I'm sure you're all seeing systematic closing of many of your local homebrew supply stores recently (if not a year or two ago). The ripples of homebrewing shrinkage are even being felt via some larger mailorder houses like High Gravity and Northern Brewer deciding to close their walk in stores. Brewhardware.com and the associated walk-in brick and mortar store is still hanging in there as we absorb the customers of other nearby shops every few months. There are a couple more hanging on, but in the end, there are only so many brewers within driving distance. In the 14 years that I've been in business, I've let my customer's word of mouth sustain all of our growth and tried very hard not to be a salesman, until today.
Don't be mistaken, I'm not asking for anyone save my business. We're cash flow positive and doing OKAY so I'm not looking for handouts. What I'm asking of you is to consider taking a look at our offerings across the board and compare against the large mailorder houses. I'm going to make a few points for consideration.
Alright. That was pretty uncomfortable for me. Long story short, if you feel like the community is better off with BrewHardware.com being in business, all I'm asking is you consider us for your regular purchasing needs IF it makes economic sense to do so. In a lot of cases, we sell merchandise with MAP pricing such as SPIKE, BLICHMANN, KEGLAND, BREWBUILT and the like and there really is no disadvantage to the customer to buy them through us because the pricing is the same. The subject line is specific to the Northeast because I feel that the shipping costs remain relatively reasonable, especially if grain is in the picture. We're in talks with a few shipping carriers to get even lower rates, which will be reflected through the website. Lastly, we're moving into the warmer months and if you like liquid yeast packs, we can usually still get it to the N.E. USA for ground rates in 1-2 days which icepacks can handle.
I'll end the chit chat here and just paste some product stuff. Reply with any questions you might have.
Here's a full list of all the grains we have in pounds and ounces, you can specify batch groupings and how fine you'd like it crushed (we have two Monster Mill Pro mills with on the fly adjustability). Not shown are the "sack prices" but we do that too.
Don't be mistaken, I'm not asking for anyone save my business. We're cash flow positive and doing OKAY so I'm not looking for handouts. What I'm asking of you is to consider taking a look at our offerings across the board and compare against the large mailorder houses. I'm going to make a few points for consideration.
- We are a modest-markup, actual shipping cost business. This runs contrary to most in this market as most vendors offer free shipping at rather low thresholds because that's what marketing psychologists say customers actually want. No joke, if we baked shipping costs into the price of every item, we'd sell more. In the same turn, we'd be forcing our loyal local customers to subsidize shipping costs they will never use and that never sat right with me. The important takeaway is that heavy things will cost you more because the shipping costs more but our item prices are very competitive. Build a cart with items you normally buy and see the shipping cost. Compare. That's all.
- I personally make all the decisions on what merchandise to stock and sell and I base those decisions on having the best equipment and ingredients available for my own brewing excellence. That's not to say I'm the authority on what's best but I'm showing motive. By all means, I'm listening to customers and bringing in things they want. Many times that resulted in a learning experience I used in my own brewing.
- The owner of the company is in the building every day. You can get me on the phone or via email whenever you want. Take that for what it's worth.
- Two out of the four employees that work here are BJCP certified judges. Three of the four brew more than once a month and enter every local BJCP competition. Sure, that's a bit of a brag but the key point is that experimentation, constant improvement, and process refinement is part of our culture. You don't have to be hardcore, but we won't judge either way.
- We're not here to sling widgets. This gets back to the product selection point, but even further, we've tried being problem solvers. Long before I started the full service homebrew shop, we were creating solutions that didn't exist in stores. We were never going to be a shop that just moved merch from a manufacture's warehouse to the end customer as just another middle man. I bring this up so you can consider what kind of businesses you want to support, even if you're just buying yeast or a malt extract you can buy just about anywhere for commodity pricing. Just because you can find an item for slightly cheaper on Amazon, ask yourself if Amazon will ever innovate and add value to the homebrewing community. Can you send your kettle to Jeff Bezos to TIG weld a TC port in?
- I've been an active member of Homebrewtalk since 2006 and a sponsor for at least 10 years.
Alright. That was pretty uncomfortable for me. Long story short, if you feel like the community is better off with BrewHardware.com being in business, all I'm asking is you consider us for your regular purchasing needs IF it makes economic sense to do so. In a lot of cases, we sell merchandise with MAP pricing such as SPIKE, BLICHMANN, KEGLAND, BREWBUILT and the like and there really is no disadvantage to the customer to buy them through us because the pricing is the same. The subject line is specific to the Northeast because I feel that the shipping costs remain relatively reasonable, especially if grain is in the picture. We're in talks with a few shipping carriers to get even lower rates, which will be reflected through the website. Lastly, we're moving into the warmer months and if you like liquid yeast packs, we can usually still get it to the N.E. USA for ground rates in 1-2 days which icepacks can handle.
I'll end the chit chat here and just paste some product stuff. Reply with any questions you might have.
Here's a full list of all the grains we have in pounds and ounces, you can specify batch groupings and how fine you'd like it crushed (we have two Monster Mill Pro mills with on the fly adjustability). Not shown are the "sack prices" but we do that too.
Cheers!
(I usually use dry yeasts due to the distance).
