Input needed for Chowrentoys.com Promotions on Brickset

chowrentoys

Just want to get some feedback from everyone about the promotions we been running on Brickset, especially on quantity limit we been setting on these. Are we setting them too high? Or too low? We have had a few emails with some very disappointed people that they didn't get a chance to purchase the most recent promotion we ran on the 30059 before it was all sold out. We are currently planning on our next promotion which will either be another polybag set (Lone Ranger or Super Heroes) and we just want see if you think we should set the limit lower so more people can get in on it or higher so it will be more of a first come first serve type of deal. Any thoughts? Thanks, Jack.

ColoradoBricks

hey Jack,

I used the promo a few times, and I agree that quantities allowed are too large. May be you could limit to 3 to 5 the first 1-2 week and then if you still have any allow for more. Less than 3 would kill the deal on shipping for me on polybags.

dougts

It's your company and your promo, so you should do what you feel works best for you.

But since you asked: I participated once - bought 10 of an old Castle crossbow soldier. Honestly, if the limit was any less than that, I wouldn't have purchased any at all. It probably depends on the item of course, but for polybags, the quantity needs to be high enough to make the per-item shipping costs palatable.

graphite

In my opinion you should set the limit based on how many you have and how many people you'd liked to allow to take advantage (maybe based on number of people participating in past promotions). 15 limit on something you had 125 of is probably too high but like @ColoradoBricks said if you go to low on something like a polybag the per shipping becomes an issue. I've thought the limits on previous sets were fine. I already had a bunch of this poly so I didn't take part but if the limit had been 1 or 2 and it wasn't something particularly rare that I didn't have I would've passed based on the shipping as well.

mressin

I agree with what has been said above. I bought a couple of times from you, I'm in Europe, and if I can order only 3 or 4 polybags, then it's getting difficult because with shipping and customs (sometimes), it's not worth it any more. I guess things are different for larger or more expensive items (e.g. the Prince of Persia castle recently), where shipping (and possibly customs) is smaller compared to the item price.

Anyway, I love your promotions, please keep it coming!

chowrentoys

Thank you so much for your input. I think we dropped the ball on the 30059. @graphite you are right limit of 15 was too high for only 125 sets. We should have capped it at less than 10. This is the first time we've done one with so little in quantity. Maybe we can do a scale where if we have over 1000 available we can do max of 50, 500 a max of 25, 300 max of 15 and anything less than that max of 8 or what ever quantity that will equal 13oz. This way we can still ship it by First Class Mail in the US (International can go up to 4 pounds). We can also post on the forum ahead of time what we plan to run and see what the reaction is and set the limit according to the response. Would this work better? Thanks, Jack.

chowrentoys

@mressin. More are coming! We are hoping for some Lone Ranger and Super Heroes polybags. Just have to wait and see what we can come with. I think for the next promotion I am going to spend even more time on figuring out the shipping so I can inform the buyers what quantity will be best suited for what shipping service to help determine shipping cost per item. This way people won't be buying large quantities thinking that is the best deal when in fact lesser amount would be better.

margot

This promo might have run out fast but the beauty of bricksetters is we all share.

mressin

chowrentoys said:

We can also post on the forum ahead of time what we plan to run and see what the reaction is and set the limit according to the response. Would this work better?

Since you're asking: If you try to get feedback from the forum about limits ahead of time, wouldn't you just get into a poor-little-Timmy discussion?
As far as I am concerned, I will always be happy as long as running a promotion was worth it for you, regardless of whether I was able to order from a promotion or not. Because as long as you make a profit, there's a good chance that there will be more promotions.

TheLoneTensor

I have no desire for 15 MTTs (or any particular poly for that matter), and the painful shipping costs prevent me buying anything less, so these deals don't give me much love.

It'd be nice if you offered a grab bag of multiple polys, so that I could get a lot of different ones. I understand that you may not always (or ever) have a supply for such a thing, but that's what would float my boat.

drdavewatford

As a UK resident, it'd be great to get some idea of the likely shipping cost before going through the process of making an order, finding out that the shipping cost kills the deal, and quitting. Any chance of some kind of shipping calculator to save time and hassle ?

margot

@Tensor, they had a bunch of older polys on sale recently. I got a great shipment of unusual and cool polys.

graphite

drdavewatford said:

As a UK resident, it'd be great to get some idea of the likely shipping cost before going through the process of making an order, finding out that the shipping cost kills the deal, and quitting. Any chance of some kind of shipping calculator to save time and hassle ?

Yes, its called Bricklink set weight plus www.usps.com

drdavewatford

graphite said:

drdavewatford said:

As a UK resident, it'd be great to get some idea of the likely shipping cost before going through the process of making an order, finding out that the shipping cost kills the deal, and quitting. Any chance of some kind of shipping calculator to save time and hassle ?

Yes, its called Bricklink set weight plus www.usps.com

Did you miss the "to save time and hassle" part of my request....

;-)

graphite

Guess we have different opinions on how much time and hassle 2 minutes and 2 websites is. =)

chowrentoys

@mressin I understand we won't be able to make everyone happy, but we if we can at least make majority of the people happy we certainly will try. It is very nice of you to be concerns with our bottom-line. I must admit sometimes we break even or lose money on these deals, but what helps the most is when people buy other items along with the promotion products. This is where we do make our money. It is because of support from readers like @margot and many others that make these deals happen. She takes advantage of all the promos, but she also buys a lot of other sets that goes towards supporting our business. In all honesty even if we break even on all of these deals and no one buys anything else we will still run them. We do this to be part of the community and to show our support of Brickset.

@tensor if we did a grab bag of sort I am just afraid we will just ending up with tons of emails from people telling us they just need 1 or 2 from the bag and not the whole lot. We could give it a try and see. Maybe if we did 2 or 3 from the same theme. Is this what you mean? Thank you for your input, we really appreciate it.

@graphite unfortunately, our current software does not allow buyers to figure out the shipping without going through the check out process. We are currently working on switching to a new software to resolve the shipping issue. In the mean time, I guess I can put a little write up along with the promo description on what quantity would equal to what shipping option for now. I am very sorry about the limitation to the software and for the inconvenience it has caused. Thank you, Jack.

drdavewatford

graphite said:

Guess we have different opinions on how much time and hassle 2 minutes and 2 websites is. =)

Clearly.

chowrentoys said:

unfortunately, our current software does not allow buyers to figure out the shipping without going through the check out process. We are currently working on switching to a new software to resolve the shipping issue. In the mean time, I guess I can put a little write up along with the promo description on what quantity would equal to what shipping option for now. I am very sorry about the limitation to the software and for the inconvenience it has caused.

Thanks, Jack - that'd be great !