Hello all and happy new year, as an update after the recent incident on ebay both accounts have now been reinstated. I have added as accurate description as possible to the sell off of our surpluss items and hope that we are being as transparent as possible.
There were some coments made about our pricing on spitfire spares and i would like to take a moment to explain how this works. Most enthusiasts sell aircraft bits as a hobby, when you start to run things as a business things change. The overheads to operate a business in this country are very high. The number one problem with running this sort of specialist website is stock. If I sell a very rare item it cannot be replaced easily and sometimes never, with most busineses they can simply ring their supplier and order more, with old aircraft parts this is not possible I have spent years building up contacts worldwide, but never get the same item twice. Next we have to cover as wide a range of aircraft and interests as possible, if we specialise in one type say the spitfire we just wouldnt come close to getting enought sales as world wide customers are in their hundreds which believe me is a very small customer base especially as we are not even close to being the only supplier. This results in valuable stock being stored for years at a time. Our overheads include wages, rent of three propertys an office and storage, we have to pay business rates on all those, on top of that are, advertising (a recent add on flypast cost us £500 ) then there are PC costs, postal charges, website charges,accountants, buying trips, accomodation, van and lorry hire the list goes on and on, thats before we pay for stock.We went to Duxford this year, we took £800, the expences came to over £900 and we had £200 worth of stock stolen! The prop building arm of the spitfiresparses cost 5K for the machine and tooling along with 3K+ spent on materials, to date we have sold three props with another 15 in stock, I had to pay wages to have all these made and this has tied up allot of capital. To list each item on the website after i have taken pictures, edited them so they fit and research the part takes on average an hour all this is done on top of a full time job. I do add allot of other bits to the website that dont earn money and are purely there as part of the service like the reference section and video/audio and i reply to allot of emails from enthuiasts looking for information, i always do my best with my limited knowledge to help. We make some repros which also cost a small fortune, i recently had a tool made to make compass card holders, it cost £700 and i still have to pay the engineers to make them, it takes years to get an investment like that back. Other repro parts are similar you need to have at least 20 made and I might sell one or two a year.
We do try very hard to get descriptions right and operate a no quibble money back quarentee. In addition we have and are helping different aviation organisations, particulary those who operate with low funding such as RAF cadets. To put things in perspective we have just completed our accounts for 2006 and have made an operating loss of £3700 which is £1300 up on last years loss of £2500. Some of this is reflected in increased stock levels and the props but I have to cover this loss out my own pocket.
I do not intend to make any more posts about Spitfire Spares specifically but hope in some way we will be seen in a different light by some of our critics, I dont make a habbit of discussing my finances in public but after some of the comments made here I wanted to set the record straight. I am more than happy to recieve critisism as long as its accurate and am always grateful for any corrections to our descriptions. I hope that there are no hard feelings with anyone,I was very angry at the time about some of the posts made about me personally and I hold no ill will towards anyone. I hope we offer a good service and even if your not a customer there is allot of worthwhile info available.If you have any sugestions on how to improve our service I will be more than happy to hear them.
Best regards to all of you including our critics and all have a good new year and good luck with all those projects.
Graham Adlam.
By: Graham Adlam - 11th January 2007 at 23:15
Graham,
I missed out on all the hoopla, but after reading all the comments I’m to assume a few people were upset about your prices and/or selling on ebay?
Whatever the isssue…my hat goes off to you and others like you that have enough courage to run a business like “spitfire Spares”. You did an excellent job mentioning some of the many problems and costs involved with selling such rare artifacts and as you mentioned…it’s definately a niche market. People should be happy these parts are even available (yeah I know they’re expensive) and not sitting on some collector’s mantle piece collecting dust instead of being used in an actual restored aircraft.
I’ve run into these types of issues while trying to obtain parts for my ball turret restoration project. There are very few dealers out there…period. And the few that are out there know how rare this stuff is and will naturally charge you an arm and a leg for it. Yeah…I don’t like it but it comes down to “supply & demand”.
