AGD is awful at presenting a good package to the customer

[luke]

Hey Tom I have an idea, put together a pretty box, manual and a standard O-ring and oil kit and sell it as a $150 upgrade. I'll take mine in bubble wrap and a brown paper bag.

[Albinonewt]

The problem is, that there are now two entirly different ways to sell paintball guns, and they both require different things.

The first is the traditional store/retailer route. In this case extras and a nice box are important. They obviously don't matter to the performance of the marker, but they do matter to sales. Spending an extra 1% on sales related extras can cause an enormeous increase in sales. In retail appearance is very important, because your appearence is competing with everyone else's appearance. Since no store that I know of allows you to take a bunch of paintball guns for a "test drive" you are down to only 2 things (3 if you assume the consumer is well read and checks reviews). First, is the appearance, and second is the person behind the counter. And we all know, the person behind the counter's stock answer will be "It's a good gun for a 'x' (beginner, intermediate, alien, whatever) and it shoots well."

The second is internet sales, which frankly, the box is meaningless at this point. Appearance is still important, but since the pictures shown online are likely to just be of the gun, that's were appearance is important. (Case in point, look at the E-Mag on paintball online the thing looks stupid as hell with the Warpfeed.

[Star_Base_CGI]

How about a Design a Box contest.

AGD cuts the box open flat and scans it.

People design the box.

Anyway, AGD is great for contest promotions if not nothing else.

Are you going to keep the empty box or take it to paintball? I threw my warp box out.

[cphilip]

Originally posted by Star_Base_CGI
How about a Design a Box contest.

Been done. What you see is what you voted on.

[JEDI]

Originally posted by Kevmaster
would you rather...spend $1000 for a nice gun and a kickass box and cool features to go with it...OR
sped $1000 for a kickass gun, average box and maybe have to buy your own wall charger adapter ($12) and bottle of lube ($5)?

I'll take the latter, thank you

I think a lot of you guys are missing the point. First of all, Kevmaster, the Xmag is a $1400 gun. Both guns kick ***. Dont make it sound like, when buying a speed, all you get is an average gun with lots of extra flair. Like em or not, angels are decent guns. You would rather spend lots of money, get no extras, and still have to buy stuff because you're used to AGD.

A good thick manual shouldnt be looked at as flair or extra. My Eblade came with a very good manual, and it makes me happy to have it. If the Xmag only needs two printed pages and an allen wrench, why is their an entire forum for tech support.

A product should be rated based on the whole package. Tom needs to face the fact, that other tan just the box, there are important extras that help make the $1400 sale even better. I dont beleive for one second that you hard core AGD fans wouldnt be ecstatic with lots of extra stuff in your prescious Xmag box that you waited 6 months for.

[shartley]

Originally posted by cphilip


Been done. What you see is what you voted on.

[cphilip]

Well Jedi I think its a difference in Phylosophies of how to do customer support to the age and experience of the customers. And I think its at that crossroads where the computer and the ability to simply print out a hard copy is being the way most manufacturers will be going soon. Since WDP has no factory sponsored site like this they HAVE to include a manual and such. They do not WANT a factory internet presence at this time. So many Angel users fill the void but that lacks the manufacturers attention and input that we have here. Heck we even provide you Angel people with the best Tech in the whole world right here to help out that way! Plus they do indeed NEED to include more special tools because of the design of the thing

One may disagree with the choice as to which is better but it takes a lot of money to operate a site too. Rather than print manuals. If you have to chose then you can say that Tom has chosen this road to go. Time will bear out if its a right move or not. I got no problem with it.

[kenndogg]

I don't have an xmag or emag but when I got my eblade frame it came with a damn thick manual that explains EVERYTHING. I don't see why its so hard to produce something like that for AGD's product. It doesn't have to be all colorful or what not. Simple black and white would just be fine. Heck even Kingman's electro guns had better instructions. And thats coming from a company thats purely in it for profit. I recently bought a warp and all it came with is a sheet of paper that doesn't even explain how to properly mount it. Needless to say I'm trying to get rid of it now for a halo b.

[shartley]

Originally posted by cphilip
Well Jedi I think its a difference in Phylosophies of how to do customer support to the age and experience of the customers. And I think its at that crossroads where the computer and the ability to simply print out a hard copy is being the way most manufacturers will be going soon. Since WDP has no factory sponsored site like this they HAVE to include a manual and such. They do not WANT a factory internet presence at this time. So many Angel users fill the void but that lacks the manufacturers attention and input that we have here. Heck we even provide you Angel people with the best Tech in the whole world right here to help out that way! Plus they do indeed NEED to include more special tools because of the design of the thing

One may disagree with the choice as to which is better but it takes a lot of money to operate a site too. Rather than print manuals. If you have to chose then you can say that Tom has chosen this road to go. Time will bear out if its a right move or not. I got no problem with it.

