GoodBuyGuys Blog

Buybattery.com is about batteries. Duracell Procell batteries. The kind you use in flashlights, wireless mics and electronics. We don’t sell automotive batteries, but maybe we should.

Here’s what happened to me yesterday.

I have to keep lots of vehicles on the road. Seven at the moment. They all need batteries. In fact our trucks all use dual batteries.

I bought a battery for an older car that I don’t drive very often, so I decided to get a really good one so I could start this cart up every month or so, even if I wasn’t driving it regularly. I went with Interstate, supposedly one of the best batteries you can buy. I got a 75 month model, one of the best you can buy.

Well, after 34 months that battery failed. It wouldn’t hold a charge. In fact, it wouldn’t even take a charge. Since I thought I had gotten the best warranty available, I assumed that I could just take it back to the dealer and get a replacement-with some sort of pro rating, of course.

Boy, was I wrong. Since I had bought the battery through our company account, the manufacturer, Interstate, claimed my car was a “commercial vehicle”, so the warranty was immediately cut in half. Interstate would not offer any warranty support. The dealer, a company that I had done business with for years, simply washed their hands of the whole matter, so I was out of luck.

Interstate, a privately held company with $650 in annual sales could have solved this problem for just a few dollars and made a customer for life. Instead, they claimed more warranty exceptions than any warranty I have ever seen.

The results:

~I will never buy another Interstate battery. That’s a fleet of seven vehicles, and growing, that will never use another of their products;

~I will never buy another battery from this local dealer, a company that has had my business for over 20 years;

~I will take every opportunity I get to make sure and tell this story to anyone who will listen.

Interested in how a honest warranty that really cares about the customer should work? Here’s ours.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies

We sell tape. Every box we ship is sealed with tape. Almost every box we ship contains tape. Sometimes it seems like we live and breathe tape.

Still, for some reason we have trouble making the boxes that leave our loading dock every afternoon look like we even know how to use tape.

A lengthy discussion with our fulfillment manager, Alan Garrard, opened my eyes to something about carton sealing tape that I had never thought about before.

Alan is left handed and he pointed out to me how it is almost impossible for a lefty to use a standard carton sealing tape gun. I was concerned about how our boxes looked sloppy, with stretched, crooked tape beads and ragged cuts. After watching Alan battle with a conventional tape gun, I realized how hard it was to meet the sort of standard I wanted to see in our carton sealing.
A quick Ebay search turned up a tape gun designed for left handed use. We ordered it and the problem was immediately solved. I am looking for a good source for this item so that we can add it to the selection of carton sealing guns we already offer.

Alan was featured in our September newsletter. When he’s not working with GoodBuyGuys at Harrison Bros. he is a musician and song writer. He and his band, Alan Garr and Interstate Three have just released a new album. Here’s a link where you can hear some of their tunes and purchase the recording.

I took a call this morning from a customer interested in our M1 Adhesive Remover. We have just recently added some cleaning products to our web site, and this led to an interesting discussion with our new customer.

First off, his application for M1 was the removal of mildew. Most of our customers use it to get adhesive residue off their cables, so mildew removal was a new application for us. I am going to give it a try. This customer says that it is much better than chlorine bleach.

The more interesting part of our discussion was posed by his question “Why is this stuff so hard to find?”. M1 is made by a small company in Georgia and you won’t find their products in Home Depot or Wal Mart. No surprise there. These national retailers make you jump through lots of hoops to get on their shelves and lots of small manufacturers don’t even try. Even if you do succeed, pricing pressures by the retailer may mean that you never really make any money.

He found us on the web, using a Google search . I tried it myself, and was amazed to find that our site, thetapeworks.com was the first site on the page. It struck me as odd that we would score better than the maker of the product. In fact, the maker of this stuff could not be found anywhere in the first five pages of search results. I finally got tired of looking.

While we are happy to have a page 1 ranking, it is really surprising that so many businesses continue to miss out on such a powerful tool for building brands and selling their products.

Got a suggestion for using M1 or an observation about brand building on the web? Let us know.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies

One of my favorite blogs is engadget. Every day brings info about a “must have” item or something that I wish had been available when I was working as a sound person.

I got out of the sound business at about the time digital consoles and speaker management really began to overtake the sound reinforcement industry, so my background in “hands on” experience with this type of equipment was really limited. Still, I understood that regardless of how great the digital signal path was, sound reinforcement (or recording) still remained analog on both ends. On the input end, a diaphragm in a microphone had to vibrate, based on air movement, and a diaphragm (in this case a cone) had to vibrate, again exciting air movement, in order for someone to hear an amplified, or recorded and played back, sound.

