BPL End OF Year Sale

BPL is moving its warehouse. Instead of shipping everything to their new warehouse in Bozeman, they are having a big sale to get rid of it. Think of it as a bonus not like they ripped you off, I have never seen the kind of discounts they are offering from BPL. If they have something you can use, order it with a great discount, if they don't have what you need, you will just have to wait until they stock the new warehouse. It wouldn't make any since to bring in new inventory for what amounts to a clearance sale. I don't get why everyone is so worked up about this.

Thanks, Bradford.

"I don't get why everyone is so worked up about this."

Many are so worked up because few like to feel "played".

Click, click, click… out of stock, out of stock, out of stock.

Seriously, BPL — next time you have a limited sale — say so. And don't call it Year End Sale again for gear's sake!

agreed benji.

the issue is with the announcement of the sale and coaxing people to get life or generic memberships to get in on the deals.

the complaints/constructive criticisms would probably abate and this would be a dead issue if someone from BPL just even simply placated the complainers by saying theyd 'take it under advisement' because god forbid they acknowledge they could have handled the sale more transparent or less misleading way.

either way, like some have said, i was ready to splurge and probably saved a good chunk of change ;)

Some Lifers too complained about the dearth of items on sale.

Raising capital quickly by selling life memberships is a good idea. So is a sale to reduce the quantity of inventory that must be relocated. Doing both at once does not appear – in hindsight – to have been a smart move, especially the way it is perceived to have happened.

BPL may well have accomplished their goals at the cost of discouraging future life memberships and irritating many existing members.

That does not sound like a good business model to me. Right, wrong, or indifferent, the quality of customer service provided is the bellweather of any business.

Or to put it another way, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar (fruit flies excepted).

I think Ben's right that some people feel played by the way the sale was advertised. I expected this to be a typical year end inventory sale with most of the items I wanted out of stock. So I was not surprised when that was confirmed after a 1/2 hour clicking through all the items to find virtually nothing. Just annoyed that after so many years it still takes that much time to find out what is actually available.

If you're not used to BPLs standard operating procedure or thought maybe things would be different this time then that expectation would result in some anger.

Worse, in my view, BPL ran a promotion to sell memberships tied to their usual year end sale where some would find good deals, and most would find nothing. While Ryan did state in a forum post that this sale was designed to clear their warehouse, meaning products would be going out of stock, that was not said in the front page post selling memberships. Not surprising that some are a little po'd.

The first step in customer support when dealing with a dissatisfied customer is to acknowledge their anger. BPL has not done this yet.

This is at least the 3rd or 4th similar thread and it has been acknowledged several times already. Even Ryan has responded in previous threads. At this point each new thread is just beating a dead horse and clogging up the forum.

Chris,

The only response from Ryan and Sam has been to link to the forum post describing the warehouse move. To which Ben2World posted:

"Sam:

We saw that link already, as it was put up by Ryan in his post up above.

I can certainly understand the rationale for not stocking up in the middle of a location change. But that IMO is still no excuse for putting up a LOUD SALE BANNER when there is precious little actually for sale! All you have done is make us click here, there and everywhere — just to see "Out of Stock" over and over again."

Neither Ryan nor Sam has responded to that point as far as I can tell.

First, thank you all for your feedback.

Second, I apologize for the late reply. I've been intentionally trying to unplug for the past few days (not entirely successfully, I couldn't resist participating in a forum thread on bivy sacks a few days ago!), because I'm heading down to California this week to close the warehouse and will be in for some long days coming up.

Third, I reviewed all the forum comments about the year end sale this morning, and I see that the banner seemed to be one of the sore spots. I get that, especially for those that don't read the forums, and for those who had expectations coming into the sale that there would be more inventory. I had a few customers email me and simply suggest more descriptive text underneath the banners explaining the situation, so we did that for the Gambler's Sale, and that seems to be alleviating concerns better than me posting on the forums explaining the situation, which is what I tried to do for the year end sale. So, do know that while I may not read or respond to all your forum posts, we are listening.

Finally, please don't post on the forums if you are *expecting* a response from BPL – please submit a support issue. While we do monitor the forums, Sam and I get pretty busy during the day, especially now with the warehouse move, and it's a really hard thing to keep up on all of that which is going on in the forums. I know Sam tries to monitor the BPL Support forum on a regular basis, and I try to monitor the BPL News and Info forum on a regular basis, but we don't always get the chance to reply in real time and participate in real time conversations like many of you.

