Valor Talk

Don't miss the Daily Specials

Ben — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 03:19:00 GMT

I have been tweaking the Daily Specials and have finally put up a version that works with all browsers (that I have been able to test). If you haven't noticed, on the front page of each category is a one item special that lasts just one day. These special prices will be the best you will see. I have always wanted to offer the web customers specials that were not available to anybody else, but have never had the option in place until now. The specials you see on the front page of each category can only be ordered at that price in that spot. Those prices will not be available anywhere else on the site and they are not available to customers who call in or sales people inside Valor.

These specials will start at midnight each night (EST) and run until the alloted quantity runs out or until the next night when the next special starts. If an item runs out quick, I will put another item on. I plan on running some specials soon that I am sure will sell out quickly. On those days I may run a few one hour specials that will knock your socks off. So pay attention and keep watching daily.

If you can't check the site as often as you'd like, follow us on Twitter. I know a lot of you are not familiar with Twitter, but believe me, if you begin to use it to follow some people, you will understand it's possibilities. You can follow Valor on twitter and I will post to twitter when we put up a special that may not last long or when a new shipment comes in. I have already used twitter this week to make announcements of popular items coming in. I will soon be posting coupon codes exclusively to Twitter and links to 'secret specials'. The last twitter post is currently showing at the top of the category pages, but that will disapear after we get enough followers and the followers will get offer and exclusive deals. So sign up with twitter and follow us, it's free.

Now you may ask why don't you just email us? Well, a couple of reasonss. Not everyone likes to be bugged via email. Twitter is different than email in that you can elect to turn it off or on whenever you want. It is much faster than email. I send a twitter msg and you will receive it instantly. You can have twitter forward messages to your phone. This of course will cost you wahtever it costs for a text message on your phone, but it may be well worth it with some of the prices I have been able to get on these items that are coming up. If I were to email some of these specials, the items may be gone by the time you get the email.

So keep watching and tell me what you think.

Follow Valor on Twitter

Ben — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:29:00 GMT

You can now follow Valor on Twitter. You can get instant notification of sales, new items and more. You can also have Twitter messages sent right to your cell phone. Now you don't have to wait for the Valor's Specials email. Watch Twitter for quick, one hour specials and unbelievable deals that will sell out fast. Watch the front page for more details on these specials.

If you don't have a Twitter account, you can get one here. Once you have your account, you can visit Valor's Twitter page here and sign up to 'follow' valorcorp and get all the latest info.

My Apologies for the extra Email

Ben — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:56:00 GMT

I apologize to anybody who received the Knife Specials 4 or 5 times today. I have been testing a new piece of software to send them out and low and behold, every time I thought I stopped it and restarted it, it kept running in the background. Sorry to hit you with the extra emails.

Anybody use any services for sending bulk emails? I am looking..

Thanks

BEN

New Postage Rates - Today

Ben — Mon, 14 May 2007 12:28:00 GMT

As most of you already know, new postage rates go into effect today. Priority Mail is going up an average of 13.6%. The biggest change is for larger packages going to zones 5 through 8 (over 600 miles). Any package over a cubic foot will be billed by dimensions instead of weight, (if the dimensions out weigh the weight??). This is in addition to the balloon rate (20lbs) that you have to pay for items with a dimensional weight of over 84in. I have yet to find a good explanation of the whole pricing structure. My suggestion is use UPS for larger packages until you get a feel for the rates. I am updating our rate information now and the new rates should be coming up shortly. Until then, enjoy the old rates while they last.

Maintenence - Saturday Morning

Ben — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:19:00 GMT

We will be conducting maintenance on our servers this morning. There may be some down time while we do some work on the servers. Sorry for the inconvenience.

What is MAP Pricing?

Ben — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:02:00 GMT

It has recently come to my attention that not everybody knows about MAP pricing. Hopefully the following will answer any questions that exist.

What is MAP Pricing?

MAP stands for Minimum Advertised Price. Some products we sell have MAP prices that are set by the manufacturer. These prices are set so their product does not end up being advertised at lower than necesarry prices because sellers elect to use their product as a lost leader in an ad or online campaign. It is also used to keep their product pricing consistent among sellers.

Where can I see the MAP prices?

If a product has a MAP price, it will show on the product's page right below the UPC and weight. It is also available from the downloadable inventory excel sheet.

Who sets the MAP price?

MAP pricing is set by the manufacturer, not Valor.

Who enforces the MAP prices?

MAP pricing is enforced by Valor and the Manufacturer. If it comes to our attention that a customer is advertising a product below MAP pricing, we will ask the customer to change their advertisement. If they don't change the price on their advertisement, we will not sell them again until they have stopped advertising the product at the below MAP price.

