Gear Deals Website

[Lawson Kline]

I would like some feedback on this to see if there is a need/want..

I have been thinking of doing a gear deals website since I always have outside vendors asking me if I would like to buy and sell their products. I was thinking of doing something like Steep and Cheap but only one deal at a time and until it sells out and free shipping. Not something new every so many minutes or days. Basically only as gear deals present themselves. I would put them on the website, send out an email, and then when they sell out they are gone.

For instance I have an opportunity to pick up some more mini carabiners. I was thinking I could start off with those as my first "deal" 10 for $10 with free shipping like before.

The next "deal" could be the Sawyer Mini…..

So who's interested?

[Pierre Descoteaux]

Who could I say no to better prices? I'm a definite gear geek but in too many case the shipping to Canada kills my buying capabilities. I'm not suggesting free shipping to Canada but at least a reasonable price would be nice. The Clymb won't even ship up here!!!
Cheers
Pierre

[Lawson Kline]

One more thought. My idea isn't to have one of those flash sale sites with the only intention of selling useless crap or stuff you don't need. This would be more so for gear that you want and are going to buy anyway. I would just be giving you a good deal for helping me to buy it in larger qty's and not having to hold the inventory for long periods of time. So think of it more so like a group buy. Well kind of.

As far as cheap international shipping goes. I could do it if the demand was big enough.

[Travis W]

So far I'm very interested in the first two deals, so I say go for it.

[And E]

That sounds like a fun idea. The free shipping part is great, as SAC kills me with their shipping price on some of there smaller items.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Lawson

Very tricky stuff.
> mini carabiners. I could start off with those as my first "deal" 10 for $10
eBay – set of 12 for under $3, free postage.

You will be up against the Chinese a lot of the time. Not easy.

Cheers

[Mike Muralt]

We all love good deals!

[David Williams]

Agreed, it's going to be tough to be price competitive, but I think you're onto something with the email feature. I don't do Steep and Cheap as I simply hate checking their site 100 times a day. My other advise would be (and this may be your niche) focus on deals for the high end stuff. That doesn't mean expensive stuff, but high quality gear deals. I think you have a pretty good audience in here. Good luck.

[Ryan Bressler]

I think there is definitely room for another gear deal website though I do wonder about keeping prices low with high end/non clearance stuff.

Maybe some sort of "vote on the next deal" or even prepurchase would help you more accurately gauge demand and keep the whole thing more efficient.

It would also be really interesting to include some MYOG supplies that are hard to source in small quantities. Ie if you had a roll or two of double sided TPU coated urethane packraft fabric made.

[Jim H]

I'm interested. My current approach to buying smaller items is to wait for a good price by checking gearscan.com or cleansnipe.com (they aggregate deals from S&C type sites)or to just wait until I need a handful of items and lump them together. If you had a way of letting people know what was in the pipeline, I could see it being something I'd definitely check before making a gear purchase.

[Mobile Calculator]

…

[Anonymous]

"Maybe some sort of "vote on the next deal" or even prepurchase would help you more accurately gauge demand and keep the whole thing more efficient.

It would also be really interesting to include some MYOG supplies that are hard to source in small quantities. Ie if you had a roll or two of double sided TPU coated urethane packraft fabric made."

+1

Really like the above idea/advice. Let your buyers help pre guide you. There are a lot of fabrics for example, that i would love to get, but can't because you have to buy in bulk.

[Valerie E]

Lawson, it sounds like this is worth a try — at least as a "pilot program", since that would keep the cost fairly low for you, and give you a chance to see how things work out — one product at a time!

While I do buy Chinese stuff once in a while when I can't find what I want at a reasonable price (a ti spoon, most recently), the wait times are not always convenient (I use PayPal, so I don't worry about credit card numbers), and if your clearance price was reasonable, I would rather buy domestic.

Another advantage you would have over the Chinese stuff is that you would be vetting the products first (I'm assuming that the suppliers would be willing to provide you with a sample), which would avoid getting a really awful product when ordering from photos along. And that's got to be worth something to buyers!

[TAG in AZ]

I'd even be willing to preorder to get a good deal on some things. That way, you would have a rough idea of how much of something that you would sell.

[Roger Caffin]

> I don't trust my credit card number, personal information with those Chinese websites.
Me neither!!!!
I use Paypal. That way they get zero financial info. I have to give them my postal address, but that applies anywhere.

> Also with free shipping from Hong Kong, deliveries are usually 6 to 12 weeks
Usually a bit less than that in my experience.

Cheers

[Lawson Kline]

Thanks for all the feedback.

I hear you on checking SAC. I think the email is the key. BUT not too often as then it would be annoying and spam like. Finding the deals is going to be the hard part. But if I know that they will sell and I have ALOT of customers signed up to the "newsletter" then I will take the gamble. I also like the idea of voting on the next deal since then their would be less risk. But I am not sure how I will be able to implement that. Maybe some kind of revolving survey or something like that. I am working on getting my cord back instock. Maybe I can start off by having a sale with that : ) Then onto the mini carabiners, then the Sawyer Mini's. And maybe one last run of my 1/8" insulite foam pads. If there are any other products you guys would be interested in let me know so I see what kind of deal I can do.

Thanks again : )

[Steven Adeff]

I like the idea, it's worked well for Woot (they've got something like 5 specialty sites now).

As mentioned by others, you can get some cheap price/cheap made stuff on ebay from the Chinese, so I would still, as a seller, do some research into what is worth the price for you to sell.

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