A good cache container as an investment

[Sky Dog]

Good on you for speaking to management. It's fantastic that they have become a sponsor.

I guessed the market would be pretty small compared to their main markets.
However what often happens in product development is that you get serendipities along the way. They may find that a container designed specifically for caching may have many other applications e.g. as a "ruggedised lunch box" for the construction industry, fishermen etc.

[stringy]

You know I don't really understand why you put film canisters as last on your list. Way past chinese food containers.

[zactyl]

PS: i can also inform you that the definative answer on the correct pronunciation of "Sistema" is this way. It is not sistemmmma its pronunced as though you were saying...Sisteeeeema

Now you're just saying it with a New Zealand accent...

[the farmers 5]

Good on you for speaking to management. It's fantastic that they have become a sponsor.

I guessed the market would be pretty small compared to their main markets.
However what often happens in product development is that you get serendipities along the way. They may find that a container designed specifically for caching may have many other applications e.g. as a "ruggedised lunch box" for the construction industry, fishermen etc.

Further news on Sisteema containers for Geocachers,as asked by Skydog. i was speaking to Management in New Zealand yesterday re the Oz Mega Wagga Wagga event and mentioned that on the Australian forums there is some keen interest in Geocachers buying some specific style Sisteema containers.
It is like this....if they have to change a design specification on any size container ( EG: putting in a pen clip half way down the side of a the wall on the inside) the new design cost is $90,000.
But they can do some camo on containers EG:...army camo or all brown or all green on size 200 ml, 400ml and 1 litre.The cost of this is minimal.We would have to find someone like Aaron at the Geocachestore to distribute them and there is a minimum of an order of 5,000 per size.But over all of Australia and with teams numbers growing,i think everyone would be a winner.
You must remember ,that Sisteema had never heard of Geocaching until the Oz Mega Wagga Wagga event,so this is a new market for them .Plus there is huge interest this week after a Geocaching story was done on the Sunday Show this week in New Zealand.He is sending over the story and i will post it for all to see.

So, overall,Geocaching camo containers can be done and will probaly happen with good support.

[Dik:]

I have bought coloured Sistema before, 200ml in red and blue. They had stickers on them, one was Bob the Builder, can't remember the other, so colour is an option for them.
With camo being trendy, I recon there would be a market for a camo lunch box, but the multi-colour plastic might be tricky to mould.

[Sky Dog]

It will be interesting to see what Sisteema think after the Wagga weekend.

$90K for a new design (including design + tooling) sounds about right if the tooling was made in NZ. This would be for a totally new design (with input from the GC community of course).

Let's say manufacturing cost is about $2 (for raw material + labour + machine time). Retail would be about $6 - $7.

If profit is $4 per container, you'd need to sell about 23k containers to recover the setup costs.

Not sure if the ANZ geocaching market is big enough. Perhaps the worldwide market...?
Alternatively they could do a multi-purpose container (with GC as a primary purpose) that would have a much larger market.

[Yurt]

Just a question on ammo boxes: are they still being made or are they left over from some enormous army surplus stockpile? They seem quite cheap for what they are.
I can recall having one as a kid to keep all the toy soldiers and tanks in - quite appropriate. This one was a bit different to the cache ones I find. It had leather straps and was lined with something (too far back to remember) and was secured with leather straps and buckles not the lock down type you see here. I think it could be opened at both ends as well. Wonder where it ended up?

[calumphing_four]

With Sistema being a NZ company, it shouldn't take much to talk them into producing a container that is all Black.
Would only need to add a small piece of black tape to cover the any logo on it.

[J_&_J]

I have a test I use: I put some paper in the container, then put it on a step in the swimming pool, under as many bricks as are needed to hold it under the water. A day later, I remove the bricks, then the lid and see if any water's got in.

I tried the underwater test last night with a 200Ml Sistema in a 15L bucket of water and a brick. As I expected, the weight of the brick on the lid sealed it quite well.
Then I wedged the brick in on a 45° angle against the side of the bucket, leaving a gap under the brick into which I inserted the Sistema. with no pressure holding the lid down, it leaked like a sieve.
So I guess these containers could be good if you place a large rock on top of it, and hope finders leave the cache that way.