Tony Constantino has asked me to post this message about the price increase in Little Lights.

The new prices have been posted on the Little Lights table at: www.HarbourLights.com/LittleLights/table.htm

The individual pages and the product search do not have the new prices updated yet. Should be done by Thursday morning. You'll see there are now three different prices $16.95, $19.95 and $21.95. Dealers and Sales Reps have been notified of the price changes.

I hope dealers have the decency to keep exsisting stock at old price!
HCS

I hope so, too, Hilari. I've got to make some purchases pretty quickly. I just don't have the space or the money for a lot more LE's, so I may have to be satisfied with more LLOM's. Thanks to Tony for the explanation regarding these increases. It's good to know that the new crew is listening to our concerns.

Is this different from the other HL models?

You're 100% right on the money with that Hilari. I hope so too.

When we had posted the Little Light price increases here last week, we had just met and talked with Tony Constantino at the Boston Gift Show. The $21.95 Little Lights did not go up in price because they determined that $21.95 was as high as the customer would pay for a Little Light.

They also determined that even though the costs have increased to produce GLOWS and limiteds, they didn't feel they could go increase those prices at this time, especially since overall sales are way down.

Tony also said that retailers would be allowed to order Little Lights (by last Friday) one final time at the old wholesale price. This allowed us to stock up on some of our local lighthouses for the next couple months, and keep the old retail price. We will maintain the OLD retail price for any Little Lights that were purchased at the OLD wholesale price. We will only raise the price of each Little Light as we replace it with the higher priced stock. We feel that most retailers will choose the other option, either for (1) ease of pricing or (2) greed. There is a certain LARGE lighthouse retailer who will look at this as an opportunity to make a higher profit margin, as they have done in other similar situations.

Thanks for the information Jim. Next time I'm up your way you'll probably be getting a visit from me.

Just got my Lighthouse Depot catalogue yesterday
and surprize, surprize, all the Little Lights are listed at the new higher price. I was just at the store April 1st and the shelf was full of stock of the Little Lights - so no way they could have sold them all and have just new stock.
This is pretty stinky of them to raise the price on the old stock they purchased at the old lower price! Even if I have to pay the higher price it will be from another dealer, as on principal I would not buy from Lighthouse Depot!
HCS

With the catalog operation I don't think they could come up with a practical way to sell some at price "A", and then switch to price "B", Hilari. It would end up way too confusing. Don't know if they also changed the store price, but I don't think they probably had much choice with the catalog.

This is the way it happens in business. Think of all the products in a store that have UPC codes - the way everything is processed today. UPC codes don't carry date information so when the price increase or decreases comes, it affects whatever is in the pipeline, in the warehouse, and on the shelves.

The only kinds of places that are not affected are the mom and pop places that label each item with a price when it arrives in the store.

BTW there were a few Little Lights that went DOWN in price too.

Jim's last statement above reads:

Soothsayer or pretty savvy person??

Sandy

A business doesn't exist to lose money. If they did, they wouldn't be in business very long. Some business owners take calculated risks and sometimes those risks lead to additional sales to make up for lost revenue. The bottom line is profit. It can be made by reducing quality through the lowering of production costs, or by raising the price.

Like many of you, I'm happy that the tradition established by Harbour Lights will continue. If the prices must go up to continue that tradition, then so be it. The ultimate dream would be a price increase may some day increase the value of the older pieces in our collections. That will only happen if Harbour Lights can get more people interested in their product to the point they will seek the older pieces on the secondary market when they can no longer find them on the dealer shelves.

I'm sure all you collectors with an inventory that would rival most dealer's stock are hoping this dream will come true.

Bob

Sorry I don't agree with you Dave. I don't think it would be hard to have two separate pages for little lights, one with old stock at old prices and one with the new stock at higher prices. Besides weren't the retailers allowed to order at the lower prices till the end of March, allowing them to stock up at the old prices?
The catalouge takes time to produced, so had to have been already been going to press in March, or early April.
I think as stated already they just looked at it as an oppotunity to make a higher profit!
HCS

Sorry I have to agree with John and Dave on this one. I would love to agree with you as I understand completely your position but you don't take into consideration simple business practices.

It would be extremely difficult for a large operation to differentiate between two identical items- say a Sandy Hook LLOM one purchased before the price change and one purchased after. they have the same stock number, the same upc information, the same packaging in other words everything is identical and there is nothing to differentiate between them except for the wholesale price paid for them.

I don't deny that there will be some extra profit made by the company but you don't take into consideration the fact that they may have many products- both HL and otherwise- that they ahve held in their inventory for months or even years in some cases and they spent money for them then and have gotten no profit on them as of yet and in some cases they may even lose money on them when they sell them having held them in their inventory so long.

