Eirsoft, the upcoming Personal Import Ban, and.....Partner Products

Shiva

Folks.....

As you've no doubt seen over the past few weeks and months, there's been a lot of talk, both here on Boards.ie, and elsewhere, about the implementation of the ban on personally importing RIFs, and how this will drastically limit the choice available to the average Irish skirmisher and collector.

We all agree that no Irish retailer can hope to stock the huge range of airsoft guns available from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and that being unable to import your RIFs yourself is, to put it mildly, a bit of a pain.

So....over the past few weeks, I've been in touch with a few of the major retailers in Asia, and I've come to an agreement with some of them. Realising that they would lose the custom of Irish consumers in the near future, some of them have agreed to partner with me to allow Irish consumers avail of the full range of RIFs available to the rest of the world.

Full details of the Eirsoft Partner Products scheme can be found here , so I wont go into the minute details in this post, but basically, here's what it is:

I'll be regularly adding new lines released by our partners in Hong Kong to the Eirsoft website, and making them available for purchase. Any product marked as a Partner Product will NOT be held in stock with us (in the short term at least - more on that in a bit). When you place the order, we'll immediately order it from the supplier, who have promised to give us priority handling and shipping on every order. We would envisage receiving the product within 5-8 days, and we'll immediately ship it to you. You should normally receive it the day after we do. In the event of a delay beyond 14 days, or if we are informed its out of stock, we'll issue you with an immediate refund.

Also....this does NOT mean we are now exclusive partners with RedWolf Airsoft, Ehobby Asia or any of the other suppliers we've partnered with - anyone can still order anything they like from them, at anytime. Except when the import ban is implemented, you will not be able to import RIFs unless you are a licensed retailer.

Personally, I've been listening to a lot of the talk about the upcoming ban, and I decided to see if we could do something about the impending lack of variety. I've spent a lot of time researching this agreement with the Hong Kong retailers, but the only way to see if it will work is to do it - so as of now, its live on www.eirsoft.ie

There may be kinks to work out of the process, but I think we have 99% of the issues covered. Obviously, it would be too time consuming to list every single product from each retailer on the Eirsoft site, but I'll be regularly changing the variety on offer. If you see something on ANY Asian site you want us to import for you, just let us know and we'll quote you a price. There will be an issue tracking system implmented in the next few days which can be used for this.

The margin Eirsoft make on each product is minimal - I've kept it as tight as I possibly can so as not to take advantage of the import ban, but also make it worth my while to manage the system. So yes, buying the Partner Products from Eirsoft will cost you a little more.....but it wont break the bank.

So....in summary.....the Partner Products have started to appear on the site, and are available immediately. I'll be adding more tonight, tomorrow and for the next few days, and tweaking the offers.

If you're looking for something for Christmas, I'd imagine the cutoff date would be December 11 if you want to receive it in time for Christmas Day.

Any questions - post them below, and I'll do my best to answer them.

smegmar

do you know when this ban comes into effect?

Are you or any other retailer stocking up on those "hard to get imported" AEG's now, before the ban?

Shiva

We haven't been given an official implementation date yet, but the general rumour is it'll be January 2010 - no idea what exact date though.

And no, I'm not stockpiling - my personal opinion is that there isn't enough of a market in Ireland to do that without an unacceptable level of risk. The range is too big, and peoples tastes too varied, to accurately predict what should be stockpiled. All of the retailers regularly have a good range of goods anyway - the idea of Partner Products is to make available the less popular, or more obscure items to people after they are no longer allowed import them themselves.

Mervenut

Great initiative Tony, as ever you are leading the way!
Thanks for taking the lead!
M

DICEMAN7

Mr T always in the lead

weeder

Spotted this on facebook, great idea what sort of pricing structure will there be?

deepimpact

Great idea. Eirsoft leading the way yet again.

Inari

That was a stroke of genius, and makes perfect sense as well. As far as I can see, it's all bonuses. We now can order anything we want (without special orders), not worry about it getting seized, have a physical retailer to go to if there are any problems. I'm very happy to see it. So sincerely, well done!