Best of luck to you!
John
Thankyou: 🙂
By: jpeters - 11th January 2007 at 21:08
Graham,
I missed out on all the hoopla, but after reading all the comments I’m to assume a few people were upset about your prices and/or selling on ebay?
Whatever the isssue…my hat goes off to you and others like you that have enough courage to run a business like “spitfire Spares”. You did an excellent job mentioning some of the many problems and costs involved with selling such rare artifacts and as you mentioned…it’s definately a niche market. People should be happy these parts are even available (yeah I know they’re expensive) and not sitting on some collector’s mantle piece collecting dust instead of being used in an actual restored aircraft.
I’ve run into these types of issues while trying to obtain parts for my ball turret restoration project. There are very few dealers out there…period. And the few that are out there know how rare this stuff is and will naturally charge you an arm and a leg for it. Yeah…I don’t like it but it comes down to “supply & demand”.
Best of luck to you!
John
By: Graham Adlam - 11th January 2007 at 19:36
Thanks
Graham,
I also run my own businesses and appreciate the amount of time it takes to get things done properly.
I would note this thread down as ‘Customer Service’ rather than ‘Marketing’.
Good luck – produce a quality product and the happy customers will sing louder than the others.
APC104
Thankyou, 🙂
By: APC104 - 9th January 2007 at 20:29
Graham,
I also run my own businesses and appreciate the amount of time it takes to get things done properly.
I would note this thread down as ‘Customer Service’ rather than ‘Marketing’.
Good luck – produce a quality product and the happy customers will sing louder than the others.
APC104
By: Graham Adlam - 9th January 2007 at 15:46
spitfire spares
To be honest i dont think i can win whatever I do, the post was not meant as advertising, just trying to be honest and end any bad feeling. I always monitor the hits on the website and they havent increased,sales are 0, ill post them if anyones interested. i also said I wouldnt be mentioning the site again and I wont. To be honest you may all see some really rare stuff on ebay soon as i am seriously considering selling up. I really do appreiciate the surport posted here. Thanks for that.:confused:
By: Robert Whitton - 9th January 2007 at 15:04
I will clean up the thread and leave it open for constructive comment.
Moggy
Moderator
There are two word in this statement that really sums things up. “Constructive comment”.
All power to people like Graham, Stuart etc who actually “preserve”, “restore”, “re-build” cockpits and aircraft rather than just takling about it and making non-constructive comments. I far prefer reading about them rather than comments from, those who criticise roundels being inches out of place or who dont like colour schemes. We all dont have the expertise to get things 100% correct.
By: Peter - 9th January 2007 at 14:56
thanks Moggy c
Thanks for taking the time Moggy to view and clean it up.:)
By: Moggy C - 9th January 2007 at 14:49
I have considered this thread.
Kev’s raising the possibility of a breach of the advertising rules was fair enough. But reading the original post there is little ‘direct’ promotion in it, and the author didn’t even include a website link in his signature. It is also a post with some interesting information about the economics of something directly related to aviation history.
On balance I therefore have decided to let it stay, as also Kev’s posts.
Whether we believe the explanation of the earlier events is up to each of us individually. But no purpose is served here by petty sniping.
I will clean up the thread and leave it open for constructive comment.
Moggy
Moderator
By: Hatton - 9th January 2007 at 13:34
As Mr. Adlam seems intent on making posts which promote his business, shouldn’t these posts be considered to be breaking Rule 6 of the Code of Conduct?
“6) Blatant advertising of products and services is unacceptable, if you wish to advertise please contact our advertising team on +44(0)1780755131 or email [email]info@keypublishing.com[/email]”
Seems pretty blatant to me.
regards,
kev35
Kev, if we were to take issue with Mr Adlams postings then surely you should take issue with the many other similar posts that are on this forum which advertise products on private sites or members own items on ebay.
