Milwaukee Teen To Sell Over 1,000 Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Ugly Christmas sweater popularity has given rise to a slew of online ugly sweater retailers. One of the top-selling sweater sites, UltimateUglyChristmas.com, is run by high school senior Jack McCarthy. At 18, Jack has mastered the art of selling strange sweaters online.

Jack's highly curated collection of Ugly Christmas Sweaters, paired with his creative photos and hysterical product descriptions, have helped Jack sell a lot of sweaters–over 850 this year already.

Over 80,000 people have visited UltimateUglyChristmas.com in search of the ugliest sweater at a good price. To keep up with demand, Jack gets the rest of the family on board and many friends, too. They help by writing product descriptions, modeling the sweaters, and shipping dozens per day during the hectic holiday season. "Pretty much anyone I can get to wear an Ugly Christmas Sweater, I do," says Jack.

The enterprise has completely taken over his parent's basement in Milwaukee, WI. His inventory is cataloged and spread across clothing racks, weight equipment, tables and chairs. His mother calls it "Christmas chaos," but Jack assures her it is a highly organized mess.

Many people wonder how the business began and how he has been able to scale it. Jack explains, "It all started when my sister Martha brought a sweater home from college in 2008. The sweater created a bidding war on eBay, we realized there was a market for Grandma's sweaters, and a business was born."

Jack and Martha knew they were onto something, but they met a great deal of skepticism when they were first starting out. "Our parents thought we were crazy," says Jack, "Our dad wondered why anyone would purposefully buy a used ugly sweater. Once he saw how many we were selling, he supported the business and really got into it."

UltimateUglyChristmas.com is an online retail shop that exclusively sells unique Ugly Christmas Sweaters. 18-year-old owner Jack McCarthy prides himself on being seriously and satirically dedicated to the Ugly Christmas Sweater. He supplies hundreds of sweaters to partiers across the globe, although he is not even old enough to party himself. In 2011, Ultimate Ugly Christmas was featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and dozens of other publications. In June 2012, Comedy Central teamed up with UltimateUglyChristmas for a Half Christmas special celebrating their hit show, Workaholics.