GoodBuyGuys Blog

After holding the #1 postion in google search for the term “gaffers tape” for several years, we fell to #2 behind wikipedia and then, last week, we slipped to #3. We spend lots of time optimizing our web pages for important key words, and no key word is more important to our growth than “gaffers tape“.

After examining the page that had moved in front of us, I was really mystified. This page, originally posted in October of 2003 and containing only minimal info about the product, appeared to be primarily a site that was intended to host advertising. There were lots of links on this page to sites that actually sold gaffers tape, but these did not appear to have much useful info either.

One of the most intriguing things about this page appeared to be the addition of links to some social networking sites like digg.com and del.icio.us

I am, to say the least, mystified by how these links can improve the page rank of a page that has so little value to anyone looking for useful information.

I guess maybe its time to look at some new approaches to keeping our page rank high. Be on the lookout for Mr. Tapehead and his family at myspace!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape 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 tape products.

I’m not a chemist (don’t even play one on tv), but a phone call from a prospective customer yesterday had me thinking about how little attention I paid in high school chemistry.

The stage manager for a well known Chicago dance company was having a tape problem that I had never come across before. They were cleaning their vinyl dance floor with isoproply alcohol and had begun to have problems with gaffers tape adhesive delaminating from the tape backing. This had been their cleaning protocol for a long time but something in the adhesive’s interaction with the cleaning agent had changed. They had tried both Permacel 665 and Pro Gaffer and had encountered the same problem with both products.

Both of these popular cloth tapes use the same synthetic rubber adhesive, so I was not surprised that both tapes were having the same problem. What was a surprise was that this seemed to be a new problem. Perhaps something in the adhesive chemistry had changed.

Dance companies like squeaky clean floors and spend a lot of time and money to provide a surface that lets the dancers move seamlessly while still getting enough grip to maintiain balance. Having the cleaning solution that you have used successfully for years suddenly start leaving tape goo on the floor makes a lot of necessary work for stage techncians. Technicians who are too busy already.

The manufacturing process for making gaffers tape is complicated and there are lots of possibilities for unpredictable interactions between the tape adhesive, its release coat, and the surface to which it is applied. A roll of tape is not as simple as it looks.

I did’t have an answer or a solution for her, but we’ll dig a little deeper. Check back here to see what we come up with.

Meanwihile, if you have a tough tape adhesive removal problem, you might want to try M1 Adhesive Remover. It does a great job of removing adhesives.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, MagLite flashlights, Procell Batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Entertainment 1 extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands , and, now, Hosatech microphone cables.

If you check by here periodically, you may remember that I wrote about a change in Permacel 665 back in February. The focus of my post was about how pricing on Permacel 665 gaffers tape was out of sync with the rest of the industry and how I anticipated that further changes were in the wind.

Were they ever!

Without any warning, a pallet of gaffers tape that hit our loading dock last week was in Shurtape boxes, even though we had ordered Permacel 665. The boxes were the familiar red and white and the product info said 665, but the name Permacel did not appear anywhere on the carton. The name that has been synonymous with gaffers tape since it was first brought to market had simply disappeared.

The next day brought a couple more surprises. When we received shipments of Permacel Professional Grade Gaffers Tape and Permacel 724 Paper Label Tape they were also in red & white Shurtape boxes with Shurtape cores. The “724″ and “Professional Grade” product designations survived, but, again, no sign of the name Permacel anywhere.

Since we got no advance warning about this branding change, we were not able to build up any significant inventory of these products with the Permacel brand. Anything you get from us from now on will be Shurtape, not Permacel.

We are beginning the task of chaning the info in hundreds of web pages to show this change. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any confusion you might encounter.

If you would like to know a little more about this branding change, here is a link.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape 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 tape products.

There’s an interesting feature on NPR these days, about once a week, called “This I Believe”. It’s a modern take on a broadcast feature from the 1950’s started by Edward R. Murrow. This weeks essay features Craig Newmark, the founder of Craig’s List. A couple of things really resonated with me regarding Mr. Newmark’s essay.