This is why you see places like this having clearance sales- they've held the items so long that they need to get rid of them or continue to actually lose money on those items as they are taking up valuable space that could be used for items that move through more quickly.

In a perfect world what you want could be accomadated- or in a small operation done entirely by hand with no modern day improvements. These always have the double edge sword aspect to them- it's like when you go to the bank and can't get any info on your account because "the computers are down". Modern technolgy is wonderful except when it isn't.

Just my opinion, of course.

Dennis

I can speak from experience on this one, which is rare. I owned 2 retail auto parts stores (NAPA, and then independent) for 14 years. If we got a price increase, we could not seperate what was on the shelf from what would be on the shelves at the future new price. In our case, if a company had a price change, for example for brake shoes and pads, they would send out a new price list, both with the new cost and the new suggested retail. We would then go into our computer database and update the cost and retail prices, and from that time forward that is what we would sell it for, whether it was on our shelf or came in the following week. We would drive ourselves crazy if we tried tried to seperate them. There were MANY occasions that the price of an item would go down. In automotive, as a part becomes more popular, many times the price goes down. In that case, those items on the shelf we would "lose" on. So it kind of all works out in the end. Adjusting the price by piece sounds easy, but in the overall scheme of things it is a lot of labor and much better to bite the bullet and move on with the new price. Now a days, the price changes are generally done online right from the manufacturer, so there's even less opportunity to adjust for whats on the shelf.

Mike

Could you go down to the local gas station and tell them you want the cheaper gas that was tank before the truck delivered the new more expensive gas this morning? After all there probably was a few thousand gallons left that the dealer paid less for 3 days ago.

See how fast they fall on the floor laughing!

I too was at LHD earlier this month and bought some LLOM. They had the price on the box. $12.95 Now if someone is going around hand marking these, why as Hilari said, can't they just mark up the new stock as its put out. In my mind this hand marking makes this whole computer pricing/UPC code thing a moot point .It seems to me that they knew way in advance of the price increase as the catalogue has to go to the printers at least 2, maybe 3 months in advance of the publish date. My Spring 2006 catalogue has the price increase in it. I have to agree with Jim and Hilari. The way I see it is the only motivation for this price increase on present stock is greed. Mark as far as your SARCASTIC remark about the gas, there are some things that we have to learn to live with and that happens to be one of them. ONLY because its impossible to seperate the two "supplies." Grace is right, they would fall on the floor laughing, and I'm sure we would be right there with them.

The station I use had their normal delivery of gas on a Monday. They raised their prices on Tuesday. Fall on the floor laughing? Nope. Angry? Yep. The "big" and "little" guys are in it together. I'm all for removing the tax breaks the oil companies get and/or hitting them with a windfall tax on their profits. Gagged when I read what Exxon's profits were last quarter. Didn't bother to read or listen to what the others did. Can't do anything more about it than I already do--my 2002 vehicle only has 15,000 miles on it. One of the perks of working out of home.

Tom, if in fact a store is using item pricing, as opposed to 'shelf pricing', then there would be the ability to sell the current stock at the old prices, with the new stock being priced appropriately as it is put out. Can't do the same in a catalog situation. The set up would be as bad as some of the infomercials we enjoy: "the first 25 people who call in will get the super-duper-do-it-all mark 88 for just 29.95, regular price 39.95...." Catalog pretty much has to show one price, be it the old or new one.

That's correct and I agree 100%. But I also feel that a disclaimer could be put in ie "as soon as existing stock is gone the new prices will take affect". I have - every once in a blue moon - seen this in other publications. They have enough "notes" for other things when it suits their purpose. It just gets tiring - getting the short end of the stick like this most of the time. And I don't want to hear that's life. That's life because no one stands up for what's right anymore! Like in the the movie (can't remember the name, maybe Network?) "go to the window open it and holler out, I'm mad as hell and just won't take it anymore!"

You know what, no matter how we gripe, we have to live with higher prices everywhere and for everything. Yes, it's upsetting - especially when you live on a fixed, retirement income. If I expect to keep collecting, than I just have to adjust. HL waited a long time before they raised their prices; we are lucky the LLOM's were as cheap as they were for as long as they were. As for the rest of the problems, i.e., rising gas prices, rolling blackouts (which we are starting to experience here), etc., etc., the letters are flying out of here to my senators and congressman, so I'm not sitting here complacently. However, the more I gripe about things, the more upset I get, so what's the use?! I either do something about it where that is possible or I am going to try to shut up and be reasonably happy. :p BTW, did anybody see "We Were Warned: Tomorrow's Oil Crisis" on CNN recently? Now that's something to worry about, folks.

