More New BPL Products for 2010

[Jason Brinkman]

Are lids provided? Does the preliminary weight listed include a lid?

[Sam Haraldson]

The weights I listed above are for the both the pots and lids.

[Travis Leanna]

are these plain pots, or are they the kind with handles (not a bail).

[Sam Haraldson]

There will be neither handles nor a bail on either of these pots, but there will be some unique aspects of them that I'm not going to release until the come to market. I think people will be pleased though.

[carlos fernandez rivas]

Cocoon 2010: UL 240 Quilts, UL Hoodies, and UL Pants. Approximately delivery June 2010.

Absaroka Pack: The packs will probably go into production in March, delivery in May.

Titanium Cat Food Can Stove. April 2010.

Ultralight Fly Fishing Kit. March 2010.

Vapr Bivies. June 2010.

New Titanium 550 and 900 pots. April 2010.

Ummmmm…..June

We still waiting …..for ALL the products ….. :-/

[Ken Thompson]

I wouldn't want to be in Sam's place. But come on what the heck is going on there. Promises, promises… You shouldn't even say that you are planning anything. Just let it show up in the store. And have more than two of them in stock.

[Miguel Arboleda]

It's funny why there seems to be this unspoken taboo against criticizing the BPL store. We collectively, routinely put a lot of other gear stores and manufacturers through some quite rigorous evaluation, sometimes quite harsh, but BPL? That's off limits. And they get away with it. It's absurd just how often and how long and how many items have been unavailable or never even make it into production after being announced, during all the years I've been here. Personally I don't even bother looking at the store anymore. But it's a shame. Some really innovative products ought to be available to members here.

[Sam Haraldson]

I do not ask for any special treatment in regards to how our store operates. The one thing I do however is, when asked when we expect a product is to be released, is to give an answer. The dates provided above are all dates provided to us by those who manufacture this gear for us. They are dates that were provided to us 6 or 12 months in advance and are (as you can obviously see) often wrong.

I have contemplated simply not providing release dates for any of our products but that would then inflame a different set of customers. So as you can see it's a lose-lose situation for me in that regards.

The quality of our products speak for themselves and if it takes us two extra months to release a quality product I'd personally rather see the delay than a loss in quality.

Here are some updates for the list provided above:

Cocoon 2010: early August
Absaroka Pack: late July
Titanium Cat Food Can Stove: On hold
Ultralight Fly Fishing Kit: Status unclear enough to quote
Vapr Bivies: Early August
New Titanium 550 and 900 pots. Mid-summer

[BlackHatGuy]

Hi Sam,

As I've said before, I think the biggest issue you have (that's the collective you, not necessarily you personally) is communication. IMO, it shouldn't take grousing by the members to get you to update status, you should have done so already. You give out info, great. When you find out that info needs to be updated, do so as soon as you know that. Unfortunately, far too often updates only come after some frustrated posts by members. If the updates came before that, I think you'd have far fewer frustrated members.

With all due respect, it's a pretty basic, good business practice. Keep your customers informed, and they'll give you quite a bit of slack and appreciate your efforts. Turns a lose-lose to a win-win. But it seems — seems — that you just don't want to hear that. And I say that simply from my personal experience, without frustration or rancor.

[Sam Haraldson]

Douglas,

I agree wholeheartedly, and thank you for the constructive criticism. I just received the updated production dates yesterday so providing them to our customers today was not too late in terms of communication I hope.

– Sam

[Sam Haraldson]

Perhaps I can open up for suggestions here in this forum. How would people prefer to receive these kinds of updates? Our newsletter? Twitter? Facebook? Forum posts? Front page announcements? What else?

[BlackHatGuy]

Since I don't do Facebook or Twitter, and I don't read the newsletter (preferring instead to just peruse the site regularly … okay, daily), I'd prefer a forum post.

Of course, multiple avenues of communications are never bad.

[Miguel Arboleda]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for your response and thank you, too, Douglas, for your usual diplomatic way of saying things. Sam, perhaps you feel personally criticized when I, or others, take jabs at the BPL store, but it's not a thing I see or feel towards you personally. I don't think many people here see the BPL store with any single individual's face on it. They just see it as a store to buy gear, the way you would see most online stores that you buy things from. I guess it becomes frustrating for members when hopes are raised here in the forums and then so often nothing materializes in the store. And while it is true that gear is not really all that important in the grand scheme of things (certainly nothing to get upset about), but this is BPL after all, where people's passion, including I would think, yours, revolves around the newest, lightest, most innovative lightweight gear. If someone has been waiting since winter for a new, say, Cocoon for the summer season, and then the summer season passes by, why shouldn't they be frustrated? For many people the summer is the only time they have to get out and go for long hikes. It would do a lot to assuage people's hopes for certain gear by getting the gear in in accordance with the seasons. To me this is also business sense. Make your customers wait too long and they will go away. I don't think that is a personal affront; it just means that customers aren't getting what they are looking for and they are looking elsewhere.

[Bob Bankhead]

"If someone has been waiting since winter for a new, say, Cocoon for the summer season, and then the summer season passes by, why shouldn't they be frustrated? For many people the summer is the only time they have to get out and go for long hikes. It would do a lot to assuage people's hopes for certain gear by getting the gear in in accordance with the seasons."

The salient point here is timing. For example, my CT hike starts July 19. That means it is MY responsibility to assure that anything I want or need for that hike is in my hands by a date I set.

By default, I consider ANY "out of stock" item from ANY vendor to be Vaporware until it physically arrives in their inventory. Expected due dates, promises, assurances, are at best rough guidelines that help me determine exactly how long I can afford to wait before going someplace else for a substitute, so as not to compromise my start date.

