Homemade store

Suggestions, comments, questions, and developments related to the Super Soaker Central site and forums.
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sat May 13, 2006 7:47 pm

It's good to see that the plans for a homemade store at SSC are heating up.

I think, beyond the price, we really have to be concerned about being able to produce the soakers, even if the initial demand is low. Maybe you (Ben) could assign building tasks to members who want to do so--that could actually work. For me, however, my own homemades come first. This method would also give a chance for people with specialties (my PCgHs, Duxburian's Douchenator, etc.) to do those themselves. Another option is to just sell high-quality blueprints in a package with all the parts.

Exactly what goes into BBT's HydroPower soakers? If it is an actual alternative to CPS, then I'm really interested. We could do something like that for a store--and Hasbro might actually only own the individual blueprint patents, not the rights to the idea itself. This would also allow for more flexibility and choice as to the parts, and the use of tools for cutting, etc. would not be needed.

The eBay method should only be used for publicity. After all, why go through all that trouble for each product when you could just run a cleaner, friendlier service here at SSC? However, if extra soakers/packs are on hand, then a few could go on eBay, with plenty of links to SSC, of course :rolleyes: .

Now I'm really interested in my suggestion about selling packages with instructions and parts. There will be almost no effort required on our part--10 packs could be gathered in a single trip to Lowes--and the initiative will have been taken for the customers to build. They don't have to buy anything--not even the primer!

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blub man
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Post by blub man » Sat May 13, 2006 9:32 pm

i would definetly consider buying a homemade, because although the idea is good, i don't have the time or some a the materials required to build my own.
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sat May 13, 2006 10:58 pm

Your materials problem could easily be solved through the selling of Blueprint and Component Packs (BCPs). Of course, don't expect others to be able to spend their own precious time building something because your time is valuable too--that's a problem in this modern world. Hopefully, everybody should be able to build in the summer, especially if the parts are sitting right in front of them.

Naturally, of course, the site would also sell individual parts...that way, one could buy the exact components needed in a CPH or the ones needed to slightly change a BCP homemade. Of course, with such personal service, one could just request a change...

Even if I could order PVC straight from McMaster-Carr or from the Lowes website, I am considering buying it from at a slight premium to support SSC. Maybe this could help cover the $30/year hosting cost :cool: .

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Monsoon
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Post by Monsoon » Sun May 14, 2006 1:32 pm

I'd buy one, but is there a warranty so I can get my money back if it breaks or something? I don't want to get ripped off.
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SSCBen
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Post by SSCBen » Sun May 14, 2006 3:40 pm

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves here. As I've said, I'm way too busy to do this at the moment. I could assign tasks to people, but I'm not too sure if there would be too many interested and I'm sure whoever is interested would expect payment for their work.

First off, hosting costs more than $30 a year. If hosting was $30 yearly, I could surely build a few more water guns every year. Hosting and domain costs are about $120 yearly. Any money made would definitely go there first, and the cost is large enough that I still will likely not make a profit.

I believe we've already discussed warranties, but I'll reiterate: if it breaks, send it back. We'll take a look at it and either repair it or build you a new one if you'd like. I very highly doubt that these water guns will break however, unless of course you mistreat them.

The box sets of parts are a great idea, but I'd rather call them box sets of parts or maybe water gun kits simply because we're making too many acronyms. Sounds like a good "beginners" package for homemade water guns. Of course, some more advanced builders might consider these packages if the parts are unavailable locally. It might even be a good idea to cut the PVC for the real beginners because they might not have access to saws. The only thing they have to do is provide the newspaper, ventilated area, and effort to cement the water gun together.

I'm actually really liking the water gun kit idea. I've got ideas for fairly detailed plans with things such as PVC welding practice that we normally could not do without giving them the tools and parts involved. It also promotes building the water gun yourself, which is something I definitely want to promote over simply buying a water gun.

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun May 14, 2006 3:53 pm

I read a post a while ago that referred to hosting at only $30 per year. If it's more than that, then that just makes me want to support you and SSC even more. I'm assuming the hefty (relative to the size of this site) price is due to the massive bandwidth and speed that they provide--there aren't many other sites, especially ones dealing with water guns, that are so fast.
Ben wrote:The box sets of parts are a great idea, but I'd rather call them box sets of parts or maybe water gun kits simply because we're making too many acronyms.
Too many acronyms? I can definitely see that happening, but that's why we have the Duxburian Dictionary (which is yet to be stickied) and the Soakological Glossary.

Thanks for supporting the kit idea, though. I actually did point out that we could do the cutting, and the best part is that since this would be so informal, "special requests" could easily be maintained.

EDIT: Here we are. In "Site Donations," you mentioned $30 per year, but I didn't notice that you said the price would probable change the next year. That was in 2004--quite a long way back, but still a large price difference.

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DX
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Post by DX » Sun May 14, 2006 4:25 pm

$30 was SSCentral's old host. The new one has more features, but costs more as well. Don't forget about the cost of buying the vBulletin forum license, which I know was not cheap.

