Community Color Ring?

[nubbinator]

Is there any way to get a community color ring from you guys?  I e-mailed you about one, but never heard back.  I know there are people like me who have ideas for colorways and group buys, but who aren't wanting to shell out the $40-80 to get a set of ABS and/or PBT samples to make sure that the colors look the way we think they will.  Since the group buys through your site don't reimburse the person for any of their investments in things like color rings or graphic design for special legends, it would be nice to at least be able to see the colors in person for the cost of shipping. 

[nubbinator]

Any word on whether you've thought about this?  It would be nice for people planning group buys with you since there is no way for them to recover their costs if they run the GB through you instead of through different avenues.

[SPLady]

nubbinator-
I did send you an email last week - I will forward it again as I often end up in spam folders. We have sold several hundred of these over the years to various individuals running group buys and we don't feel it would be fair to those previous group buy runners to give you a color ring at this time. These are very costly for us to manufacture and it would be next to impossible for us to track where this 'donated' ring ends up. Sorry!

[nubbinator]

I'm not asking for one for myself, but one as a community resource.  Shipping from person to person is considerably cheaper than buying one outright.

I was just thinking it would be nice to give one or two to the community, or even loan it with a deposit, since people can't recoup their costs with your new model like they could with other group buy models.  In the past, people knew that $40 would be covered if their GB was successful, if they choose to run it with you now, that cost cannot be recouped.

[SPLady]

As a group buy leader you actually get a free set, plus all the child sets should your order go into production - this should more than cover the cost of the color ring. Have you tried borrowing a color ring from another group buy member? I know there are tons of them floating around right now...

[nubbinator]

I know most group buys have a free set for the organizer built in, but that's kind of beside the point.

I was just asking because it would be a beneficial way to get people to run  GBs through you because it lowers cost to the person doing the design, advertising, and other leg work.    I'm not saying everyone should get one free, I'm just trying to make it cheaper and more affordable to people, giving then more of an incentive to run it with you.