MAP+pricing Pricing ECommerce

Knife Catalog - Available for Download

Ben — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:01:00 GMT

New Catlalog Available for Immediate Download

For the past two weeks, we have been sending out our new Knife catalog. You may have already received one, if not, you will soon. If you don't want to wait, the catalog is now available for download in .PDF format now. As a bonus, I have put up an early version of the Firearms and Accessory catalog also. This one, along with a Fishing Tackle and Law Enforcement catalog should be going out next month. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Credit Card Processing Problems [UPDATE] 2:42 pm (Back Up)

Ben — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 15:28:00 GMT

We are currently experiencing intermitent outages with our credit card processor. We are working to fix it and will post an update when it is fixed. You can place orders, but you may get a 'HOST' error. I have tested it over the last few minutes and have not received the error, but it may pop up again until we figure out what is causing it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[UPDATE] 12:49 Seems to be a problem with the processor. We are waiting on word from them. I will keep you posted. I have disabled ordering with credit cards to avoid the errors. All other payment types are working.

[UPDATE] 1:49 There is an issue with pay pal/verisign timing out. They have acknowledged it on their support line and are working on it. This must be a problem with quite a few people, so I am sure it will be back up soon. Thanks for your paitience.

[UPDATE] 2:00 Interestingly enough, PayPal / Verisign's regular support is closed for the holiday even though they did acknowledge the problem in the recording during the phone call. So I cannot get a human on the phone unless I am a premium support customer, so now I am at the mercy of email support at least for today.

[UPDATE] 2:42 Pay Pal / Verisign seem to be functioning again. Though I never received a call back or email confirming. I have placed numerous test orders and they seem to be fine. I will keep an eye on it the rest of the day and hope for a call back from them.

Drop Ship Fees - Revised for the last time

Ben — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:52:00 GMT

I have read your comments, good and bad, and I appreciate all of them (well almost all ;)). After reviewing most of our drop ship accounts again. We have decided to change the fees and implement some internal changes.

The new fees will be as follows:

Drops Ships - $5.00 for orders of $10.00 and under. $2.50 for orders over $10.00.

Non Drop ships - $2.50 handling fee for any order under $1,000.00.

The freight program remains unchanged.

The one thing that has become clear from this experience is that we need to tighten down even more the accounts we allow to become drop shippers. I won't get into details yet. There are a ton of variables to review. But, in a nut shell, we will not be supplying online dealers that are selling any of the products we sell at cut throat prices. I realize it's competitive out there. I am not saying you can't discount products, but if I stumble across a site that is selling just above cost and the product is coming from us, we will ask you to up your prices, or cut you off. These changes shouldn't affect 95% of you. And I think most of you would be happy to see this change, Let me know what you would like to see as qualifications to be a dealer.

And again, thanks for all the comments.

Revised Terms and Conditions Begin Feb. 1

Ben — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:37:00 GMT

We have decided not to implement the Cash Discount as of now. We will wait until we have it fully implemented into our site and software so it can be fully explained and demonstrated.

Furthermore, we have decided to make a change to the drop ship fee and charge $5.00 for drop ship orders under $100 and $3.50 for drop ship orders over $100.

A revised copy of the terms and conditions can be found here.

New Terms and Conditions effective Feb. 1, 2007

Ben — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:38:00 GMT

We have held off charging handling fees and drop ship fees for as long as we possibly could, but due to the rising cost of packing supplies, service charges, etc, we will be implementing a new drop ship fee, handling charges and freight policy as of February 1. You can view the full text of the Terms & Conditions here.

We have offered drop shipping now for about 5 years. Without a fee until last year and that fee was only for orders under $9.95. We have decided if we are to continue to offer drop shipping, we will have to charge a $5 fee for all drop ships. A $3.50 handling charge will be added to any non drop ship order under $1,000.

However, we are also introducing prepaid freight on any non firearm order over $500. With this option, you can put together an order of $500 or more of your best sellers and keep them in stock at your store/warehouse and ship them from there. I will be putting together a report available through your account to show you your top sellers.

Also, as of the 1st, all of our prices will reflect a 3% cash discount. This means if you pay by cash (COD), check or wire, you will receive the discounted price, if you do not pay cash, you will be charged the full price. If you have open terms with us, you will receive the discounted price. I will put more info when the site is updated to reflect the new pricing.

We will be offering a new form of payment by the 1st called fax by check. This payment option will be available to make it relatively easy to get the discounted price on all the items. You will have to download a simple form and write a check and fax them in. That's it. Again, I will post more details when this becomes available.

I know it's not good news, but unfortunately, we have no choice but to implement these changes to continue to offer these services. I will be introducing more tools to make it easier to run your store or site this year. I look forward to working with you all to make this your best year yet.

2007 SHOT Show - Thank You

Ben — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:46:00 GMT

Thank You to all of you who took the time to visit us at the 2007 SHOT Show and help make it a success for us.