[cphilip]

OH I see it. But you start off with that you "disagree" with me and then launch into cost comparisons. And in fact I never even went there. At most I kind of indicated it was a cost condideration to DO IT this way. One would assume I ment "cost savings" if one was to assume anything at all from what I stated. Which you went to great lengths to AGREE with while labeling it a "Disagreement".

And as to CD roms and cost. Let me go further and give you some personal experince. I used to print out my Hazardous Waste Management Manual to the tune of almost $7 a copy and these have to go to every user of chemicals on campus. I would go through 200 or so a year. And more if there were major revisions and they ALL had to be replaced. Now I spin out CD's and include not just mine but ALL the Safety manuals for the entire university on just one CD at a cost of about 50 cents a copy. So it can be cheaper going computer based. That part you missed.

[Tobe2be]

Ok ima include my two senses but hey i dont think it matters that much. My Dad owns a used car dealership in NY. you can call me a salesman. I can make the crapiest car look good and make a customer super happy. It works vice a versa i can have a excellent running car that has no problems but the shells have little dents and little nicks and the customer will be reffing and complainig bout the little dings and dents. so sometimes looks are everything. it doesnt truly hurt to waste 10 more bucks or even 50 more bucks on a nice color manual and some agd barrel condoms repair kit and some oil. and maybe even a discount card for there next purchase. think about loose 30-50 bucks a gun but get 10 more customers. i think it worth it because your making up the money with more customer. and once you have a customer you can count on him to keep on buying stuff.look at me i bought my first mag in february. and im already up to my 3rd one. and im thinking of getting an x in the future. anyways i love AGD. and tom thanks for making excellent markers.

[Thordic]

Originally posted by gtrsi


Because saturns blow!!

My Saturn pwns you.

[shartley]

Originally posted by cphilip
OH I see it. But you start off with that you "disagree" with me and then launch into cost comparisons. And in fact I never even went there. At most I kind of indicated it was a cost condideration to DO IT this way. One would assume I ment "cost savings" if one was to assume anything at all from what I stated. Which you went to great lengths to AGREE with while labeling it a "Disagreement".

And as to CD roms and cost. Let me go further and give you some personal experince. I used to print out my Hazardous Waste Management Manual to the tune of almost $7 a copy and these have to go to every user of chemicals on campus. I would go through 200 or so a year. And more if there were major revisions and they ALL had to be replaced. Now I spin out CD's and include not just mine but ALL the Safety manuals for the entire university on just one CD at a cost of about 50 cents a copy. So it can be cheaper going computer based. That part you missed.

LOL I see your point.

But I will also point out that for YOU, you knew your target "customers" and knew that the CDs would work for ALL of your "customers". But for standard products, I would provide a CD as an added bonus for those that can use it, but would never neglect the thing that ALL of the customers can use... the printed manuals.

Now days you can't assume that customers have a computer, let alone internet access.... no matter how many DO have those things. Heck, I can walk down my street and over half of the houses I knock on the doors of have neither. And the same can be said about the friends of my childen, and other family members of mine.

This is why I state that the basics should be the FIRST priority, and not the other way around... in this case, as with most cases.

Tobe2be
Very true.

[cphilip]

Originally posted by cphilip
One may disagree with the choice as to which is better.... Time will bear out if it's a right move or not....

Well I did then say that!

...and that is what is going on here. A lively disagreement about if it's the right time or if it's enough just to do that. And I suspect there will be disageement there.

I would bet that a large proportion of our customer base is computer literate. And has access to one. And that I think would be interesting to know. Most kids that play paintball are. And most of them are kids.

I predict a time coming soon where ALL companies will not include a manual. But perhaps a simple sheet or card with the Web Adress and even a mail in request card for a hard copy to customers that cannot do the Web thing. A simple sheet of instructions will be the only other thing to hold them over until that full copy arrives if they cannot get online and get it. It may not be far off realy.

[AGD]

Guys,

Its pretty simple, manuals like the WDP one, while admittedly very pretty, cost a fortune. Its not the cost per manual but the cost for the whole run. You have to print like a thousand of them to justify it and at say 15 bucks a piece thats 15k. Second problem is that if something changes you can't change the manual, at ALL!

We went the cd route because we could do them in reasonable quantities at a reasonable price , we could include videos and we can change it easily. We KNOW our stuff is changing on a monthly basis and are allowing for it in all aspects of our marketing.

AGD