I actually would buy certain individual parts for a CPH, and think that kits are a great idea. That way, the buyers are still putting the gun together themselves.
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun May 14, 2006 6:40 pm

Once again, the kit idea (the acronym is officially out) was mainly intended to decrease the workload on the store staff, especially if popularity of the store increases. Naturally, of course, there is a multitude of other benefits that I need not get into...

I thought SSC used vBulletin from the beginning, not just since the host change. But then again, maybe you were referring to the fact that that initial money still needs to be accounted for by the SSC users...

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DX
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Post by DX » Sun May 14, 2006 10:36 pm

The vBulletin forum license cost like $160 or something. SSC used to run on Invision Power Board, if you want to see what it was like, ask Ben for an archive or search for "the good old days" topic on SM.
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weird weird dude
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Homemade store

Post by weird weird dude » Sun May 14, 2006 11:06 pm

Joannaardway: This is a post from a merged thread. It may be out of context.

Why not use a disclaimer just saying something like "by reading this you agree not to blame the SScentral for personal injury, from the product or the packaging" but put a positive spin on it(not to make it boring or sound like if you do anything wrong it will blow up in your face.). sorry I accidentally pressed new thread so if someone could delete this or move it to the poll on homemade store or tell me how to do it, do it please.
Last edited by joannaardway on Sat May 20, 2006 9:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
WEIRD WEIRD DUDE...

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DX
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Post by DX » Sun May 14, 2006 11:10 pm

Joannaardway: This is a post from a merged thread. It may be out of context.

Because a simple statement like that would not protect you from liability. Legal Disclaimers are not meant to be positive, nor soothe one's worries about injury, they are for protecting against lawsuits.
Last edited by joannaardway on Sat May 20, 2006 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun May 14, 2006 11:14 pm

How much would a licensed .org domain cost? I forgot to add that into the figure, so that could easily boost the annual fee...

I'm sure I could look at an archived screenshot or page if I wanted to...there are Google archives, Time Machine (or something like that), etc. in addition to what you suggested. I just don't want to know what you say about the "good old days" in a thread dedicated to that, considering how much you refer to them in your other posts--no offense, of course. However, I do approve of and appreciate nostalgia, so it's good to know that there are tons of archived copies floating around.

When you think about it, that really wasn't too long ago--only two or three years, tops. Seriously, you should look a little more to the future--next year, when you're gone, there will still be enough people to "carry the torch," if you will; none of the Aquatica incarnations even came close to SSC's current member population, let alone the total population of SSC, SM, and iScF; and finally, soaker homemade and modification technology is still going strong in terms of advances. You can always check back at the forums, even if you don't have time to post, and your presence will always be felt.

Well, that was a nice, long philosophical speech...

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun May 14, 2006 11:18 pm

Joannaardway: This is a post from a merged thread. It may be out of context.

Are we referring to the argument that seems somewhat dead? I believe it's settled, there's a very low probability of Bad Things happening and SSC getting sued. Of course, there's nothing wrong with "cheap insurance"...

If you accidentally pressed "New Thread," instead of "Post Reply," and if you caught the mistake while you were still in the editor and before you pressed "Submit Reply," then you can just hit the back button on your browser. If you do that, then you'll want to copy whatever text you've written so you won't have to type it all up again.
Last edited by joannaardway on Sat May 20, 2006 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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joannaardway
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Post by joannaardway » Mon May 15, 2006 12:16 pm

This is not a breakdown of the yearly costs of SSC, but a question about homemades.

I like the idea of the "BCP" thing, but there would the idiot that glued it together wrong to help neuter that idea.

Obviously, the BCP would be cheaper for the buyer, would allow them to get experience, and would give them a blueprint to get ideas for their own builds.

I think that this is as much an opportunity to get homemades popular as it is to make money.

However, I think that individual components would be a good sub-section.
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Silence
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Post by Silence » Mon May 15, 2006 8:40 pm

Of course this is also used to get others interested in soakers, especially homemades--as they can get comfortable with building them and see for themselves the difference between the weak stock soakers and powerful PVC ones. I'm all for this, and if not too many people have been supporting the selling of homemades, it looks like they like this idea, at least.

Individual components should definitely be part of such a store, but they don't need to be the focus. Why, you might ask? Because this would be informal enough for those people to ask for special changes to the kits, and with so few projected orders, those changes could be made, too. Sure, there might be people like Spinner and joannaardway who would only need to order LRT, but they're not really losing too much (if anything) by just buying a basic, but possibly unique, CPH kit.

How would such kits and individual components be ordered? You (Ben) could have an orders-only thread or subforum, which would possibly increase the (hopefully active) member population. On the other hand, you could use email or PayPal or something, which would increase the number of buyers and (potential) interest in (homemade) soakers. EDIT: If anything, I'm leaning toward the first option...

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