Catalog

It's been awhile since my last post.  I have been working hard on our new catalog and trying to decide what to take out and what to put in.  This is the first time I have done this and so far I have really enjoyed it.  The next step will be to double check everything from copy, skus, prices, and images.  Overall, this process will take a couple months from the time we started, to when it gets mailed out to the end users.  I tried to make my impact on my product line and hope that it drives good sales our way.

With my official first quarter almost over, I am happy to say it was a successful first quarter.  My product lines have exceeded last years totals for the third quarter compared to last year.  I am hoping to continue this momentum into our fourth and usually best quarter of the year as holiday spending goes up and departments spend up their budgets.

While we dont publish firearms on our website, we do publish them in our catalog for people to see.  One of the coolest guns that will be in our newest catalog is made by DPMS, called the PDW.  While it is restricted to LE agencies because of the barrel length, it would be very fun to play around with.

http://www.dpmsinc.com/PDW_ep_115-1.html

Until next time....

Green lasers are cooler than red ones

Well I survived my first fantasy football draft on Wednesday.  It only took 2 hours and 15 minutes with 12 guys.  I had the third pick, so I was able grab Ray Rice from the Ravens.  I chose him over Lynch because of his pass catching ability, since we get a point per reception in the league.  Overall, my team looks ok, it's so hard to tell after the draft.  It wouldnt shock me to be one of the best teams or one of the worst teams.  It's all about playing the right guys during the right week and hoping our opponent doesnt have huge weeks from their guys.  My only goal is to try to win my division and at least make some money.

Yesterday I went out to Maple Plain, MN to visit Viridian.  Viridian makes green laser sights for both handguns and rifles.  I got to see those whole manufacturing process from start to finish.  A lot goes into making laser sights for guns.  It was cool to see this side of the industry, as I usually just see the finished product.  Viridian has come up with some really cool, innovative lasers for handguns.  They recently came out with lasers for Ruger LCPs and LC9s.  In about a month, they will release one for the Smith & Wesson Shield.  One of the best features about getting your laser from Viridian is that you get a pocket holster with the sight that has a magnet in the holster that automatically turns off the laser when you holster the gun.  This way you can always have the laser on and dont have to fumble turning it on when drawing the gun.  They also make kydex holsters for the popular gun models like Glock, Smith & Wesson, and Springfield XDs, that do the same thing when they are using the Viridian X5L or C series laser and light combos.

Why a green laser?  Well green is easier to see in both the dark and in bright light.  This makes it much easier for the eye to find in intense situations.

Check out the X5L

http://policehq.com/Products/VGL-X5L

Presentation

Tonight is my last day of Global Economics.  This class was very challenging, but also an important class to take.  I feel like I learn quite a bit about how the global economy works and how intertwined we all are.  In class tonight, my group was one of two (go figure) to be picked to present our project.  Our project was to take a country and introduce a new product into it.  We had to discuss the cultural, political, market, and economic risks involved with the country.  The country that we used was Germany, but we had trouble figuring out a product.  So instead, we chose to use Target as our product.

After doing our research and analyzing the risks involved, my group decided that Target should not move into Germany at this time.  Some of the major reasons for this finding are that Germany has Europe's oldest population, starting business is costly, and the unknown future of the Euro and eurozone's debt crisis.  Target just opened in Canada and are learning that life is not peachy in a market very similar to the US.  A country like Germany would provide an even bigger challenge than Canada.

Magpul mags are still readily available.  We have an online sale going on for both Gen 2 30 rounders.

http://bit.ly/17KAAsd

Championship Game

My hockey team won last night, meaning we are playing in the championship game next Sunday in our league.  What does the winning team get?  The coveted T-shirt!  Yep, we pay a lot of money to win a T-shirt.  I actually have one, from when we won a couple years ago.  It is as exciting as it sounds, a white T-shirt with the Minnesota Wild logo on it.  I did chip in with two goals last night, so I dont just take up space on the ice every game.

