Travel Bugs & other whispers

Normally I just use this blog to advertise, but I thought I’d put up something a bit different.

I got an email the other day from someone and it really got me thinking. Here’s how the email opened.

Hi Aaron,

Just wondering if there is a better deal available on travel bugs? The conversion to AUD means you can get 20 units from US sources for under $100AUD.

In reply to the email, I wanted to share some facts that I now want to share with you, our loyal customers, about a simple item like Travel Bugs that you may not be aware of:

• Groundspeak offers us a discount of 12%. That's all. Not 30% discounts or anything like that. And, it doesn't matter how much we buy, that's all we get.
• When we started the store, our one and only competitor were selling TB's for $12.95. We thought that was a bit of a rip off, so we decided to sell them at $7.95.
• Groundspeak does not sell to Aussies direct. Therefore we could charge more, like one of our competitors did, but we don't. He's since matched our prices, which is great, we like competition!
• Since February we’ve sold over 600 TB's.
• We offer a discount for multiple travel bugs.
• If we kept matching the US dollar rate, we'd change our prices every week. Some weeks you'd pay alot more, other weeks a bit less. Or we could offer a constant price like we do now. Which is easier and better for our customers? Could you imagine the emails we’d get if we sold them one week for $7.00 and the next week for $9.00?
• At our price of $7.95 when the US dollar was terrible, we were making a loss on every unit we sold. We sold 200 of them in the first month. That’s alot of loss.
• None of our suppliers offer us our goods on consignment. That means we buy things in bulk and we carry it all. Sometimes I have bills to pay but I can't because we're carrying too much stock or have an order to make for special order items.
• We can ship travel bugs to customers, for the most part, the next day. If you bought them from the US, it's a minimum 5 days for us with USPS Expediated shipping.
• Usually we get hit for 14.5% customs duties before they even get to our house. (4.5% customs duties + GST).
• If customer orders are over $60, they get FREE shipping no matter what country they’re in or how much they order. The other day someone ordered 5 ammo boxes to WA and it cost us $38 shipping. Ouch.
• We run the business as a hobby and as a whole only just break even. That means we're basically running ‘not for profit’.
• Geocaching NSW members get a further 8% discount of our prices + we donate 8% of all sales made by their members to the organisation. That means GCNSW members get TB's at 16% off our price. We're more than happy for other GC organisations to approach us for a similar deal!
  

The simple fact is, we run Geocachestore.com.au for the love of it. We’re geocachers ourselves, we run it for fun. It’s a hobby business run out of a cupboard in our lounge room. Ask anyone who's dropped in to pick up an order! :)

We offer a great service and convenience. If people want it (and they do, we have over 300 customers) then they'll buy it from us.

If customers want to wait a week or more to have their goods shipped from the US (plus are prepared to stay up strange hours to make phone calls if something is wrong) and maybe save a couple of dollars depending on how the USD is that week, they probably already don't buy from us anway!

Can people *sometimes* get some of our items cheaper elsewhere?
Yes, sometimes.

Can they buy it from our suppliers direct?
Absolutely. Well, not Groundspeak, but there are plenty of other US Groundspeak dealers who probably would! Heck, we even say who our suppliers are. Groundspeak, Firetacks, Crazy Caches, Oak Coins, Coins & Pins and our own manufacturer in China.

It's all a simple matter of choice. If you like our products, the fantastic service we offer and the convenience of fast shipping (most of the time! Sometimes we're too broke to get another shipment), you'll occasionally pay a few dollars more.

Usually though, you’ll get a great deal that’s better than buying
from our international counterparts.

We don’t have a monopoly. But isn't that the beauty of the internet? The whole world is our competition! We’re competing with GC stores in the UK, the US, and other countries that I can’t even spell! ;)

Interestingly though, on that note, we have had orders from over 15 different countries including the US (yes they even bought travel bugs from us.. weird eh?)

That’s my vent for the day, I apologise if I’ve offended anybody! If I have, I’m prepared to give you $5 off your next order using the voucher code “OFFENDED”. (Valid until the end of the month)

Please write me an email if you use it so I know if you’re actually offended or just pretending to be to get a discount! ;)