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Ohhh, sorry! And here I thought you were just typing fast and reversed the letters resulting in a humerous goof. My mistake. 😆
Art Slinger wrote:There won’t be anymore Windstone stores if Windstone encourages buying the whole line for Full line Status to get territorial protection , and then sell against them.
I think you are missing the point, here.
The territorial protection is for Brick and Mortar stores. Windstone is not competing with you for your local customers. Any of your local collectors who are buying direct from Windstone would not be buying from you if Windstone didn’t have an on-line retail store; they’d be buying from some other on-line retailer, either because they don’t know you exist, or they prefer to shop from home. Quite simply, those are not your customers and Windstone is not stealing them from you.
Art Slinger wrote:Right now I see a lot of new Windstone pieces on ebay, these are not all recycled gifts.
I should have taken note, people are dumping stock.
Dumping any kind of stock creates a lesser value for that stock, therefore devaluating Windstone.What I am seeing most prominent on eBay is your own eBay store with lots of current Windstones, so clearly you are doing your part by dumping your own stock and devaluing the line.
Any store that goes out of business or quits buying Windstone sculptures is going to do what it takes to sell off their stock, however irritating that may be to the rest of us retailers. You seem eager to blame Windstone Editions themselves for forcing this situation, but I see businesses going under all the time and much as they might want to, they can’t all blame their suppliers for their downfall. In our last location there were only three of us, out of more than a dozen spaces in the strip, who had been around more than five years. We lost count of how many other hopeful retailers came and went. Even the two big anchor stores quit and were replaced.
So when Windstone Editions looks at their dealer list, they can be pretty sure that a not insignificant percentage of those dealers won’t be around, or anyway won’t be carrying Windstones, next year. This is normal. This is to be expected. And this is why Windstone Editions encourages collectors to talk to their local gift shop owners: they need to constantly replace those lost dealers.
But Windstone Editions would have to be completely out of touch with reality if they didn’t realise that they stand a better chance of staying in business over the coming years by having a strong Internet presence and selling direct, rather than continue to rely solely on the traditional methods of distribution. Yes, this assuredly hurts sales for those of us who have Internet stores, and I know I was dismayed. But the bottom line is that the Company has to come first. If Windstone looks after my interests above its own, then they are not going to be around long enough for me to reap the benefit of their misplaced loyalty.
emerald212 wrote:I just wanted to add too, that I don’t have the expenses of a brick and mortar store. I’m more of a virtual (and occassional) store, than anything else. If I had the expenses of a real store, I’d either be stocking a lot more cheap-type items to pay the bills until a collectible-type (read “more expensive”) item sold, or I’d be done too.
Does anyone have a favourite line of relatively inexpensive collectibles? Right now I am desperately in the market for ideas for other things to stock!
The Castle [Dave wrote:“]
emerald212 wrote:I just wanted to add too, that I don’t have the expenses of a brick and mortar store. I’m more of a virtual (and occassional) store, than anything else. If I had the expenses of a real store, I’d either be stocking a lot more cheap-type items to pay the bills until a collectible-type (read “more expensive”) item sold, or I’d be done too.
Does anyone have a favourite line of relatively inexpensive collectibles? Right now I am desperately in the market for ideas for other things to stock!
Transformers toys.
Oh wait…
Some of those get expensive too.
The Castle [Dave wrote:“]What I am seeing most prominent on eBay is your own eBay store with lots of current Windstones, so clearly you are doing your part by dumping your own stock and devaluing the line.
Hmmmm…..that’s interesting.
If there was a store that sold Windstones, in any of the cities close to where I live, I would buy from them before I’d ever think to buy something from California. Even if the markup around here has been very high in the past, it’s almost worth it. I’d much rather see it in person before I buy it.
It really is a bother for me to buy things from the internet. Alot of times I’m paying quite abit for shipping, the exchange rate, plus the dreaded customs…. I’d much rather buy locally really, or even from someone in the same country.
Plus, I try to only buy LPs from Windstone. I try to support others first. Plus layaway really is a good thing sometimes.
