As the orchestrator of presales around here they always make me nervous because delays are inevitable for products that don't yet exist. And we feel so apologetic when they're late.
We only presale things that have enormous upfront costs: unique MUSA things like the rain jacket and full size-runs for Sams/Cheviots . You are right that presales make the coulda-woulda-shouldas actually happen. The presales make large minimums possible, which usually means a better deal for the customer. And since we do the direct sales on these items, they're usually pretty great deals. If going through a retailer, the prices would likely be doubled. We had to presale the blue stripe, for example, because the fabric didn't exist and we had to order a large minimum for a custom dye lot. When we found the purple, we cleared out an existing discontinued fabric style. We couldn't reorder. So it was either bury the style or reorder a huge amount of new fabric. So here we are, thanks to the presale, sitting on almost a ton of this great blue stripe wool. You'll see blue stripe long sleeves, undies, and long johns in months to come. Maybe other things too. Blue stripe, head to toe. Thanks to the presales. That said, they're a headache because of inevitable production delays, holidays, storms. If you can afford the tshirts, skip the presale. If they'd never happen without it... kickstart them shirts! -Dave On Wednesday, October 15, 2014 8:38:47 AM UTC-7, jinxed wrote: > > Several listers have asked about green ACW mugs...I've got some made now, > there's two sizes available. www.bradclick.bigcartel.com > > The recent talk about the Rivendell wool stripe shirt reminded me I put a > deposit on one as to not repeat my missing of the purple version. Generally > I am not enticed by pre-order type sales of anything, but it seems recently > that is THE modus operandi out there. Especially noticed in the bike > industry. > > I was pretty shocked with the Appaloosa presale, specifically the give us > a large chunk of change for a bike we will not tell you about....aside from > it'll be neat-o. But, I realize Rivendell makes great stuff, and doesn't > miss the mark often (if at all?) so that goes a long way in buyer > confidence. They apparently are successful since they fill the slots and > sell the goods. > > I want to do tees for the ACW, though I've been concerned with how many > and what sizes so maybe a pre-sale is the answer? That said, I'm not > Rivendell who can show a picture of a headbadge and have people line up > with wallets prized open. > > Do you think these pre-sales are a key to bringing cool US made goods to > market that otherwise would just remain good ideas? Is it a can of worms to > open up public opinion and influence because you'll never make everyone > happy? T-shirts are silly, and not really part of the equation, but I AM > curious about the pre-order phenomenon. > > For the record, I am eagerly awaiting the wooly stripy, and had an awesome > experience with my Ocean Air Cycles Docena pre-order. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
