Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

[AAFO_WSagar]

The question is essentially buried in the title of this message.. Would you guys be interested in a web store on AAFO.COM??

In it, we'd have, basically, whatever we could find to put in it..

This could be on the order of surplus team garb that did not sell at Reno, paintings, photos, hats, probably Gary Williams' great air racing result books.. Essentially, stuff that, with a bit of looking and effort, you could probably find elsewhere but that we'd bring together here under one roof.

The sellers would be able to liquidate whatever they wanted to sell, the buyers would find and be able to purchase items of interest easily and we would be the "middle man" implimenting the sale. In some cases, actually having the "inventory" and shipping it, in others, just handling the transaction.

Quite a while ago, I had to set up a commercial bank account and I'm already set to accept credit cards in a secure envrionment..

What I'd like a bit of feedback on is would you, the race and aviation fan, be interested in such a store??

Other items that we might be able to add... and again, would you be interested...

aafo.com stickers, similar to the ones we've been lucky enough to put on a few racers over the years,

aafo.com hats

aafo.com shirts

Ok.. lemme know your opinions, and suggestions for "stuff" that we might sell in the store, if we decide to finally go for it (this has been on the back burner for about... well... a few years) and we'll make it happen over this long winter coming up...

Wayne

[ecvsteve]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

I'll take a couple of them stickers and a tshirt and if you could get some of them racer models from overseas i'll take a Dago Red.
and any of you pilots wanna sell a ride?

keep it up Wayne.

[jarrodeu]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

Sounds like a great idea. This site just keeps getting better and better. Would teams that don't have a website be willing to sell their merchandise here also?

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

Sounds like a great idea. This site just keeps getting better and better. Would teams that don't have a website be willing to sell their merchandise here also?

That's long been the "dream" of the webstore concept here. A way to get the T's and stuff out there for teams that just don't have the inclination to get a website but are always sitting on a box or three of t's and such. I think Tiger, though he has a website with a store on it, is still sitting on a trailer full of the stuff from his days as a racer... (man, it hurts to say that!)

As the word gets out that we're going to do this, arrangements would be made with whatever team wanted to sign up. I really don't want to have to buy inventory from anybody and then sit on it and see if it sells, rather, take the order, process the funds, send them on and leave the delivery up to the item owner..

I don't have the manpower or, more obvious if I look around me, the space to keep much stuff on hand, a quick look at the bank acct says, I don't have the $$ to buy up anyone's "overstock" inventory either..

So being the middle man, turning the visits to this site into sales for the teams or individuals who have good stuff to sell would be the goal of the store.. Other than a few select items that we ourselves would produce... (maybe stickers, hats or t's) that's how I envision it..

Now, watch someone else do this and do it quicker than I can get it done now that I've put up our "business model" on line..

Wayne

[lowpasskid]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

a great idea whose time is long overdue!
hats,shirts,stickers,whatever,sell it!
RIC...

[Sailing South]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

Great idea Wayne. I need some cool race gear,pins and stickers. While in Reno we never have time to stop and shop. Damn Bearcat

Scotty

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

a great idea whose time is long overdue!
hats,shirts,stickers,whatever,sell it!
RIC...

We'll have to start very small due to the cost of getting all of this stuff made.. The last batch of stickers we had made, for instance, cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $6.00 each.. I think it actually might have been more like $8.00 but I can't remember...

When I say we operate on a shoestring here, I'm not kidding! Divulging my personal information too deeply is probably not a good idea but let's say that at 50, the company I had devoted most of my adult life to, decided that younger people could be hired at the rate of about 3:1 at the same cost as keeping me... long story short, at 50, I was put out to pasture, way earlier than I'd hoped.

I decided to give my "hobby" which was web work a run for its money to see if I could, at least, get it to pay for itself..

Trying to make a long story short, I live on a pretty small annuity from my pension plan, and try to run the "company" on its own funds.. For the first several years, this was not possible and I had to take a lot of my own dollars to keep it afloat.. As of now, it's almost self-sufficient but with no reserves. Which makes it pretty hard to foot the bill to go very deeply into T-shirt design and then stocking them..

What I *might* do is try some of the "Iron On" transfers that my large format printer says it can make. Try them out, see how well they weather a few launderings and then, if I can make them acceptable in quality, maybe either do it by buying up shirts as necessary and shipping them off on that basis, or, just selling the iron on's so you can affix them to whatever shirt you want..

Again, at this point, we don't have the resources to make any up front investment of any significance, or credit line to finance anything too large..

So, baby steps!

Of course, all of the above, would be for... AAFO.COM/PYLON1.COM branded stuff..

Trust me when I say that if we turn Mark K. loose on graphic design for stuff like T's.... we're all gonna be floored at what he comes up with!

One of the neatest things in the past year that's happend to me is the reunion of two old buds, Mark K. and Wayne S.! Mark and I started out together and built a vision.. somewhere along the trail, we came to a fork in the road, and both took different routes.. but guess what.. as do many trails, this one merged back together again!

I can't honestly say what the future holds for this site as Mark and I join forces once again to move ahead. Right now, with my recouperation from the nasty BIG C in progress here, and my committment to making the nellisairshow.com website the best website I possibly can, I find myself drained of energy to even do the simplest of updates on this site. So it's pretty hard to say where this is all going but...