Sometimes this means I must settle for a different item than I desired. Tough! I'll either make do with what I already have in my gear closet or buy what I must. Then, after the hike when the desired item finally becomes available, I'll try to sell the substitute as used gear and buy the desired item.

Isn't that how most of us wound up with far more gear than we'll ever use?

Bottom line – don't blame the vendor because YOU waited too long. The vendor is even more upset than you are at having missed the critical window of opportunity for the current hiking season. They can lose big bucks that way due to lost sales and the cost of carrying over inventory until next year.

[Jason Brinkman]

I have been checking the forums for product updates because this where I usually find the latest information. I also have this thread flagged ("watch this thread") so it emails me when somebody posts an update. But that's all a little time consuming, so I might have a suggestion that would improve communications a little…

Recently, when items go into final production, they seem to get a page in the BPL Store (Cocoons, Absaroka Packs, Vapr Bivies, Ti Pots, etc). Such pages provide an expected delivery timeframe, but more importantly, allow users to sign up for a "stock alert" to be emailed to them.

So, what if the "stock alerts" were used for more than just the "now in stock" message? What if they were used to periodically (monthly?) inform you of progress or updates to expected delivery dates. That way if there is a delay, at least you get an email revising expectations.

[Sam Haraldson]

It always pains me when someone e-mails asking about an expected delivery date in hopes an item will be ready before an upcoming trip they have planned and I must tell them it will not. Ideally we'd like to time product launches with the proper season (e.g. summer gear production schedule complete by springtime) and we'll continue to work on that in the future.

As our database stands now once I've sent a stock alert that list of people disappears into the ether and I cannot contact them again, but I like the idea you mention, Jason and I may have to look into whether the lists created by stock alerts are tweakable so that I could keep those who were interested informed.

[Miguel Arboleda]

The salient point here is timing. For example, my CT hike starts July 19. That means it is MY responsibility to assure that anything I want or need for that hike is in my hands by a date I set.

Bob, you are right, of course, that getting one's gear together is one's own responsibility, but the problem here is that BPL gear in general is unique. You can't get it anywhere else. And since the windows of opportunities tend to be short and so many people have been waiting for a particular item that if you even blink the entire stock is gone before you even have time to click the button, in a great many cases you can't get any of the popular items. I like Jason's idea of periodically updating the stock alerts so that people have an idea of what is going on. Gossamer Gear, who are often out of stock, always update their web pages to inform customers of the state of the orders and even though it means missing items that I've wanted, I've never felt frustrated the way I do with BPL. Not being able to actually see what is going on all a customer can do is speculate, so regular and comprehensive updates really make a difference.

Making a judgement about people's gear closets getting filled up I think really has nothing to do with people trying to find specific gear for their hikes. People here are trying hard to come up with the best gear they can, trying this, tossing that, seeing what works best for them. The BPL gear is often the very best that can be found, with nothing else on the market like it, so naturally people here at BPL, especially members who paid for the privilege, want to have the specific BPL gear ready for their hikes. Being frustrated when it never becomes available (I'm not talking about gear that hasn't been designed yet, but gear that has long been on offer in the store, such as the Cocoon) is a natural and legitimate reaction. Now, when I say "frustrated", I don't mean "stands there shouting at the gate", but just a sense of trying for something and being foiled. In 2007 I wanted to buy a Cocoon for my trip to the Alps, waited for 4 months, but it never made it into stock, so I settled for a heavier and less efficient and water-resistant Mont Bell UL Alpine Jacket. The jacket worked fine, but the point is that I wanted the Cocoon, for its superior performance. It's no different from choosing a shelter, seeking the best particulars of its design.

Sam, I don't know how viable this is or how much time it would take out of your schedule, but how about a page or forum section where all updates and progress with BPL gear (both produced and yet-to-be manufactured) are recorded in a scrolling time line? Or just something simple, like Henry Shire's orders update page where he tells how the orders are faring and how long backorders are taking and such? Another idea is to show the exact number of items in stock in the items pages, the way Amazon does, so that customers get a sense of how quickly they need to order something before it goes out of stock.

Just some ideas.

[Robert Cowman]

+1 on the inventory Level. all though would think the cacoon line will last what about 22 hours? i really hope i'm not on a trip when the hoody comes into stock.

[Sam Haraldson]

Sam, I don't know how viable this is or how much time it would take out of your schedule, but how about a page or forum section where all updates and progress with BPL gear (both produced and yet-to-be manufactured) are recorded in a scrolling time line?

It's very viable. Obviously we withhold some information from the general public as a matter of business but there is plenty that we are perfectly willing to be transparent about and I think that should be shared. I would prefer it to be a page and not simply a forum thread because forum threads tend to get cluttered by commentary. I will consider making it part of the stock status page.

[Jason Brinkman]

Since latest estimated dates are now drawing close, I was wondering if there are any updates?

In order of delivery, previous projections were:

Absaroka Pack: late July
Cocoon 2010: early August
Vapr Bivies: early August

I am most interested in the pack, but will be curious to see the others too.

[Sam Haraldson]

Jason, I have no new word at this time but will see what I can retrieve by next week. Thanks, Sam.

[jeffrey bennett]

Just checking for any news on the 2010 products.
Thanks jeff

[Marco A. Sánchez]

All estimated dates have expired… again.

Quoted from Ryan Jordan’s blog:

“ Backpacking Light SUL 900 Pot (new model coming Fall '10 so sign up for a stock alert)”

After summer comes fall. After fall comes winter?

[Sam Haraldson]

Our production runs with the manufacturers have been bumped, and bumped, and bumped again. Larger orders from larger companies take precedence in the manufacturing queues and when we get bumped it pushes our expected delivery dates back. Our apologies for these delays.

[D G]

Why not just put in an order for 30,000 BPL SUL 900 pots? :)

[Author]

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