I'm sure it's not a problem, but just to make sure...is it possible to order in, and collect from the store to reduce costs (i.e postage)?

Shiva

weeder wrote: »

Spotted this on facebook, great idea what sort of pricing structure will there be?

It'll be the cost it takes to get here (price+shipping+VAT) and a small percentage on top to make it worth doing. Theres an awful lot of work involved in keeping everything up to date.

Shiva

Inari wrote: »

I'm sure it's not a problem, but just to make sure...is it possible to order in, and collect from the store to reduce costs (i.e postage)?

Yep, no problem at all.

MindPhuck

Well done Tony. Fantasic result for Irish airsoft as a sport.
Hats off and round of applause.

thermo

hi when your ordering something in on someones behalf for the likes of ehobby, presumably you going to ad a fee, will it be a flat fee or percentage? also could you give a ball-park figure?

Shiva

thermo wrote: »

hi when your ordering something in on someones behalf for the likes of ehobby, presumably you going to ad a fee, will it be a flat fee or percentage? also could you give a ball-park figure?

Depends on the product...if its not something I've already listed on Eirsoft.ie, I'll provide a quote before ordering.

Damo 2k9

Is it going to be on pistols only or everything ?

Shiva

Damo 2k9 wrote: »

Is it going to be on pistols only or everything ?

Just RIFs at the moment, because thats all thats affected by the import ban.
But I suppose theres no reason I couldn't add accessories and stuff if people want them.

Damo 2k9

I ment like assault rifles etc :P
Because only pistols are updated on the site, but i know the answer now

TheDoc

Absolutely thrilled. From an airsofters point of view, how much win is that.

Read your pm's System 7 usp, I'll have one...I NEEEEEDDDDD ITTTTTT

Shiva

Damo 2k9 wrote: »

I ment like assault rifles etc :P
Because only pistols are updated on the site, but i know the answer now

Theres been rifles on it since about midday

tonyj_mc

Great shout on this by the way, i'll drop you a line in the new year there is a few AEGs i need

tango9

Any change of getting a list of suppliers you've partnered with so we can see what items may be ordered.

bullets

There's dedication for ya! well done guys!
Fantastic news! we can have our cake and eat it too now!

And my two favourite non-Irish Oogling stores too! redwolf and ehobby :-)
~B

Shiva

tango9 wrote: »

Any change of getting a list of suppliers you've partnered with so we can see what items may be ordered.

Ehobby, RedWolf, Rsov and two others that are humming and hawing - one UK and one Asia. I'm not too bothered about the UK one to be honest, because they're usually more expensive than us.

Oh....and a direct link to ICS. The ICS stuff will go up later today.

Shiva

bullets wrote: »

There's dedication for ya! well done guys!
Fantastic news! we can have our cake and eat it too now!

And my two favourite non-Irish Oogling stores too! redwolf and ehobby :-)
~B

It was kinda you who started me thinking about this....knowing your taste for the eclectic, and thinking maybe other people would appreciate easy access to stuff not normally stocked in Ireland.

carentankiller

A brilliant Idea Tony well done! Its a great step forward

Phractal

Well done! Absolutely brilliant. I sure hope you do accessories too- I was looking at some stuff and would much prefer have you guys import it that myself, just because of my general terrible luck with shipping from abroad!

Eoinzy123

how much woul it cost for this gun?
http://www.eliteairsoftuk.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17703&cat=367&page=1
It's 110E on the sit

SOCOM

Hi Shiva, any chance you could get me a price on a Co2 mag for my well g96 gas sniper?
That battleaxe mag you sent me for free is the dogs b£&@cks!
Cheers

SOCOM

Hi Tony,
any idea of how much a new or used metal upper and lower would cost for a g&g M4? One with trades would be nice but not important!
Cheers

Blazer

SOCOM wrote: »

Hi Tony,
any idea of how much a new or used metal upper and lower would cost for a g&g M4? One with trades would be nice but not important!
Cheers

Post here..dedicated thread for Eirsoft

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055122309&page=635