He’s hardly the first. Sometimes these items seem to be of genuine interest to some people.
kind regards, Steve
By: TEXANTOMCAT - 9th January 2007 at 13:33
Well Said Bruce, though I see Kevs POV
TT
By: Bruce - 9th January 2007 at 13:29
I dont believe this is advertising personally; it is Mr Adlams chance to respond to unkind remarks made about him on a previous (now closed) thread.
Bruce
By: kev35 - 9th January 2007 at 12:08
Simon.
“Cheap shot. He has given an honest and up front account of how his business is run and even asked for people to contact him with any issues they have. Why should that incur your wrath?”
My wrath? No, not wrath, just the fact that it appears Mr. Adlam is being allowed considerable leeway regarding advertising contrary to the Code of Conduct. Will Key extend the same courtesy of free advertising to everyone wishing to advertise their business here? Just for information I use a different font size for wrath.
“I hope he isn’t deterred from remanufacturing Spitfire parts by some self important plane spotters.”
Self important? Almost certainly. Plane spotter? If you ever see me recording a registration that is not connected to a photograph I have taken would you please do me the courtesy of shooting me?
Regards,
kev35
By: SimonH - 9th January 2007 at 11:58
As Mr. Adlam seems intent on making posts which promote his business, shouldn’t these posts be considered to be breaking Rule 6 of the Code of Conduct?
“6) Blatant advertising of products and services is unacceptable, if you wish to advertise please contact our advertising team on +44(0)1780755131 or email [email]info@keypublishing.com[/email]”
Seems pretty blatant to me.
regards,
kev35
Cheap shot. He has given an honest and up front account of how his business is run and even asked for people to contact him with any issues they have. Why should that incur your wrath? Even if it was an advert, how many Spitfire builders visit this forum? And even if he did sell more Spitfire parts to rebuilders as a result of this post, doesn’t that mean more projects get a step closer to completion and therefore more aircraft in the air? Maybe you would prefer he went bust and so another source of Spitfire spares dries up? I really wonder about some of the people on this forum sometimes.
I say good luck to the guy and I hope he isn’t deterred from remanufacturing Spitfire parts by some self important plane spotters.
By: kev35 - 9th January 2007 at 10:43
As Mr. Adlam seems intent on making posts which promote his business, shouldn’t these posts be considered to be breaking Rule 6 of the Code of Conduct?
“6) Blatant advertising of products and services is unacceptable, if you wish to advertise please contact our advertising team on +44(0)1780755131 or email [email]info@keypublishing.com[/email]”
Seems pretty blatant to me.
regards,
kev35
By: Mark V - 8th January 2007 at 23:12
cant win.:confused:
That’s ebay 🙁
By: Graham Adlam - 8th January 2007 at 22:07
Graham,
I watched with dismay at the goings on just before Christmas and I must say it takes a lot of heart to forgive, you have obviously made a strong commitment to supplying spares in a very narrow and competitive market.
I wish you and your company all the very best for the new year.
Regards,
John.
Thankyou.:)
By: Graham Adlam - 8th January 2007 at 21:33
confused
Not a good idea, they do not allow static or active links to other sites. Best to play by their rules.
all the new adds had the www and .co taken off still showing as links?????? cant win.:confused:
By: Arabella-Cox - 8th January 2007 at 17:09
Not a good idea, they do not allow static or active links to other sites. Best to play by their rules.
Ah…. didn’t know that, sorry (insert embarrased smiley 😮 )
By: Mark V - 8th January 2007 at 15:51
No problem. Or you could leave in the www, and just change the ~dot~ to a ~commer~ so the link is there but disabled (if you see what i mean)
Cheers………;)
Not a good idea, they do not allow static or active links to other sites. Best to play by their rules.
By: Arabella-Cox - 8th January 2007 at 07:31
Thanks didnt really mean it to come out as a link just typed in the web address and it popped up, will take out the www. that should so it.
No problem. Or you could leave in the www, and just change the ~dot~ to a ~commer~ so the link is there but disabled (if you see what i mean)
Cheers………;)
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January 7, 2007 at 2:51 pm