Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a question to pose here and dont want to offend anyone , so if this is inappropriate here let me know and I will have lance move or delete it.

I have talked to Lance about sponsering the site . I want to mention my company is small mom and pop company , three people total and 18 yrs of business .

I sell , among other things " VSM Abrasives " " Sterling Diamond Saw Works Bandsaw Blades " " Amana Tools " And " Spiral Manufacturing Dust Collection Ducting "

I am interested in offering these ( 4 ) Lines to the members here at lowered pricing .

Since we are small , the monthly cost is a lil concern , so I guess I am wondering what kind of response all the good folks here would have to the idea?

Again I apologize if the thread is not appropriate here , and if it needs moved then that is fine . Please chime in and help me decide what to do.

Thanks

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Big Jim: Offering my opinion based on your signature,sounds good to me if the management OK's it......!!!
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Hey!

First of all, thanks for your generosity and kindness!
Two little questions here.

1- Do you have any website or catalog that could help us to see your available stock?

2- I'm out of USA, like a bunch of people here, so i'm asking it for all of 'em. What about your int'l shipment cost and everything..?

Thanks, and thumbs up.
Francis

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Jim thanks for the PM about the thread, I hope you get some good vibes and
decide to join our family of sponsors!

Lance

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Support the OLF! Bookmark our STEWMAC link Today!
Lance@LuthiersForum.com

1st Thanks for the questions , and yes I am working on getting a website for that purpose , all of this is in planning stage so it will be a while in the process . Once finished yes there will be a website .

2nd Francis , uuuuuuuummmm I dont know ?

Can I ship Internationally , Yes , Can I completely answer your question . Not Yet . I USALLY use ( UPS ) However , If shipped that way the cost would reflect ONLY the ACTUAL cost . I DO NOT pad my shipping .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Jim,

If you decide to move forward on this you will want to become familiar with all of the different shipping options. For instance UPS I think works great inside the US but adds horrible brockerage fees (not duty) for any packages that cross boarders. So all international shipments should be sent USPS. That will save your customers losts of money and they will thank you for it. Personally I rarely shop with companies that will not ship USPS for packages coming to Canada.

Shane

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Canada

Will gladly do that . Thank you for the suggestions , this is what im looking for .

The initial cost to set up the site and get this up and running will be upwards of $500.00 ( estimate ) Soo thats why am asking for and looking for suggestions and feed back.

I am not expecting this to be a " money maker " so to speak , at same time , I dont want it to become a neverending " in the red " project .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

OHH Yes , I will Have you sooooooooooooooooooo covered in peanuts you wont be able to work !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I am sure that many here do their best to support the sponsors, but I think there needs to be a good concept of buying habits of the target customer. Personally, I try to one stop shop as best as I can, save shipping and time. With this in mind, the products offerings need to be relevant. An example, I love Amana bits, but if you have the router bit that I want, but not the drill bit, I will likely use the company that has both. The savings on shipping will often trump the better price of the product.

Shipping costs get padded somewhere, either in the overall mix of determining operating costs, or as shipping costs that appear padded. My window picture frame product leaves my shop with almost $12 worth of cardboard and foam, and it takes close to an hour to put one in a box. My frames use about 5 board feet of oak at $3/ft, so packing an wood are similar expenses. Smaller boxes will be cheaper, but the cost of shipping needs to be part of your pricing formula.

For the website, do it yourself, there are many ways, ebay stores can work, and the diy programs work well. The issue with having others do the site is that the expense never ends. Every update and new product is a call to a developer who will put your little edit on the back burner. Keep it simple and stay in control of your site. The Serif webplus program has served me well, you can make a shopping cart, take money through paypal, and make changes quickly as needed. The program is $80 and is very easy to use.

I use the paypal invoicing system, it is free of a monthly charge, the $30/month basic fee that some processors charge can be a real drag for a small operation.

Rob

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http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
http://www.facebook.com/robert.renick.7

Thanks for the advice , I will be looking into that as well . Thanks for the lead on the product as well , I will look that over .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Another suggestion for the web site would be to use Weebly. I think it costs about $30 a year for them to register and host your domain. You build your site pretty much drag and drop with elements that they already have. They also have all the code ready to drop in to integrate Google Checkout into your site in about 5 minutes. You can set up a site with them for free, the url is just www.yoursite.weebly.com If you pay the $30ish it becomes www.yoursite.com Very easy to use, espically for the web design challenged. My site is www.whiskerwoodworking.com Feel free to poke around - nothing guitar related though, mostly wood turning. Its still in development, but there you'll get the idea. Good luck with it!

Billy

You are correct . What I am saying is , I know the percentage that I have to sell at oer cost to make money , " operating cost " and sell accordingly . Alot of companies do that AND pad shipping . I do not .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I'll second what Shane said.. I ship USPS/Canada Post and avoid ordering from anyone who won't do the same as much as possible. When it isn't I ship to a US address and do the customs paperwork myself. UPS and Fed Ex grossly overcharge their brokerage.

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CVT Inc.
A tour of our shop (Somewhat outdated)
My Personal eBay profile. BCWoodBug

I would like to thank everyone for there comments on this issue , both on the forum and behind the scene . I have decided to walk away from the idea at this point . I wont go into my main reason , suffice it to say , I dont feel that it would be wise at this time.

I appreciate all the response Ive gotten from here in my builds and will continue to build and post here . I look forward to seeing more builds and POSITIVE comments and post .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/