Now it looks like there are finally some real options developing in the microphone end of the equation. The engadget posting is about a microphone that would use a laser to read data and it sounds pretty strange.

Here’s what they have to say: This device will reportedly stream damp air containing microscopic water particles through a tube, while a laser diode beams light through the vessel onto a sensor located on the opposite side. When sound waves enter the tube, the vibration of the droplets will cause the sensor to detect changes optically as the beam is disturbed, supposedly resulting in near-perfect vocal reproduction.

The inventors name is Dave Schwartz and he has a patent on the design.

Okay, lasers, streams of water, and millon dollar mics aren’t exactly ready for prime time, but at least someone is working on solving the front-end-of-the-amplified-chain problem.

What’s next? Digital gaffers tape?

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

I wouldn’t be one to say that “any publicity is good publicity” but publicity like this is great.

We were mentioned in a recent print addtion of “Better Homes and Gardens-Wood ,a magazine about woodworking as a source for gaffers tape. I don’t really know if may of our customers use this great product in woodworking, but it is a great solution for all kinds of shop problems. Our companion site, thetapeworks.com was actually the site the magazine referenced in its Pick the Best Tape for Every Job article. The article is on page 30 of the summer print issue.

We enjoy hearing from customers outside our core group of audio visual and entertainment production technicians who use our products for lots of applications that are new to us. It is a great way to expand our customer base and it often leads to new products that we add to our catalog.

Got a suggestion for a new use for our products. Let us know and we’ll start a “tips” page at GoodBuyGuys.com.

Here’s what Better Homes and Gardens has to say about gaffers tape. They call it “Heavy Duty Duct Tape” and recommend that “when standard duct tape won’t hold, use its big brother“. “Heavier fabaric and twice the adhesive create a firm grip on rough surfaces. Use it to: reinforce tool handles and hold together metal pipe sections and fittings for a dust collection system.”

“Thank you”, Better Homes and Gardens. It’s great to get noticed by such an important publication.

I read a lot of audio, video and special events trade magazines (most of them are free) and I have been struck lately by the apparent age of the technicians that are profiled. The average age of most of these technicians seems to be getting much older, an oberservation that is confirmed by my own real world experience. It seems odd that an industry (concert sound) that was only really invented in the 1970’s is graying so fast. It seemed so exciting back in the early days and the desire of young college students and musicians to be part of something with such great potential seemed insatiable. How quickly things have changed.

For many years, our offices were located in a Main Street (literally) storefront, only a few blocks from a major university campus. Just like April showers, I could count on a steady progression of job seekers (both new gradutates and summer job hunters) looking for some opportunity to be in the entertainment business.

During our last several years at that location (we have since moved to larger quarters) this flow slowed to a trickle. With all the opportunities afforded to bright people to make more money in fewer hours with less physical demands really seemed to take the luster off of an opportunity that seemed so exciting to me and many others only 20 or so years earllier.

If the willingness of a young person to get on the tour bus or behind the wheel of a truck is still the path to real innovation in the concert production industry, then we may be in trouble. Most of the innovations that have been realized today (intelligent lighting, line arrays, etc.) came from the real world experience of hands-on techs.

Without the need to solve problems on the fly (the way so may innovative ideas came into being) then new ideas may really become scares.

Got ideas on this subject? Let me know.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

We have avoided selling rechargeable batteries because we just really didn’t feel like the technology currently available gave good value to the customer. The combination of the cost, the decreased battery life over time, and the inability to predict performance over time has meant that our primary battery customers-those who use batteries in wireless microphones-couldn’t count on rechargeables to dependable meet their needs.

While we still don’t recommend rechargeable batteries for wireless mics, I just came across a rechargeable battery that may be just too cool to pass up.

The USB Cell from Moxia Energy, a British company, uses a computer USB port to recharge a AA battery. What could be handier than a battery that can be recharged while you work and doesn’t require a dedicated charger. While this battery may not have a discharge rate that is reliable enough for a wireless mic, there are lots of applications where it would be great.

People who travel with lots of electronic devices can now leave the battery charger at home and walk right by the overpriced batteries at the airport kiosk.

Unlike most rechargeable batteries that must be fully discharged, the USB cell can be inserted into a computer port for just a few minutes for a quick “top off”.

This item could save tons of money for gamers, and anyone who travels with both a computer and an MP3 player or radio that uses AA batteries. Cameras, flashlights and remote controls can all use the USB Cell.