There will be a lot of "freebies" given out as we get moving and there will be a place to "buy" more substantial items and spread the word about the different race teams and this website and its message!

Man, it's good to be feeling better! There was a time during my treatment that I could barely type my hands shook so badly that I could not keep them on the keys. When I'd try to read something on the screen, and go to the next line, my eyes would get stuck on the same line, over and over and over.. VERY frustrating to say the least..

Now, I'm back to fingers flyin and eyes keen and sharp!!

Whoo Hoo!

I hope all of you can get to Nellis. I'm working on announcement stuff for it and geez, it's going to be cool! The D-Day tribute flying "show" is going to be hot hot hot! Complete with mock raids with pyro and a C-47 dropping jumpers to a mock dogfight between a spit and a BF-109!!!!!

WHOO HOOO!!

Well... back to writing hyperbole about the show!



Wayne

Wayner

edit: is there an echo in here??

[Apteryx]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

[QUOTE - Would you guys be interested in a web store on AAFO.COM??
In it, we'd have, basically, whatever we could find to put in it..

&/OR a links page, by item. Team stuff, flight gear, the mandatory leather jackets.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

[QUOTE=Apteryx &/OR a links page, by item. Team stuff, flight gear, the mandatory leather jackets.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul[/QUOTE]Hummn, leather jackets ey.... here's the BEST LINK for that item that I can think of (actually, I think it might be the ONLY leather team jacket on-line in the sport of air racing) they are COOOOL!!!

Wayne

[Unregistered]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

Aloha, I think an online store would be great. Would you have air show posters available as well. I moved to Hawaii just before this years race and missed out on all the fun.

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

Aloha, I think an online store would be great. Would you have air show posters available as well. I moved to Hawaii just before this years race and missed out on all the fun.

We would not be able to sell official "RARA" branded merchandise, which the poster would be. Unless it was a "one off" someone offered to sell their poster and we handled that sale.

I suppose, we might be able to work something with RARA but since they have their own store, they would have little movitvation to let us have a little "cut" of their action..

That said, go to http://airrace.org/ and find the link to their store and they probably do have posters available from this year, as well as some year's past.

If we do it, we'd be dealing in, I guess you'd call it, specialty merchandise.

Dave Mueller, for instance, has offered us "gallery commission" if we were to sell his fine art prints. And then, of course, the other things we've mentioned above. Gary Williams' essential race record books, for another....

We'll see, it'll be "baby steps" for sure!

BTW, the poster for this year is pretty cool, be sure to go to the airrace.org site and check it out!

Wayne

[mayday51]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

...Get it on !...

........there is lots even I might be able to afford......

................NHRA teams (top fuel) even sell their "expendables"
pistons,plugs etc. I would imagine there are some of us who would like a "bit of Bear" or some fire from Dago.....(or whoever)....

..........lesse here......custom prints....oh, yea he alredy sells 'em(?)

.....


Wayne you may be temp short on head hair,

........but ya keep growin' dem wild ones !

[W J Pearce]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

I think you guys should go for it!

Bill

[dineega]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

It's a great idea!! Maybe you could sell or raffle off rides as well (like the damned T-6 ride I've been trying to win for the last 5 or 6 hundred dollars
Good for the teams and you!
I want AAFO stuff (and I want to go to Nellis - I just can't convince the boss) Maybe I should just buy the tickets and surprise him.......
R

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Question: AAFO.COM Air Racing and Aviation WebStore????

It's a great idea!! Maybe you could sell or raffle off rides as well (like the damned T-6 ride I've been trying to win for the last 5 or 6 hundred dollars
Good for the teams and you!
I want AAFO stuff (and I want to go to Nellis - I just can't convince the boss) Maybe I should just buy the tickets and surprise him.......
R

Boy dineega, you are hungry for that T-6 ride! Humn, getting someone to commit to "donating" a T-6 ride ey....

Somewhat complicated. It's actually pretty darn spendy just to run one for an hour... it's an idea, but someone would have to lay out the operating expenses.. Technically, no "for hire" rides can happen in an Experimental airplane. By raffling off a ride, I'm not sure if we would cross a line that I'm not smart enough to cross.. RARA can do it because they are a non-profit.. I'm not sure we actually could do that and stay legal.

Nobody "buys" a ride in a warbird, because that is against the regs, all rides are a gift from the owner. Sometimes there is a donation to a museum or some other entity in return for the ride but... can't *buy* a ride.

Anyway, I'm rambling again, and this time it's cause I'm tired..

All of this is a way's off, I was just "fishing" for reaction today. I can do a really classy store like the Rare Bear has for about $100. or actually, the payment service I use (PayPal) actually functions like a shopping cart in its native form.. So it's really just a matter of figuring out a few things to put in the store, adding the code to the item and then change about a million pages on the site to reflect the new link.. ouch!

Obviously, over the next few months, the site is going to get a complete rebuild, Mark K. has some really good time saving ideas on how to go bout it if he can ever bend my "do it the hard (old) way" mentality

Off to get a project done for Nellis.com before I hit the hay...? hey?? I bet our language is confusing to foreginers!!!

Wayner