Giant car bows are less expensive than you’d think — and they’re made just outside Philly

‘Tis the season for cars decked with big red bows — at least on TV commercials, if not in our own driveways. And one of the car industry’s biggest manufacturers of the large embellishments is located just outside of Philadelphia.

Car Bow Store, a subsidiary of Warminster, Pa.’s MBR Marketing, launched about 13 years ago. MBR has provided a number of products and supplies — everything from sales forms and key tags to disposable floor mats and more — to car dealers since its founding in 1982, but the company began to notice inconsistencies in the large, decorative bows it sourced from overseas.

“They weren’t well-made at all in our opinion,” MBR and Car Bow Store President Michael Rudolph told The Inquirer. But MBR may have underestimated the initial commitment when they decided to create their own. “‘We’ll make a nicer product and that’ll be it,’ you know?” Rudolph said.

Then reality set in. The company had to buy “thousands and thousands of pounds” of plastic to make the bows and “it instantly became more of a commitment that we had to make this on a larger scale if we were going to do it.”

MBR began contacting other industry suppliers to increase sales and make the effort worth it. Many were inclined to buy from an alternative, domestic manufacturer for a product dealers only bought a small number of each year.

Now, during a good year, Car Bow Store will sell about 25,000 big bows, for both wholesale and direct-to-consumer orders. Individual bows that measure 30 inches start at a little less than $40 for one, and customers can choose a magnetic or suction base, the latter of which Car Bow Store said it pioneered to help protect the car’s paint.

Car Bow Store also boasts film and television placements — including on “Good Morning America” and “Gilmore Girls” — for its instantly recognizable products.

The bows originate from a Warminster warehouse that also houses MBR and its other businesses. The subsidiary Flagdom provides a number of flag and other fabric products, including hood covers and standing flags for promotional purposes. MBR sells window paint markers for dealers to write promotions or prices on windshields, dealer service department supplies, and even inflatable air dancers — “all sorts of things,” Rudolph said.

“We basically sell to car dealerships all over North America and in some cases in Europe,” he said. And after 40 years in the industry, business is going well enough that MBR is doubling the size of the Warminster location it’s called home for a little more than a decade.

Lexus is often credited with popularizing the big bow thanks to its holiday commercials depicting someone gifting a car to a spouse or loved one. Several years after the company’s “December to Remember” commercials debuted, the Wall Street Journal reported a shortage of the large decorative bows.

Now, the bows aren’t in short supply — but the cars might be.

“The last two years, we have not had cars,” Rudolph said. “We’ve gone by dealerships, and they’ve had like four or five cars on the lot.”

Following prolonged, pandemic-driven delays, car inventories rebounded in September to the highest level since May 2021, CNBC reported, citing BofA Securities research. But as inventory has recovered, vehicle prices have spiked, with a record average new car price of $48,681 in November, according to Kelley Blue Book.

Rudolph said bow sales this year have been down compared to the past, but that “this year has not been a bad year in general.”

While the holidays are the biggest season for the bow business, the Warminster company doesn’t rely only on the holidays for sales.

“There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t sell half a dozen,” Rudolph said. Beyond the holidays, graduations and sweet 16 celebrations are a popular reason to buy the adornment.

“It’s uncanny how many people give cars as gifts,” Rudolph said, adding that people will make “two-, three-hour trips to pick up a bow” from his company. Car Bow Store also offers ground shipping for all orders.

The bows have found a second use, too: new homes.

A woman recently “called from Texas, she desperately wants to put a bow on her door,” Rudolph said. Car Bow Store sells two bows specifically for use on doors, often for what he referred to as a “photo op” moment for new home-buyers.

Rudolph himself keeps one on the door of his family’s vacation home year-round.

“Some people will get different colors,” he said. “In the spring we’re going to put a blue bow up.”