POLL: What would you like to see in a flashlight mail order bussiness?

Decent Shipping rates & times, although I am poor almost everything I buy is online and if there's one thing that wins me back as a return customer it's when the shipping price is mostly shipping and minimal handling (Although it's understandable to charge some handling) and when it doesn't take 2 weeks for something to get here when I pay for 2 day shipping..."Well it got there 2 days after we shipped it!"

Oh, another note on shipping, I don't have a credit card...I use my dads, but it is extremly nice to be able to see what you're going to pay for shipping without having to set up an account and type in a credit card and...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Saaby:
...and when it doesn't take 2 weeks for something to get here when I pay for 2 day shipping..."Well it got there 2 days after we shipped it!"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Funny you should bring this up. Around the 1st of the year I bought a vacume cleaner online and paid $23 extra for 2-day shipping - and the f**king thing took a MONTH to get here. And they didn't even bother to say sorry or offer any of my money back. What a bunch of e-holes!!

Needless to say, I will never order anything from that website again, no matter how attractive the offer appears.

The "lesson" here - if I buy (a flashlight) from a website or a mail-order outfit and pay for premium shipping, they'd damn well better give it to me or have the courtesy to make other arrangements if a backorder is needed, or I simply won't come back.

I run a bunch of "webshops"- Up until this last year they were pretty successful-

This last year has been less successful for several reasons; I'm not really doing much marketing, not doing much innovation - {new products etc.} in the areas that I have traditionally sold well (like my metaphysical website).

(I've been wasting all my time modding and experimenting with lights and posting on CPF.)

Lots more on-line competition in all of the areas too.

ANYWAY...

The trouble with "Little guys" selling commercial items like flashlights is that you can't really buy enough at one time to get the deep discounts so that you can sell cheaply and compete on price.

Like the previous posters have said, Service is the key to success for the "little guy". Treat every customer like you would want to be treated yourself. Know your product line "inside and out".

Quick shipping is very important- I have always tried to get stuff shipped within 24 hours of receipt of order, but you are still at the mercy of the shipper.

Because of where I am and the size of the majority of what I sell, the U.S. Postal Service is my main shipper. (UPS is just a hassle here because you have to call long distance to arrange for a pickup or drive 50 miles to go to the nearest shipping center.)

Airborne & Fed.Ex. are just too expensive for most of the things I sell.

Anyway, especially since 9-11 the USPS has been even more ---unpredictable---- sometimes Regular mail and Parcel Post will get across the country in two days, and sometimes Priority Mail will take two weeks to get across the state.

Unless you have a LOT of money to spend on the selling commercial flashlights on-line would be a difficult way to make any money, in my opinion.

UNLESS:

If you specialize in CUSTOM flashlights. If you could get SOLE distribution rights from some guys that make the great, popular LED mods like ElektroLumens, Lambda, Daniel Ramsey etc. then you could probably make good profits with a small scale operation.

I'm making an assumption that you mean primarily to sell online- The internet is still the least expensive way to market to a multitude of people. Here, a "little guy" can look like a big company without spending big bucks. Even though today selling online takes a lot more work and money than it did 2 years ago, but it still provides the largest audience per $ spent.

If you are thinking of doing a printed mail-order catalog, that is a whole new "ball game" and to look "decent" you have to spend thousands of dollars per mailing, and magazine advertising is also incredibly expensive.

Now, some folks HAVE done well in mail order by sending out really cheap looking "XEROX" copy sales flyers on an tiny budget, but success with this method is really chancy, and is less likely to succeed today than it was 20 years ago. Today's society tends to be more swayed by "style" rather than "substance".

Just My Humble Opinion.

I'm a cheapskate, so I shop by price, but I also factor shipping charges into the price; If I find a place that sells something I want really inexpensively, but has a high shipping charge, I'll go elsewhere even if I have to pay a little more in total. I may be "cutting off my nose to spite my face" but I won't deal with anyone that uses high shipping charges as a "profit center".

This is a little off subject, but I don't know how many (hundreds) of eBay auctions I have not bid on because they had outrageous shipping charges (like $10.00 on a $5.00 item that would cost a dollar including packaging to ship. Sorry about that little rant.

quick replies from an intelligent human to any and all email or telephone messages.

Someone else posted a somewhat similar question a while ago. Assuming you have a web page, I like to know if it is in stock before ordering and I don't like having to get to the point of submitting my credit card info before I can find the shipping rate.

I think Brightguy.com has a very good internet flashlight web site.

If I were to add anything to his site, I would add a section on "Modified" flashlights and flashlight upgrades.

Carley Bulbs, and Other high end bulbs, and replacement refllectors for Mag-lights.

Thanks for all the advice guys, keep it coming! BTW I was thinking of having the lowest possible prices by cutting my profit
margin, I don't have to live off of it, it would be more of a hobby untill I can get a large customer base, and build up some money to reinvest in the company.

Now two things come to mind.

If you are just going to start out, by purchasing one popular light, (say the surefire E2e) and sell it for as low a price as you can, that is a good way to start. (If indeed you can puchase just the E2e).

However, and I don't mean to say this to stifle your plans, but I look at internet stores as one store, that can service the entire US, or North America, or even the world! For this reason, I would expect that a successful online store would have both an extensive selection, as well as a well stocked inventory of the products. It's not like you have to have a deep inventory for hundreds of "physical" stores.

I wish you luck. I am always interested in lower prices on high quality lights!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ted the Led:
quick replies from an intelligent human to any and all email or telephone messages.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can not agree more with this...I don't know how many times I have gotten an eMail, not the auto-replay that says we got your message, but the actual reply that looked like it was "Message 203" or whatever...I'll eMail you the worst...

I loved 800.com, their customer service was some of the best I'd ever seen, then they went under and sold out to Circit City...

lowest price, unless it's meant to build up a catalog business is DEATH.

I don't know how "big" you want it to be... but I run a small information mail order business, and I'll tell you, hard product is a PITA. Back orders. Repairs. Exchanges. No one wants to pay for shipping. ARGH.

I tried to get Craig to do a publish-on-demand video... I still think there is a market there.

There's a lot of excellent Mail Order flashlight and other dealers out there already, like TTS.

Is there another Niche that's overlooked? I dunno.

But if you want to be small, or start small, then you have to look for a niche.

Is flashaholics a good enought niche? Again, I don't know.

(I can tell you one thing, tho. This exchange is KILLING Canadians!)

Oh, I was thinking, maybe you could have a discount price for the general public and then save the absolute lowest price for ACTIVE CPF members.

I am kicking around the idea of starting my own mail order bussiness, and thinking about selling mostly flashlights. My question is:
what would you like to see as far as products, prices, and service? I am definately thinking of Surefire as one of my main products, and my goal is to sell them for the absolute LOWEST possible price, even if it means having almost constant "sales"
on them to get around the minimum allowable
advertised price.

What brands would you like to see? Which models of those brands?

And any suggestions from people who already own thier own bussinesses would be especially
appreciated!

Bigwuss,

Sounds like a viable concept. As an overseas customer, the few purchases I have made have generally worked OK. But to centralize lights, bulbs and mods from the one point would be very favourable and cheaper.

I would be interested in the idea.