said she has launched tens, almost hundreds, of items on her online site, Eyecatcher Gifts.
“I knew I could keep coming up with things,” Putre said. “It’s hard work, but success is never an accident.”
Putre’s products in the years to come would range from “on target toilet paper,” a kiddie’s training paper turned recreational hunters’ gag-gift, to the “look no hands” dog leash, a self-explanatory type of pet tether.
Despite the explosion of the internet in the mid-’90s, and it’s potential for online sales, Putre faced profit setbacks early in the process of transitioning from mail order and catalog orders.
“I actually had far greater success right before the internet took off,” Putre said. “But it was a process.”
By 2008 Putre saw peak sales on Amazon and online sales overall, she saiid. But, she said, as Amazon grew larger it pushed down harder on shops like hers.
“The big thing was shipping,” Putre said. “And there’s no such thing as free shipping with an online order, the seller pays for that and then if there’s a return, they pay return shipping, too.”
What Putre calls the penny war of online shopping serves no favors for self-starter retailers.
“I don’t think that some people realize that every purchase pays some someone’s job,” Putre said.
Putre is still coming up with new ideas, like her “window blinds washing brackets,” for easy cleaning of household blinds, but she also finds time for workshops, speeches and mentoring.
“I love being able to share the experiences I’ve gained doing this for so long,” Putre said.
Ideally, Putre said, she would like to open up a showcase location on Long Island to continue inventing and help others realize their own potential.