I have just seen a web site with little lights, where they clearly state that HL has increased the price, however, they will honour the old price on all old stock and will list the ones they have replenished at the higher price.
If one retailer can do this then so can all the rest. As said before, certain retailers just took the price increase as an oppotunity to make extra profit.
HCS

The price increase on the LLOM was going to happen no matter who owns the company. The prices on LEs and GLOWS has also been sneaking up over the years. Those of you that buy Harbour Lights know that a company must make a profit to stay in business. Those of you that buy from Ebay rather then a dealer will also pay a little higher. It is a way of life so we must learn to live with it.

My complaint with the price increase for the LLOM is the automatic shipping increase of a dollar based on the fact that anything under $15.00 is $5.99 shipping and anything $15.00 to $25.00 is $6.99 shipping. That is pure unadulterated profit to Lighthouse Depot. The LLOM weighs the same and is the same size going to the same destination. The shipping costs has been my one and only complaint and has kept me from buying many items from this company over the years. I grit my teeth every time I order one of their special HL pieces from them because of the shipping costs. It's not that I can't afford the costs, it is the fact that this is a corporation's way of ripping off the general public. If I buy an item that weights a pound and is a certain size and it's value is $15.00, the same shipping costs should apply to any other item that weighs a pound and is the same size even though it's value is $100.00. Remember the first $100.00 insurance is included in UPS and FEDEX shipping costs so there is no reason to have different shipping costs based on price.

This is my 2 cents worth on the subject.

Thats a darn good two cents worth Rich. But with inflation I think its more like 5-7 cents worth. I think we would all have to agree with you on it too.

Grace I missed that as I don't watch to much CNN. Do they show repeats like a lot of other channels do? If so I'll keep a look out for it.

Rich,

I basically agree with you on this. I often think that this is a way to maximize profits by many companies.

The other side to the equation though is that I believe that companies use it as much for simplicity as for profit. You might actually end up spending more for shipping overall if things went by weight totally.

You are correct that some shippers include insurance in the base portion of some services. In addition some shippers have many different levels of shipping some of which are based on the distance between the shipping point and the destination.

Here's where the simplicity concept comes in- some companies don't want to bother with having to figure out weight and distance for every package and have decided that by tying the S&H to the dollar amount it will cost average out over the many orders they get.

Will it bring some extra profit on some shipments- yes. On the other hand it will also end up with the actual shipping costs being more for some shipments based on the dollar amount.

The only method that totally takes any profit or loss out of the equation is for the shipping costs to be based on the actual amount and that would be extremely difficult for any company to use- we can do it between individuals but even then it wouldn't work well on most ebay sales.(although some sales will actually calculate the shipping costs by zip code and type of shipping)

Just my 2 cents worth.(not corrected for inflation)

Dennis

Certainly makes for good practice to pick up the shipping by tying it to a specified purchase amount. If you don't have an "800" number and you don't work some kind of deal on shipping, I don't buy from you.

As to eBay sellers who allow you to calculate shipping, they can still rake in profits. Purchased an item weighing less than a pound. My high bid was $0.99, shipping calculated at $6.99. When the package arrived yesterday, the USPS stamp was for $2.07. Obviously the seller added weight to his/her entry to the USPS site to come up with the $6.99 figure.

Sandy,

The shipping and handling aspect of purchases on and off ebay is just like anything else- let the buyer beware.

We as individuals need to make ourselfs knowlegeable about what actual costs are and buy only from those who don't try and profit too much on the shipping costs on a sale.

Keep in mind that postage costs are only part of the equation- shipping materials have to be considered as well. I try and recycle as much as I can- I reuse bubble envelopes and make use of Esther's Avon boxes whenever they are usable.

Dennis

Dennis,

Knowing I could not have made the purchase at less than the $8 I eventually paid for it on eBay, I had no issue with the seller making a buck or two.

Like you, Stan uses the outer cartons from my HL purchases to ship his eBay sales. Saved him (and his buyers) some money recently as I went a little nuts and bought all the lights HL has made that are on the Great Lakes. (We're going on the WILD trip in August and hope to photograph the "Real McCoys.") Had around 35 or 40 pieces arrive here which he turned around and used to ship sales he'd made for one of his clients. My son's moving and asked if we had any boxes he could take. In unison, the answer was a resounding "NO!"

I am Okay with a dealer raising their inventory to the new higher retail prices.
Inventory is not free. It cost money for the building that the product is being stored in, there is interest on the loan if burrowed money was used for the purchase of the product, or if the dealer used their own money that is money that is sitting there making no interest.
I feel that anyone that keeps an inventory has all ready paid the higher cost and deserves to raise their stock with the newer higher prices.



But I do agree with Rich I don’t like paying shipping per the cost of the product. I like to pay the exact shipping.