Thanks for the Orders!

May 23, 2014

We have orders.  Real, actual, legit orders.  So cool.  Thanks!

Just getting back online after three weeks on the road.  From Moab, we drove to Flagstaff to prep for Overland Expo.  We picked up the lovely and talented Amarett at the Flagstaff airport, and then promptly headed south in search of warmer weather.  We had only a few days to put together photography, prices, sell sheets, order forms, a way to process payments, a trade show booth… pretty much everything.  So we found a little campground near Cottonwood, AZ and set up shop.

First we needed some decent pics for the website and sell sheets.  Here’s the makeshift studio we setup under the RV awning.

This shot:

Became this image:

And this shot (that’s the RV awning retraction handle he’s using):

Became this image:

Final factory costs arrived while we were camped in Moab, so we finally had a chance to dig into that.   We googled it, and there seem to be two schools of thought on pricing.  Option 1 is to start high, and then lower prices later on if competitors force you to.  Option 2 is to start low, sacrificing margin but making up for it by selling more bags in the long term.  We decided on Option 2.  Selling direct means we can set MSRP at 30-35% less than we’d charge if we sold through dealers, which is a pretty significant selling point.  Also, selling more bags will be good for our factory, because they need some base level of volume for efficient manufacturing.  There is a risk that a product might be perceived as lower quality if it’s priced lower than its alternatives, but we think the quality will speak for itself.  The motorcycle industry is one of the few places where a $400-$500 bag could be considered an “economical” option.

With prices and pics, the RV turned into a mobile office for a couple of days.  We created and printed everything we needed for the show, got the website and blog updated, and sent our first email out to the mailing list with prices and preorder info.

Our first orders came in within minutes.  To say we were stoked would be an understatement.

After a few days of work at the campground, we returned to Flagstaff to build a makeshift booth and get ready for Overland Expo.  From the minute we pulled into OE we knew it was going to be a blast.  The first people we met were Roel & Azure on their Africa Twin & Transalp in the midst of a RTW trip (Facebook: My Ticket To Ride).  They were right at the gate, parking their fully-loaded bikes when we pulled in.  Good people, and two iconic bikes (this pic is from their website).  Love those Africa Twins.

After a quick chat with Roel and Azure, we checked in for the show and started building the booth.  Andrew and I have done plenty of trade shows in the past but this was our first one in the motorcycle business.  Klim & Wolfman were on one side, Clearwater lights was on the other, and Twisted Throttle was directly across the way.  Good neighbors.

Overland Expo is a blast.  6,000 like-minded folks meeting up to exchange stories, geek-out on gear, and check out training/seminars.  It would have been cool to wander around but we were busy at the booth all day, so the only “event” we attended was happy hour.  Still, we met lots of cool riders at the booth, including some who’ve been following our thread on  advrider.com.  And we wrote lots of orders.

We were anxious to see how the new pricing would be received.  Everyone seemed pleasantly surprised.  In fact the most common question we got was “is that price for one bag, or for the pair?” (Answer: the pair)

One rider brought a Pacsafe 35Lmesh security system so we could see how it fits over our pannier/duffle.  Pretty well, it turns out.

Next year we’ll hook a bike trailer to the motos.  It took 5 trips every morning to shuttle gear back and forth to the booth.

We met Ed Surman.   Very cool guy.  Here’s his advrider.com thread.  He’s traveling through the states and Canada and then down to Central/South America on his DR650 with a set of Andy Strapz panniers that have seen some serious miles.  Those are some tough little bags.  Hoping to get him some Mosko gear a little further down the road.

Of course we wanted to see what a Backcountry 35 would look like on that badass bike.

Expedition Portal posted this nice mention of Mosko from the show:

http://expeditionportal.com/overland-expo-2014-final-day/

We got lots of pre-orders and subscriptions.  It was a good show for Mosko, no doubt about it.  THANK YOU for all your support!!!

We’re still catching up on P-38 shipments because we’ve been out of the office for a few weeks.  They’re all going out next week.  Thanks for signing up for the mailing list!  We handed out a bunch of Free P-38s in Flagstaff, and the offer is still up on our website.

Here’s a pic I really like from Moab.

If you haven’t placed your pre-order yet, here’s the link: Pre-Order Info