Anyway, thank you all for your patience during this transition time.

Best,
Ryan

Thanks, Ryan.

As mentioned above, Sam's hearty 'thank you' really helped to fan up our irritation all over again! But reading your response, I believe you got it. With that, I think we're all happy to move on.

Your welcome. Also, I don't think Sam's reply was anything more than saying thanks to a member who was trying to explain the situation. Again, sometimes we're victims of popping in and out due to daily business – short communications don't always mean intentional slighting.

"short communications don't always mean intentional slighting"

Hi Ryan,

I agree. But I do think some professional communications assistance could assist you and your business/community (BPL), as such a person should be able to help you navigate around some of the issues you've encountered recently, most of which I believe were either caused by, or greatly exacerbated by poor/poorly worded, or lack of, communication. FWIW.

Someone forwarded me a link to this thread so I would have a chance to make a response. I apologize to Ben and others if my "thank you" response came off as sounding snarky as that was not what I intended at all. I intended it simply as a thank you to Bradford for his kind comment. Keep in mind we are real people here and during a bombarding of commentary it is enlightening to hear a positive comment to which I may thank the individual. Hopefully Ryan and my response towards other comments has been successful and if not will be in the future having learned from things said.

I'd also like to reiterate what Ryan mentioned above, and that is that if you have a specific issue needing to be dealt with that demands action please use a customer support request and not the forums.

Thanks,
Sam

Sam:

I should just quickly clarify — what fanned our irritation was not the wording or the short length of your post per se — but the compare/contrast of your lightning-quick "thank you" response against the days of near-complete silence to our repeated complaints — until Ryan posted above.

But I appreciate both yours and Ryan's responses today and I thank both of you for caring!

Fair enough, anger acknowledged and now I'm ready to move on. I would like to point out though that the original communication for describing the details of the sale was through a forum post. The same medium both Ryan and Sam said was not a good means of reaching BPL staff.

I think, in fairness, it should be pointed out that even though the sales may not have met all our expectations/hopes, they have in fact been great sales, with fantastic discounts, if you could use what was on offer. I got the life membership to support an organization (this includes all those who post) from which I've learned an enormous amount (I think R. Nisley, among others, should get a MacArthur). Then at the various sales, I actually saved more than twice the cost of the mLife membership.

Of course, once having bought the mLife membership, I would have saved even more by buying nothing at all, but that's another thread, the one about compulsive consumerism.

"I think R. Nisley, among others, should get a MacArthur"

For the exceptional value he provides, I think R. Nisley should get a gratis lifetime membership. My personal opinion only!

"This is at least the 3rd or 4th similar thread and it has been acknowledged several times already. Even Ryan has responded in previous threads. At this point each new thread is just beating a dead horse and clogging up the forum"

bad news travels faster than good news you know. If everything was in stock do you think there would even be a thread about it?

I would like to offer up the assurance that Lifetime and Annual Members will continue to find value in both our ongoing editorial content as well our Gear Shop sales and discounts.

I will continue to try my best in responding to commentary both positive and negative but as can happen in a forum setting there is a certain repetitiveness that becomes hard to stay on top of (as was pointed out by Chris and others previously in this thread).

I've been a viewer, member, and staffer here at Backpacking Light and although I'm now employed here I still remember what it's like to be on the viewing end. I never want to get a "big head" about this stuff and will strive to give our community the best possible service as I know they deserve.

BPL,

Some people are unhappy with the year end sale and others like me are not having a problem with it. The angry are usually loud and therefore always heard, but keep in mind that they do not speak for all BPL members.

It is interesting how different people observe an object quite differently. As a result, any changes you implement to satisfy a disgruntled customer will without doubt dis-satisfy another customer. Just keep doing the best you can.

Heard on my car radio recently:

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime
You'll find you get what you need
…

On baby baby it's a wild world, it's hard to get by just upon a smile.
…

Lucifer Sam, siam cat.
Always sitting by your side
Always by your side.
That cat's something I can't explain.

I'm very excited to have the warehouse back here in Bozeman as it's going to mean two important things.

1. I will personally have far greater control over what's going into a box being shipped out and therefore have greater control over combining and adding to orders.

2. It will mean we can host a small retail space for people who live in or visit Bozeman.

"It will mean we can host a small retail space for people who live in or visit Bozeman."

The ultimate adult candy store!

Fantastic! With a small retail space in Bozeman, we can save on shipping costs.

So now some of us will have to work on justification for travel costs. How close will the bus station be to the shop?