Drop is dropping

Imagine a community that focused on keyboards, considering exactly how they compare to each other, and stressing out about the most minor differences.

What weirdos!

“…our partnership with Amazon.”  The Blue Wave wins again.

lol David

David,

When you look at gamers and see what kind of money they are willing to spend on stuff, it is not surprising that there is a high interest in keyboards.  Unfortunately, one of my daughters falls into that category.  She can spend hours talking about chairs and lighting.

Yeah David, good one. So Drop forms like a co-op marketing platform for a fringey range of outdoor products put out by smaller  ( in either size /or focus) shops then drops out of the website, order and delivery end but retains the responsibility for coordinating the Amazon site and the vendors and gets a slice of every transaction and also Amazon gets a slice for their massive platform and amazing logistics  and we get one stop shopping and the vendors get a massive marketing platform. Is that about it?

So it goes. I’m sure both layers of middlemen are earning their slice.

There are far too many weeks that spend more time on the keyboard than on the trail.  Maybe I should follow their lead.

obx: Massdrop, at its best, collected beta from their members and then put together group buys for the preferred option(s).  Especially for a newbie, taking the community’s recommendations is a better strategy than asking the sales clerk at Big 5 Sporting Goods.

I’m a little ashamed to admit that I’ve been a rather substantial Drop buyer over the past couple of years.  One of my daughters (I have 14 year-old twins) is very much into mechanical keyboards and enjoys using, and tinkering with, a keyboard from Drop.  I’ve bought a bunch of stuff from their Outdoors Community – including the Dan Durston Pack and X-Mid 1P, along with numerous Nitecore lights.  I’ll admit that some of my purchases could have come from Amazon at similar prices, but I enjoyed that someone else was culling through the world and suggesting things that I might like:  Take it or leave it.

I wonder what will happen to some of their more successful partnerships like Dan Durston & Enlightened Equipment.  I hope the innovation doesn’t stop.

“Amazon gets a slice for their massive platform and amazing logistics”

hmmm…  maybe Amazon should sell covid vaccines

Read Dan’s comments on Reddit UL. He feels that it is a good move for the future of gear development like his. He indicated that now a DCF X-Mid is really possible. That is the main interest of the company taking over Outdoor and EDC lines from Drop. Dan will likely post here, too. I wanted to post his positive reaction before negative speculation gets out of hand. Some will balk at sales through Amazon, but that gives Dan and others a more viable sales outlet, which means access to more development opportunities up front and funds to keep going.

Thanks Bill.

I know Amazon is a controversial thing with some positives like fast reliable shipping and easy returns, but also some valid critiques. I wasn’t involved in that decision.

As mentioned, the new people running this are much more interested in keeping things in stock and new innovation. Lead times for production are very long right now due a surge in outdoor interest during covid, but they are planning to keep the X-Mid’s much more available (e.g. reliably in stock) and also work on lots of new stuff. Quite a few good things in the pipeline for the next 1-2 years.

All I know is that Amazon’s price for an X-mid 2p looks to be $300, which is $80 more than I paid for mine through Drop. Hopefully some of that goes into Dan’s bank account to help fund his “Fresh Air and Exercise Fund.”

That’s a shame. The EDC, knives and outdoor gear were the only items I had an interest in. To me, a keyboard is a keyboard, and most of their earphones seem gimmicky to me.

Edit to add: I had noticed at times that Drop was NOT the best deal. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren’t. But when they were, it was usually significant. I’ve bought a couple compasses, flashlights, etc from them. I’m a huge fan of Nitecore and Drop had some great deals on Nitecore flashlights and headlamps. And I wonder what Dan Durston is going to do to market his gear now?

I’ve looked at stuff on the drop for years… generally struck me as a gimmicky marketplace for quasi outdoor gimmick-ware. I never bought from them. The only time I came close was for one of Dan’s tents, but I don’t use trekking poles so the purchase doesn’t pencil for me.

C’est la vie.

“All I know is that Amazon’s price for an X-mid 2p looks to be $300, which is $80 more than I paid for mine through Drop.”

I think you’re mixing up the 1P and 2P tents. The 1P is $220. The 2P was originally available at an early bird pre-sale of $250 because people had to wait 6 months to get it. Once it was in stock the price was $280 and it moved to $300 about 6 months ago, which is what it’s still at.

I’m sorry, Dan, maybe I am a bit mixed up about the 2 tent prices. What I am happy about is that I have one of each, which I am quite happy about.

If Dan’s tents and backpacks are only going to be sold through Amazon, he won’t be getting a penny from me. I’ve always supported cottage-industry companies and still buy from many of them. Just bought a Seek Outside pack earlier this week.