Craig Newmark has consistently refused to sell his website, even though it is estimated that it would fetch tens of millions of dollars. He enjoys the community he has built and he doesnt’ want to turn it over to someone else whose motives might be very different from his own. Instead of being the CEO directing a staff who manages a huge domain in cyberspace, he spends his days in customer service. It’s what he really enjoys.

As our business grows, I find that I am constantly being drawn away from what I enjoy most-talking to customers about solving their problems. I like to think that thirty-some years in the special events business has given me some unique insights into subjects like taping down cables and choosing the correct microphone stand. Answering the phone and responding to customers’ email inquiries is the only way to know if the knowledge that I have accumulated over the years is of any real value to anyone else. Using what we learn from our customers can then be incorporated into our websites and the information is available whenever anyone needs it.

The other observation in Craig Newmark’s “This I Believe” is his continuing affirmation that most people are honest and have good intentions. I have to make decisions every day regarding whether or not it is a good idea to extend credit to a new customer. Our experience with customers defaulting on their obligations is amazing. Everyone pays their bills. The default rate is less the 1/10 of 1% and this number has been consistent for years. Having our decisions about credit constantly reaffirmed makes us feel really good about the customers who want to work with us.

I doubt if I’ll ever get around to recording a “This I Believe” essay of my own, but it is good to know I share some beliefs with a cyberhero like Craig Newmark.

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 supplies for entertainment production.

I always enjoy seeing synergy between our customers, even when they might not know that they all have a common relationship with us. When you sell an item everybody uses over and over (we call it “being at the bottom of the food chain”) then you can become a common link among lots of different customers.

One example of this synergy is coming together later this month in Greensboro. The Carolina Theatre (a long time customer of ours) is hosting the debut of Spiritual Cake, a film made as a collaboration between UNC Greensboro and Piedmont Community College. Both of these NC schools have film making curriculums and provide technicians for the North Carolina film and television industries.

Both film programs buy expendables from us and we are pleased to see their collaboration. It is a good sign that the money that the people of North Carolina have invested in education is going to the right place. The idea that there will be jobs in our state for these student film makers may be the only real reason to support the tax breaks that this industry has been given by the NC Legislature.

The debut of Spiritual Cake takes place at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro on April 20 at 7:30 pm and is open to the public. Your ticket is good for the film screening as well as a reception featuring blues and gospel music by Roy Roberts. The cost is only $10.00.

Here’s a great opportunity to support the NC arts community. See you there!

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 products for audio production.

We’ve had a satisfaction guaranteed warranty for everything we sell since the day we opened. Its unusual for someone to have a problem, but we are always happy to stand behind the guarantee, no matter why the customer is unsatisfied.

Still, it was tough to give this customer their money back. The customer was an avant garde dance company doing a performance on a vinyl dance floor that they had soaked with water (think slip & slide)

The customer was unhappy because the vinyl dance floor tape they had purchased wouldn’t stick properly. “But your website said it was waterproof“, she kep saying over and over.

After a little more discussion, I realized that she was unhappy because the tape wouldn’t stick properly AFTER they had soaked the floor. Maybe there is a tape that will stick to water, but we haven’t found it yet.

We’ll keep working on it, but name Liquid Tape is already spoken for.

Goodbuyguys.com is a collection of web sites (including buytape.com, buybattery.com, buymicstand.com, buyextensioncord.com, buyaflashlight.com and buywireties.com) designed to deliver a great selection of theatrical supplies.

Several months back I wrote about our new web site and our web developer, Dale. I predicted that his efforts would move goodbuyguys.com to page one for non-paid Google search. It took a little longer than we hoped, but Dale has made my prediction come true. Yesterday we climbed to page one for the very important key word “gaffers tape“. I check these search engine rankings all the time and this really made my day.

