Does this image make Wargamers Happy?
At the end of this week 15mm.co.uk will be acting on input from a large group of wargamers all over the world who have been asking, cajoling, begging and so on for a ‘free shipping’ promotion on the website. All of these messages basically came as feedback to our two months of ‘one week offers’ which while on the website were mainly distributed through Mailchimp as HTML emails. This offer was suggested on almost all of the messages that came back to me. Based on this I have been thinking that perhaps ‘free shipping’ is the number one wish for wargamers, especially those far from the UK such as in Australia and New Zealand, even though 15mm.co.uk has the same basic postage rate for all regions.
As everyone knows I like to aid wargamers where possible so it will be interesting to see what reaction 15mm.co.uk has to this offer. Will it increase order volume, will it mean more orders from far flung places or will wargamers not take to the this offer preferring a deal such as those on certain miniatures or ranges as I have been organising through Mailchimp.
If you are reading this and have an opinion on this offer then please do comment or email me directly.
GBS
I think this is a great idea and very generous. I’m not always interested in particular units chosen for discount, but free shipping means I can order whatever appeals to me.
I’ll place an order just to show my support for it!
-John
(not in a far flung location by any definition)
Hello John,
Welcome and thanks for your comment.
This experiment hopefully will show such attitudes among wargamers. If it turns out to be what most want then perhaps I will do it more than once.
The USA is far enough away from Scotland for it to be a bit of a trek for me. I like your blog as well.
GBS
It’s hard to balance really. Free postage is a great thing, I always feel like I’ve had a bargain with that. Less worrying about how much it will be etc…
I think it would be great to see, but at the same time, I understand the price of tin and postage have gone up considerably and are not going to stop going up any time soon. If this did happen, I’d like to see it in all of Alector’s businesses of course…
I recall talking to an Australian Flintloque player (goes by Rabbitz online) who really wants some Trolka, but dreads the cost of the postage!
I would love to see larger models in resin! Go on, you know you want to. 😉
There’s costs involved in that too of course, external Molding and Casting (this is an assumption), shipping to Girvan (again, assuming they are made externally)… However, postage would be a lot cheaper than tin and you might be able to charge the same amount as the metal miniatures, given the cost of getting molds made etc…
Cheers!
Rob
Hello Rob,
All wargamers (like all consumers generally) watch their pennies and choose their purchases on a combination of desire, price, postage, chance and other factors. So the experiment will hopefully give me more information to work on.
Not sure where you are going on the cost to Australia for Trolka, remember that Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk both work on a ‘value of cart’ not a ‘weight’ system. We get many emails from gamers in that part of the world remarking at the reasonable AA and 15mm P&P as I said in the posting; it is the same regardless of region for 15mm (9%) and of two regions for AA (14% and 18%). We are very competitive on posting, the experiment is more to do with gamers minds and desires.
Have a look around at Resin selling companies at their postage rates, they are often higher than the rates 15mm.co.uk and Alternative Armies offer on white metal. I chose a couple at random, Zelot Miniatures and Titan Forge from a google search. Costings are a whole different matter and beyond the scope of this experiment.
As to what the future holds miniature wise you will have to wait and see just like everyone else my friend 🙂
GBS
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