Visit us at the SHOT Show

Ben — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:38:00 GMT

Come by and visit us at the SHOT show in Orlando, Florida this week. We are located in booth 1973.

Inventory is done & it's time for SHOT

Ben — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 22:31:00 GMT

We're done with the main part of inventory. We will begin shipping again tomorrow. So now it's time for SHOT show next week in Orlando. I will put up our booth info soon. If you're in Florida, it is a good chance to check it out since it is usually held out West.

Closed for Inventory

Ben — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:18:00 GMT

We will not be shipping between 12/26 and 1/3 as we will be closed for inventory. We will still accept orders online, but they will not ship until we reopen. All orders placed before 12/23 will ship this year. Sorry for the inconvenience. Happy Holidays.

New Fishing Tackle Clearance Catalog and Other News

Ben — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 04:31:00 GMT

I have posted the Holiday Shipping Schedule on the main category pages of the site. They're pretty straight forward.

The in stock script has taken off and seems to be working rather seemlessly. That's a nice surprise. I have received some positive feedback. I would like to hear if you have any complaints and/or suggestions too.

I wrote a while back how I have come up with a rather quick way to offer print catalogs. Here is the first test. It's a clearance list of the Fishing Tackle products we are closing out. You can download it from the downloads section. Let me know what you think. I will offer more sections in this format if it is a success.

On Hand Script for Your Web Site is Ready.

Ben — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:18:00 GMT

Well, one short week and the API is done. You can now put it on your live sites. I know some of you already have. Though, now that I am done, I don't consider it an API. It really only serves one function, so from here on out, I will refer to it as the On Hand Script. The good news is that in building this little script I have gone off in a different direction that has lead to a real API. I will post more when it is ready to be tested.

The differences beween the script and the new API will be tremendous. The script simply states the on hand or stock status. The API will list products' descriptions, on hands, long descriptions and more. Plus I will be putting in options for you to call up lists of your orders to see the status, tracking numbers etc.

Leave me comments below with any suggestions you'd like to see included in the API. And begin to brush up on your XML.

An API is Born...

Ben — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 05:59:00 GMT

I have finally got around to starting an API for Valor's site. This is something I have wanted to work on for a long time, but have never really had the time. I still don't, but what the heck. I began with a simple on hand script you can use in your pages. You can get all the info here. It's late and I don't feel like typing it again. Please test it out and leave me feed back in the forum. The sooner I get feedback, the sooner I will make this a permanant release and you can use it in your live websites. No more Excel downloads!!! Good Night.

BEN

Deja Vu All Over Again

Ben — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:56:00 GMT

The Holiday Season is already in full swing here. The usual influx of new customers is well under way too. Luckily I have changed the way we set up new accounts. After a short week long vacation last week, I had an inbox full of questions from potential new accounts. Here are a few I always get. Let me see if I can lay out all the answers in one post.

Why don't you have images of all your products?

Well, if we were to take 22,000 photos, we wouldn't be in this business, we'd be running a photo studio. Seriously, we can't get images of all of our items from the manufacturers. Some manufacturers are very good about giving us usable images and some look at you funny when you ask for a CD. We try to take pictures of all the new items as they come in, but we are limited in the number we can do per day. So we may be doing images for the fishing section for a month straight and you won't see anything because you want knife images.
Some of your items are out of stock? How will I sell them?

You won't, because we don't have them. We are going to run out of items from time to time. If we didn't we wouldn't be here. Most items are reordered and on their way to us long before we run out. But that is not always the case. A factory can be out of something and we may not know because not all manufacturers keep their customers informed. My suggestion is do not offer items on your site if we are out of them. This leads to our next question...
Do I have really have to update my site every day with the stock status of your items?

If you want to be in this business, I would hope so... This one always amazes me. If there was a website I could put up that didn't require work to make money on it, I would have one and I would not be doing this. Your website is going to require constant updating and tweaking. If you don't want to do that, then don't set up a website, you're wasting your time. I will be introducing something soon to allow you to see current onhands without updating your site. But you should not be afraid to work at updating your site.

I guess what I am trying to say in a not so subtle way is, if you want to sell our products or anybody's products online, it is not going to be a walk in the park. If it was, everybody would be doing it. It requires work to be a successful online seller. Our biggest drop ship customers have put years of work in to get where they are. If you are looking for a quick buck, this is not the place to do it. You can be very successful doing it, but you will deffinately have to work for it. One suggestion I try to give to new customers is don't try to sell everything we have. Pick a small section and grow it from there. I can't stress that enough. You don't need to be the next Amazon.

If you asked any of these questions, don't feel bad. There is no such thing as a stupid question. I just don't want you to think this is an oil well waiting to be tapped. It is a gold mine that needs to be mined and worked over time. From some of the emails I get, I think these books that tell you how to make money online paint an unrealistic picture of what you have to do. Don't believe everything you read. Do some of your own research and make sure this is the business you want to be in for a few years, not just the Holiday Season.