We are in contact with the UK manufacturer, in hopes of becoming a US distributor. Check back here to see if we can make this available.

I spend a lot of my time on the phone with new customers. Having a great crew to take care of shipping orders, purchasing from vendors, managing web sites and taking care of administrative duties means that I get to talk with people who use our products. It is the best part of my job. Today we have posted a number of spec sheets about gaffers tape. Prospective customers want to know about the differences in the gaffers tapes we sell and these spec sheets hopefully will provide some of the information they are seeking. Until you have used a number of different products, it is hard to understand how something as seemingly insignificant as one mil (1/1000 of an inch) in tape thickness can make a difference. You’d be amazed at how much easier it is to handle a 12 mil tape than a 10 mil tape. Often prospective customers want to know why the gaffers tape we sell is more expensive than some others that they have heard of. The specs tell the tale.

When comparing tapes, here are the three most important specs to check out:

1.Thickness-Gaffers tape is offered in thickness as thin as 10 mils. Choose a tape of at least 11.5 mils (12 mils is better). It won’t c-u-r-l back and stick to itself, is stronger and tears more cleanly.

2.Adhesion-“Adhesion to steel” is the quantifiable spec for determining how sticky a tape is. Look for an adhesion number of at least 60 oz. per inch to insure that the tape will hold properly.

3.Adhesive composition-The best gaffers tape uses a synthetic rubber adhesive. Less expensive products use an acrylic adhesive which is not as strong and which will not stand up to tough environments. Our comparison page includes both products we sell and others that are offered by our competitors. Hope you find it useful.

I got the answer to my question about copper in the CopperTop a lot sooner than I expected and it certainly wasn’t the answer I had hoped for.As you may well be aware, Gillette, the maker of Procell Batteries, has been taken over by Proctor & Gamble, one of the largest consumer products companies in the world. They are now in the process of implementing this take over with their distributors (including goodbuyguys.com) and the first thing they did was announce a price increase, effective 1 January 2007. Welcome to the neighborhood! In their letter to us they cite the increase in raw materials to justify the price increase and specifically reference an increase of 128% in the price of copper, as well as an increase in the costs of zinc and nickel. Both Duracell and Procell alkaline batteries will feel this price increase at the first of the year.This is our first experience with P&G and it remains to be seen if they honor the pledge outlined in the price increase letter to only raise prices to recover costs already incurred, rather than to do it on speculation.We are hopeful that a company with the resources to provide both product and info on a massive global level will be willing to serve the small but growing distributor at the same level Gillette has served our market. Check back here to see how they are doing.

To tell you the truth, selling audio visual supplies is not always the most exciting thing in the world, even when you are working with really great customers.

That is why we jumped at the chance to be involved in a really exciting art project in Durham, a city just a few miles from here that is enjoying a wonderful arts-centric revival in its downtown area.

I got a call recently from a good friend-Frank Konhaus, a former co-worker of mine at Duke University and the founder of Kontek ,an audio and video design company located in a beautiful award winning restored building in Durham. Frank and his wife Ellen Cassilly were organizing a project for downtown Durham that would bring French installation artist and photographer Georges Rousse to town to do installations in a number of historic buildings that were slated for renovation. That was good news. The great news was, The Rousse Project needed tape!

Let Frank tell you a little more about how the GoodBuyGuys got to be involved in something really cool.

“Among the many things requested by French photographer and installation artist Georges Rousse when he came to Durham to do 4 site-specific

public art projects was tape of various types. We called Jeff and he

sent us a box of Gaffers tape, painters tape,caution tape, duct tape,

marking tape, glow tape and some other mystery tape.

We have used EVERY ONE of them! We are using the barricade tape to mark

off the public access routes to the sites, the gaff tape to block out

windows, the painters tape to mark off all painting patterns specified

by the artist, the caution tape to keep folks away from the critically

positioned tripod, and the duct tape for everything else. Thanks to you

guys for helping us make this happen.”

If you would like more information or would like to make a donation, you can visit rousseprojectdurham.com or contact Frank at info@rousseprojectdurham.com.

The project is ongoing right now and there are a number of events open to the public. Dont miss the chance to see this exciting work.

Harrison Bros. and GoodBuyGuys.com are grateful for the support we receive from lots of local arts organizations-groups like Carolina Ballet, Duke University Special Events and the UNC Center for Public Television. They have helped us grow and we are proud to be part of such a vibrant arts community.