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Coop Heaters??


DavidR
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Per the livestream I wouldn't say it's certain or not if it will show up as a SKU on the site. Sounds like there's too much to juggle and they are trying to have long term data in order to figure out if they want to release it. Mind you, it would be great if they had a limited release of them so the C.A.R.E. folks could test them, but I'm sure he has plenty of data points from his current list of Guinea Pigs. 

Until an official thing comes out saying "Heaters dropping in the store!" or something to that effect, I wouldn't hold out too long for them. 

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On 9/8/2021 at 11:45 AM, ARMYVET said:

I would have to agree with @Tihshho...Cory will not release a product unless he feels it is right and if that takes a week , a month , a year ...or 10 years it will not go until he feels its right.  Thats why I have no reservations buying his products.

The only kicker with long time testing with big name manufacturers is that you cannot always lock down what you're testing is the available product later down the line. I'm sure he has some contract negotiations involved in this, but IME dealing with OEMing products isn't easy. 

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Basically we are at a point where we've put in years searching for the perfect heater and can't find one. This will be year 2 with no heaters to sell essentially. We have one we like, but it's not perfect. We will still be looking for the perfect heater, but that could take 10 years to find/design etc. In the meantime people are buying random other heaters all the time. If a customer is going to spend say $40 on a heater, and it's a crapshoot. It may as well be from one we've tested, and will stand behind for them. As opposed to a random 30 day warranty from amazon or something.  We know this is a risk on our side and on the customer side as we don't have long term data.

My plan is to offer say a 1 year warranty at purchase in which we'll replace it if something goes wrong. Assuming that's few and far between, If it was a wide spread problem we'd pull the item from sale and refund people's money. At year two we'd likely do a 2 year warranty once mass numbers are back in. 

 

Knowing we want to "make it right" makes mistakes very expensive for us, so we'll have a disclaimer that if this thing malfunctions, and cooks your fish, we aren't liable for that. As We'd rather help 98% of people, then help no one for the next 3 years while we see how this heater goes.

I just want to be transparent with the process, every other company would just release a new heater with this minimal testing and hope for the best, and deal with the results.  I know people follow our word and want to continue that even when things go wrong because we've been upfront about expectations of a product.

Yes we'll need some help from people who buy this heater, you'll just need to let us know if it stop working. If so we'll catalog it, send you another one etc and make sure failure rate is as low as we can get on a wide spread roll out.

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I love this approach because being able to stand by what you sell makes you stand out as a business.

The other option that came to mind you didn't mention, and would be far less risk, would be to take the BRS approach and provide information publicly about the testing. You can still sell the product with a recommendation of 'this is what I would choose' but after providing the quantifiable data on each and having selling two options (best in show and best budget) and let it go from there. IMO it's great to stand behind what you sell, but when you cannot control manufacturing defects or cut corners (until you get a company who will manufacture and wholesale Aquarium Co-Op branded heaters for you to retail at the standards you wish to sell) it shouldn't be on you as a retailer to pickup the pieces for a mistake that wasn't caused by you. You do so much for the hobby, as well as all of your customers, and take so many hits based on QC and being able to provide the best there is to offer and standing behind it taking the financial hit. We as hobbyists and fans of AC need to take a step back and realize it's also on us to be able to do this testing and getting the word out there about what has worked for a lot of us long term. You as a business cannot test for everything, it's unrealistic for anyone to expect that as you don't have the time to go through it all. 

Rather than take the risk and be the one to take the hit from however many heaters are returned or failed, or broke due to negligence, I would rather see you stock a product from a company you know and trust. I'd be ok with heaters failing over time as long as I knew that the manufacturer had a good warranty, proved that heaters went into QC prior to shipping to prevent out of the box duds, and they were willing to work with the end user. Manufacturers should be held accountable, not the Co-Op. 

Obviously this is just my opinion, so anyone reading take it with as many grains of salt as you wish. 

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