That said, I refuse to support any of them who sell through Amazon.

The line between the cottage industry has become increasingly blurred.  I’ve always considered to be a small company that manufactures in house like Seek Outside or MLD, but more and more “cottage” companies are moving production overseas like SMD, Tarptent, and Gossamer Gear.

Are they still cottage companies?  It probably depends on what criteria you use.

Durston Gear is a whole different type of “cottage industry” – he designed it, but completely subcontracted out the manufacturing, logistics, and distribution and he did that because Drop had the expertise and capital to get that up and running.  I’m sure those were areas that were not Dan’s expertise, and my guess is without Drop, we wouldn’t have any of Dan’s designs commercially available.

Amazon is really good at logistics, warehousing, and distribution and my guess is they will be much better at that than Dan would be and if Dan tried to do it himself, it would be spending all his time doing that and not working on new products. While you may not like Amazon – (I don’t nor Walmart but I admit to using them occasionally due to convenience) my guess is it’s the best thing for Dan and should have better customer service than Drop.

Dan, I just checked my PayPal purchase history, and it turned out my memory had failed me. I actually paid $200 for the X-Mid 1-P, and $238 for the X-Mid 2-P, which of course included the free shipping. There was a glitch with the 2-P purchase, as PayPal only covers the payment for 30 days, and MassDrop doesn’t charge anything until they ship the product. which was several months later. I contacted MassDrop and pleaded with them. They had some extra 2-P tents in stock and they agreed to send me one. I have a sneaking hunch that they worked with you to make it work for me. In addition, they also gave me a significant discount over the listed price (~25%). I think of it as my “Dan Durston new best friend discount.”

These two tents are works of art, Dan. I’ve only set them up in my back yard. I seam-sealed the 1-P (which wasn’t really necessary) but I didn’t bother doing it for the 2-P. I modified the handles of a pair of Costco trekking poles, to include “pins” to fit into the tent grommets, to keep the salty pole handles away from any mini-bears. I can’t wait until spring/summer comes so I can actually use the tents in the CO high country.

Regarding Amazon, I think there’s a difference between (1) what’s happening to the retail landscape, and (2) companies using Amazon for fulfillment.

For existing products that have historically been sold through retail, Amazon is certainly having big effects there by selling more direct to the customer. Eliminating the retail markup results in lower prices for the customer, but with harmful effects to existing retail businesses. Obviously that’s a big and important discussion, but not applicable to what’s going on here.

The situation is different for products that aren’t sold through retail. When a company produces a product (e.g. myself, Gossamer Gear, SMD etc) they have a choice between handling all the payments/orders/warehousing/shipping themselves, or outsourcing that. As soon as you’re selling a lot of stuff, it usually makes sense to outsource that to a warehouse that can do it more efficiently because they have all the programs to keep track of stock, ship stuff fast, and they get the lowest shipping rates. Doing it in house tends to be slower, more expensive, and with more errors.

Amazon is one such 3rd party service. A company can give them a 15% cut to cover credit card fees (4%), packaging costs, logistics/warehousing, shipping etc. For most businesses that produce a product, that works out more efficiently than doing it in house because they would still have a lot of those costs (e.g. packaging, warehouse space, payment fees) but also more expensive shipping rates as a smaller customer. That’s why you’re seeing a lot of businesses using a 3rd party like Amazon to handle their order fulfillment. They might take orders on their own website and sync those to Amazon (e.g. LiteOutdoors) or have it all on Amazon. I have no idea what Seek Outside does, but a lot of the ‘cottage’ business are using 3rd parties for order fulfillment without that being obvious to the customer. Seek Outside probably does fulfillment in house, but they could easily be stocking their stuff at an Amazon warehouse too, and then your order gets sync’d to Amazon who toss it in the mail with whatever packaging the company wants.

Anyways, none of this was my decision but I do see why Drop would prefer to use Amazon to handling shipping/logistics/warehousing rather than doing it less efficiently themselves. And it’s not harming existing retail businesses like some other products you might choose to buy on Amazon.

As for future products, I am working on some new stuff without Drop that I plan to sell myself on DurstonGear.com and ship from my basement. So that will be more of a traditional cottage arrangement (same as TarpTent, Gossamer Gear etc). But the logistics of that are going to be expensive and slower (shipping internationally from my small town in remote Canada) so it would be better for both me and the customer if I had them shipping from a larger warehouse in a bigger city. I’m going to try the basement option for a while and see how it goes because I do like being able to check over every order, but at some point it might make sense to get professional help.

Well, all I can say is I ended up buying the Xmid 1P on Amazon and grateful for that because Mass was always out whenever I tried to get one. First use for it will be the Foothills Trail next month, followed by the Snowy mountains in August.