Geocaching Australia Shop - One year on

[caughtatwork]

The Geocaching Australia shop opened its electronic doors on 5-Nov-2009.
We are now 1 year on from that date (give or take a few days) and we have done very well.

We have processed 529 orders from Australia, United States, Spain, United Kingdom, Canada, Czech Republic, Netherlands.
We have gone from 2 items in the shop (both sticker items) to 19 items the majority being pathtags, but still some stickers as well as the cloth patch and stash notes. The Geocaching Australia logo is well adapted to most things we have designed, so woodiebro deserves a special thanks for the wonderful design.

We purchased $9,801.50 worth of stock
We sold $14,392.00 worth of stock.
We have $1,367.81 worth of stock (purchased value) or $4,997.50 (retail value) left.
According to those numbers we have $4,590.50 profit*.
Tax has been taken care of, so this amount goes directly to Geocaching Australia.

* I am not an accountant so I'm not quite sure whether this is true profit or not, but that's what I have in cash. I think stock on hand at the original purchased price should also be included in here, but I haven't. If anyone here is an accountant, let me know what I should do with that.

We lost about 6 orders in the mail worth around $150.00
While we advise on the site that we are not accountable for lost mail, I have made good on every lost order and provided a replacement order at no cost to the customer.

We have given away 300 tags for the "10th Anniversary" at a nominal cost of $428.83.
We have given away, or set aside to give away, 200 "100 GCA finds" tags at a nominal cost of $347.44

Stamps, envelopes, cardboard stiffeners, zip lock bags, PayPal fees, etc are all covered by the $2.00 per order P&H fee. On some we lose, on some we win, so I'm calling this pretty even.

In the interests of full disclosure, as the designer of the tags I get some of each tag designed. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again just for transparency sake.

On behalf of the Geocaching Australia community, I would like to thank everyone that has made a purchase or donation through the Geocaching Australia shop. I'll admit I had no idea how the shop would go in terms of being a method of raising enough money to pay for our yearly web server hosting costs. I was hoping to get enough to make donation contributions kept to a minimum and thanks to everyone who has made a purchase, we have enough to cover the next 3 years or so.

Just because we have met out target and a surplus for a couple of years does not mean the shop will close down. The shop will continue as we continue to think about the sorts of Geocaching items we believe you would like to buy.

I will be overseas for December and the first week of January so the shop will be closed during that period of time. I will update the shop front page shortly to advise this, so if you're looking to get some goodies for Christmas stockings, I recommend you proceed with all haste earlier rather than later.

Thanks to everyone from the community who has supported the site via the shop.

[Damo.]

That's incredible!
All those pathtag junkies getting their fix.
Fantastic effort. I can't imagine the hours that you must have put in stuffing envelopes to achieve this.
Well done!

[allrounder]

That's fantastic C@W! Keep up the good work!!

Pathtag junkies?! I'm not sure that I know what Damo. is talking about!

[Zalgariath]

And the service, as with everything on GCA, has been exceptional ...on all one of my orders... and one reward Still, top work!

[pwags]

Many thanks to Peter for providing this exceptional service to the GCA community. We all appreciate your hard work, and it looks like it has been worthwhile.

Cheers!

[rogerw3]

I for one appreciate all the hard work and dedication that Peter puts in getting all those orders packed and posted without delay, not to mention all the reward Pathtags.
I am sure that this is not a Pathtag addiction, it is only a very mild interest, I can stop anytime I want, by the way expect an other order from me in the next few days!

[mundoo]

Well done.

From a consumer point of view I find the CGA shop one of the easiest I use. Clean layout, easy to find 'stuff', payment easy, status of order updates and the service provided by Peter in actually getting the ordered items out into the post is exceptional.

[oldfella]

Well done Peter.

Looking forward to 2011. If I was perforing a CDE report on you I would run out of paper. On the other hand my 3year old's grandsons Kindy teacher would run out of Gold Stars if he was glueing them on the chart. Enjoy your break and happy Christmas and all the best for 2011

[Dvixen]

Glad to see GCA has server cost cushion! Well done!

[blossom*]

great shop, brilliant service and incredible dedication - a huge thanks

[rogerw3]

Is c@w amazing or what?
Order placed 20:51, received email goods ready to ship 20:53!
Where else are you going to find this kind of service.
Peter you are the best.

[walenators]

Fantastic service, and fast. Thanks for the effort.

We have just placed another pathtag order and got the GCA backstamp on the tag, which provides a donation to GCA. Happy to help out but it looks good also.

Regards,

Lisa and Wal
________________

walenators