Also, don't take this as me slamming drop shippers. I personally love the drop shipping part of our business. I started the drop shipping program here and have been working it and reworking it for years. I am more than willing to do what I can to help any of you. I just can't help you if you have unrealistic expectations.

Happy Holidays and Good Luck!

Coming Soon... New Front Page

Ben — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 00:38:00 GMT

I'm off this week, but I am working online at night when I can and I have decided to put the latest blog post on the front page. This has turned into a semi site redesign. So what I want to know is, what info would help you as a customer when you log in to Valor's website? Leave me a comment here.

Setting Up a New Account

Ben — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:06:00 GMT

New Blogs, Forums

Ben — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 17:22:00 GMT

I've decided to go ahead and begin using this Community Server software for Valor's Blogs and Forums now before finishing the design part. I will go wit the standard skin for now just to use the software. As some of you may know, our old forum software was just not cutting it. I have seen a lot of sign ons recently that were not able to activate their accounts for no good reason. It was good while it lasted. This software has many more features that will help everybody. RSS for forums and individual posts among others.

I attempted to send out a bulk email to all the old forum members, but that didn't even work any more. I am already seeing quite a few people looking, but not enough participants, so sign up and start posting. There will be more of Valor's staff involved now, so I think it will be a better experience than the old forums which was mainly conversation among Valor dealers.

If you have any questions, suggestions, etc. Sign up and post them.

Add on or Necessity Sale?

admin — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:28:00 GMT

I’m not going to beat a dead horse about last week’s “Impulse Buying” but to take it a step further, can anyone explain this one to me?

I made a sales call to one of my accounts and after they placed an order for a few guns, I asked if they needed any ammunition. Their reply “we don’t carry any ammunition” has me scratching my head…

Why would you want to send a customer to your direct competition? I’d bet that next time that customer is ready to buy, they’ll go to the place that had everything they needed to make their purchase without all of the extra running around.

During my time in retail firearms had me always stressing to my employees that we’d never get rich selling just guns and that every gun sold should also ammunition (both defensive and practice loads, at the very least, they should at least, try it out once), some sort of case or holster (if not both), speed loaders or spare magazines (My theory is if you think you might use the gun for personal defense you always carry two complete reloads with you anytime you carry the gun and you should always have enough magazines that if you’re carrying three of them at least three more are at home unloaded to allow the springs to rest and they should be rotated on a monthly basis).

That’s the bare minimum that they should take home with their new gun. If they’re new shooter or don’t own a similar caliber already (You did qualify them as part of their purchase, right?) A cleaning kit, silicone rag, along with some basic instructions on it’s safe use and how to make it go bang in the right direction (You DO carry some NRA handouts on firearms safety and recommend joining the NRA, right)?

Speaking of the NRA, their dealers program can earn you money while making sure you help with the fight to preserve our right to own firearms and to stay in business too.

So, enough of my ranting, why don’t you share some of your tips for happy customers and increased sales with the rest of us?

Until next time, get on out there and sell something!

A year from now, will you need Office?

Ben — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 18:45:00 GMT

Google has just merged two of their services together to form a nice little app called Google Docs. It was just posted on their official Google Blog. I have used Writely in the past and have been very impressed with it. I have not used the spreadsheet yet, but I will mess with it when I have time. This is a nice free service to use to save $$ on the ever increasing MS products...

RSS Feeds and Google Reader

Ben — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:14:00 GMT

Do you see a lot of these and still not know what they do? We have them all over Valor's site. They are links to an emerging tool that is changing the way we receive info from the web. They are called RSS (real simple syndication) feeds. They have been around for a couple of years now, but have just begin to take off in the mainstream with support for them in all the current or soon to be released browsers.

With RSS, you can subscribe to feeds by clicking the above icons on screens around the web and have an RSS Reader tell you when a feed has been updated. Keeping you from having to visit the website daily to see if there is anything new. One new reader that I use is Google Reader. This is a web based reader that allows you to see all your subscribed feeds on one page. In the image on the left, you can see my reader's front page. I can view the latest news from CNN, updates to Blogs I read, and more. They can be grouped into folders and read together as one feed. For instance, you could group all of your news resources into one folder called "News" and read all of them in order on one page instead of surfing from page to page.

So how does this apply to Valor's website? Glad you asked. We have feeds available for all of our product categories. We have feeds that list new items, clearance items and specials. So instead of waiting for me to send out the Specials Mailings, you can see the specials as they are added to our site. You can see clearance items as soon as they are put on clearance. You cna view new items as soon as they are received into our system. The image to the right shows our feed as it appears in Google Reader for Knife Specials.

So you can subscribe to these feeds by clicking the icons anywhere you see them, or you can view a list of Valor's RSS feeds here.