Which brings me to my real point about this posting. We also run Google Adwords for key products, and compete for your attention like everybody else. I look at the sites of others who buy the same adwords. When I click on their ads, I’m amazed at how little the keywords they have paid for actually appear on their pages. Why would someone pay good money for the keyword “Procell Battery” and then take you to a page that is primarily about hard hats and safety goggles? Google search is such a powerful tool for getting your products in front of potential buyers, but making your pages what Google wants to see really takes a lot of work. Work that can pay off in page one listings that cost you nothing. This diligence, day in and day out, is something at which Dale excells.

Congratulations to Dale. He is modest about his accomplishments, but I know that achieving a Page One ranking for an important key word in Google is a feather in any web developers cap.

Goodbuyguys.com is a collection of web sites (including buytape.com, buybattery.com, buymicstand.com, buyextensioncord.com, buyaflashlight.com and buywireties.com) designed to deliver a great selection of entertainment production and audiovisual supplies.

If the new mic preamp device from Sabine, called “Phantom Mic Rider“, can do what it claims, the days of the sound man may be numbered. This inline preamp plugs directly between a microphone and a mixer, at the mic end, and provides almost all of the functions the sound man would perform at a spoken word event.

I spent a lot of time spinning knobs for spoken word and televised events, and this thing would have been a life saver. It eliminates (or at least reduces feedback), provides automatic gain control when the presenter moves too close or too far from the mic, provides proximity effect equalization, controls popping “p” sounds, and, most important, includes an infrared noise gate.

The noise gate automatically turns the mic and and off, depending on how far a presenter is from the mic position. This sensor can be detached from the rest of the preamp and taped somewhere like the top of a podium if that suits your needs better.

the “Phantom Mic Rider” is phantom powered, so no battery is needed. It will work with a stand mounted or podium-style mic, and Sabine claims that its internal digital signal processing will improve the overall sound of almost any microphone.

Only one problem that I can see. The infrared noise gate is activated by body heat, and some of the presenters we’ve worked with over the years appeared to have been dead for some time!

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, and lots of other great products for the audio visual industry.

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska will always be remembered for his explanaion of the internet as being “a series of tubes“. He was widely ridiculed at the time, but now it appears that there may have been some truth to his statement.

The “tubes” I am talking about is “Yahoo Pipes“. This is an interesting new web aggregator that will allow you to control the RSS feeds and other info that is automatically delivered to your computer. It works much differently than other aggregators, and as the amount of information being offered on an number of subjects continues to increase, you really need a powerful tool to weed out the material that is of no interest to you.

Say you want to set up a news feed to keep track of when your favorite bands would be in the area. You could subscribe to a news feed about popular bands you were interested in, but you would have to wade through a lot of news that was not relevant to your town. You could monitor the web sites for venues where these sorts of bands play, but you would have to wade through info on other sorts of entertainment.

Yahoo Pipes would allow you to combine the feed about bands, the web sites for venues, a local mapping application and a calendar program. Only when the criteria that you set regarding the band, the venues, the geographic area and the dates you are interested in. You would not be bothered with a lot of info that wasn’t directly related to your specific interest.

It is good to see Yahoo come to the marketplace with something new, as they have been pretty far behind in the game of “catch up” when it comes to web innovation.

Yahoo Pipes is not the simplest service in the world to set up, but its power and uniqueness make it worth the trouble. Take a look!

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, and lots of other great products for the entertainment industry.

Yahoo recently did a very unscientific survey of the kind of cases people used for their iPods, and the results were pretty amazing. The number four choice was DUCT TAPE. That’s right, the duct tape wallet craze has moved on to iPods.

Somebody has actually started a business making iPod cases out of duct tape. These cases are colorful and durable and certainly make a fashion statement. At $16.00 each, this may be the most income ever derived from a single roll of duct tape.

Here’s how the Digital Music Weblog described these fashion accessories:

“The cases themselves are everything you’d expect from such a fun-loving company: bright colors, eye-catching, target-like designs, clear plastic windows to protect screens, the right holes for cords, and a touch wheel that works even through the case.”

They must have made a lot of these cases, because they had enough tape scraps to decorate a car:

As for that Yahoo survey, like I said, it wasn’t exactly scientific. They had a total of nine responses.

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.