I’m so sorry Art Slinger that you feel this way. I hope things turn around for you.
When I get down to Pensacola in the next few weeks I’m hoping that the Tinderbox in the mall will still be carrying Windstones. The last time I was there they only had one or two dragons, and I can remember a time when they had half a displace case with Windstones. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have been able to buy my Black Mother Unicorn in person. Depending on how many pieces I see I’ll be talking to them about some of the new pieces hoping they will continue to carry the line.
I much prefer being able to see the sculpts in person. Having said that, there are no stores anywhere near where I live in Idaho that carries the Windstone line. There might be one in Utah that still carries them but that is a three and a half hour drive, one way, to get there. I do lots of window shopping and buying on line on line simply because of where we live. We are a good hour away from ‘civilization’ and with gas prices being what they are, we plan our trips to ‘town’ very carefully. Don’t know if that helps any but that’s where I am at the moment. 😕
twindragonsmum
tdm
This whole discussion is a little surreal to me. I was just discussing with my boyfriend last week about how supportive Windstone is of brick and mortar stores. Granted, we do not carry a ton of Windstone, and we do not sell much online, but as far as products we carry Windstone is one of the best companies at encouraging their customers to buy from stores, and not from them. In contrast, we carry some products that are sold for less online than our wholesale price! If every company was as good as Windstone, then business would be much better for small stores.
gryphongames wrote:This whole discussion is a little surreal to me. I was just discussing with my boyfriend last week about how supportive Windstone is of brick and mortar stores. Granted, we do not carry a ton of Windstone, and we do not sell much online, but as far as products we carry Windstone is one of the best companies at encouraging their customers to buy from stores, and not from them. In contrast, we carry some products that are sold for less online than our wholesale price! If every company was as good as Windstone, then business would be much better for small stores.
I’d say “Ditto” to all of that (except for the part about discussing it with your boyfriend).
Art Slinger wrote:I guess feeling like I had any handle on dealing Windstone, was erroneous. I have so many customers that can’t wait to gather enough information on an item to find the website, and buy there. I spend the bread to rent,light,insure a store and work 60 hrs/week, so it can be show room for Web shoppers. Oh goody;..now I’ve lost Windstone too. This happens to be my FAVE. I had arguments with my wife because of my overspending on Windstone, when sales didn’t support that action.
I really love so much of this great work by Melody.
Recently I’ve had to move some of our inventory on e-bay;…so I completely understand what has gone on.
Yes the WOLVES at the door are very large, hungry, and many. I’m right there with y’all.
BUT, this hurts.
I’ve been able to do business with companies that sell on line, usually they had slightly higher prices. We’ll see what time has to say.
Thank you for reading my Rant.I am going to post my thoughts, and then I will read the rest of this thread. We have lost so many dealers due to the deterioration in the general condition of retailing over the past five years that we either had to sell on line to reach our established collector base or lose those collectors who are under serviced. We also need the cash flow to even survive.
Although our whole line has been available for years on line from a variety of dealers at keystone, the same as our pricing, many collectors who are now without local dealers lack the confidence to buy on line from anybody but the factory. Some of our dealers who have sold on line have even offered special pricing from time to time that undercuts retail. By selling direct we can, and do, encourage collectors to buy locally and we can, hopefully, influence the on line commerce of our product.
Most brick and mortar stores realize that the more awareness of Windstone we create the better. We are running Google ads and starting other campaigns at huge expense in order to create more collectors and our direct sales help offset this cost. We also try to drive them to our dealers. Does any other on line seller of Windstone do that? And while we are promoting and revaluing the line up with our eBay auctions and higher priced limited production pieces you are dumping stock on eBay to help take it down?
An excellent example – the Sunset Griffin family… Not available at the Windstone direct store because they are sending their entire production stock to retailers! (and eager collector must wait… Noooooo!!!!! 😀 :wink:)
Mmmmmm….quarry critters are cute, pocket dragons, kitty’s critters…those are ones I personally find cute. 😀
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