It is also time to start studying for my fantasy football drafts.  This year, I am in two leagues, one which is going to have an auction style draft.  I am pretty excited for this, since I have been hearing for the last five years that this is the way to play fantasy football.  Many of my league members have been hesitant to try this, so we had to do a second league with 8 of us to be the guinea pigs.  I am glad we are drafting in the next few weeks.  With all the injuries in preseason, it is nice to do it as close as possible to the start of the season.  I will fully admit that I really want AP on my team(s).

During Streichers Days, a rep from Command Arms came in to show me their new Red Dot Reflex Sight.  This sight was very impressive and comparing it side by side with EoTech showed that it should be a force to be recon with in this category.  To check it our for yourself click on the link.http://policehq.com/Products/CAA-AQC1B

Textbooks

It is almost the end of the summer and time to order text books for the fall semester.  My wife asked me to order her books for her for her upcoming classes and clinicals.  Well 13 books later and $650 later, her books are ordered.  It's crazy that textbooks cost that much and that we are still using them in today's highly technical society.  Couldnt we just download a copy for a tenth of the price?  I know you can rent them to save money, but one of her books actually cost more to rent then to buy.

This made me start to look at my text books for the semester.  My books havent been that bad so far, so I figured it would be even close to her total.  Well it isnt $650, but it will still going to be around $200 if I buy them.  Luckily I will be able to rent both of these and it should be under $100.  So this will only set us back $750 for the semester in books.  I cant wait until December when we are shopping again for spring.

I worked on my first magazine ad this week.  We advertise in Recoil magazine and I used co-op funds from EoTech to pay for the ad.  I think it turned out pretty good and I look forward to seeing it when the next issue is published.  Hopefully it will bring in some new business as there will be a free shipping code for your next online order on it.

Since EoTech is paying, I better at least give a link for my product of the day.  These are new and featured in the Call of Duty games.  It's a very nice setup for an AR if you have the money.

http://policehq.com/Products/EO-HHS1#.UgEzaZKsiM4

One Week

Well Streicher's Days is almost here.  By this time next week, I will be looking out my window seeing a giant tent filled with customers and vendors.  We are still finalizing last minute deals for customers, but hopefully it will be a successful event.  In the past, we have been extremely busy on Thursday and less busy on Friday, the second day of the event.  I would expect that same this year, as we will have the same stuff going on both days.  There was talk about having another big draw on Friday, to get more traffic, but that didnt go anywhere.  The big draw of the event is for customers to donate a pair of pants the the Salvation Army and they receive $20 off any pair of 5.11 pants.  This is a slight modification from the last few years, as it was 50% off off tactical pants.  While 50% is about $5 more on most tactical pants, this years discount can be used towards uniform pants and their other high end pants like the Traverse.

Besides the pants, we will be offering specials on a number of things.  We have a few updated on the Streicher's days webpage.  We will be having a separate sale online during the event.  Certain things are forbidden from being sold online at a discount, but there will be certain things online that are not in the store.  It will hopefully be a nice balance.

http://policehq.com/content/streichers-days

Thirsty Thursday

I am actually not going to talk at all about drinking, sorry to disappoint you.  Well I made it through another paper for school.  This one was shorter, only four pages.  It was almost rougher though, since I had to cram a lot of information on the US economy in a four page paper.  I actually do feel I have a better understanding of how the economy works and what things really mean when they are talking about consumer confidence, consumer price index, value of the dollar, etc.

This week I get to write a paper on the US trade policy and how I might change it or implement new ideas.  I am leaning more and more towards free trade and opening markets to foreign competitors, even if it costs the US jobs in the short run.  I have learned that we as a nation pay close to a billion (yes a B) dollars a year paying rice farm subsidies.  Little did I know, and probably most people, that Arkansas is the largest producer of rice in the US.  The problem seems to be is other areas of the world produce rice at a much more efficient rate then we do here, but we still pay out these subsidies which just causes overproduction and inefficient methods.

Two more weeks until Streichers Days at work.  Still finalizing the details of all the specials we are going to have.  This has been a completely different process for me compared to the past.  Up until last week, I felt like it wasnt going well, and we really didnt have much ready.  What a difference a week makes, now I feel better as we have finalized more details with vendors, with purchase orders placed and product delivered for the big event.

For more details visit our Twitter https://twitter.com/PoliceHQ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/PoliceHQ

Until next time........