3Leaf Audio Club - Episode 2

[StayLow]

Managing pre-order or waiting list emails is a huge time-sucking nightmare.

You contact prospective buyers then they drop off, ghost awhile, or start a correspondence. Meanwhile nothing’s getting done.

Could maybe hold 20/100 back to list at random times through the month, but maybe people have tech to snipe that or extra refresh traffic would cost $$ for extra server bandwidth.

Spencer’s gotta Spencer. “Complainers in shambles!”

 

[Grahams Groove]

Managing pre-order or waiting list emails is a huge time-sucking nightmare.

You contact prospective buyers then they drop off, ghost awhile, or start a correspondence. Meanwhile nothing’s getting done.

Most of the issues you're talking about seem related to partial deposit pre-orders. The IE method is you pay in full up front, and you have a ballpark idea of the wait time. You are collecting full payment and shipping info up front, which any reasonable online store can pull into a spreadsheet. You start building, mark em done in batches and trigger a generic "your order has shipped" response. That's not terribly difficult, and the tech is there to make it easy to track and organize.

 

[fivestringgecko]

Between the preamp bundles, and the current eBay listings... a number of people are gladly spending $500+ on a $333 pedal. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a price increase or another "off-the-wall" idea in the not-too-distant future.

I had exactly the same thought but didn't say it in my earlier post because I didn't want to say the quiet part out loud. ha ha

Doesn't this just shift the stress of placing an order to being the first to send an email? If the queue for these pedals is sufficient to sell out in minutes, wouldn't it functionally be the same? Either you place an order first, or you send an email first.

Not exactly. For one, I don't think Taylor (IE) specifies the number of slots that will be available for pre-orders. So there's not this real-time tracker for orders and there's not that drive to get 1 of 50 immediately. You don't know the speed with which people are submitting orders or the number of orders he's willing to fulfill. Sure, those who have been waiting to get one for themselves will sign up asap, but people who are not 100% committed may not feel as urgent as they would if it's a real time sale.

Also, the wait time is often 4+ weeks. So you are investing money up front, and don't have that instant gratification. I have to imagine this is less attractive to scalpers/flippers in some respect. You have to 'invest' a few hundred bucks that will be in limbo for a month or more. Likewise, you can't take immediate advantage of the market that was hungry for the pedal. With 3Leaf, you can get the pedal within a week or two and then pop it on the market for people who just missed out. Maybe it looks different in a month or two. Maybe the pre-order slots were more than you thought and the overhead on flipping isn't what you hoped. It's more of a gamble.

I don't know that it would be a night-and-day difference. That said, saying 'there's 50 of these and you won't have another chance for one of this until ~3 months later' is an easy way to ensure that they're scarce and people are buying them immediately.

Grahams sums up my (similar) answer nicely, I think.

5sg.

 

[Gorilla Monsoon]

The guy puts out a product that surpasses demand in less than 60 seconds. You will never be able to beat that. Props to him. I can only wish that i could accomplish anything that even remotely touches his success. No matter what you could imagine to make a product like his pedals more accessible, step back and look at the reality of the situation; it ain't happening. Regarding what his customers do with his products, it IS a free market economy. Be thankful we don’t have to do this with toilet paper.

 

[Grahams Groove]

The guy puts out a product that surpasses demand in less than 60 seconds. You will never be able to beat that. Props to him. I can only wish that i could accomplish anything that even remotely touches his success. No matter what you could imagine to make a product like his pedals more accessible, step back and look at the reality of the situation; it ain't happening. Regarding what his customers do with his products, it IS a free market economy. Be thankful we don’t have to do this with toilet paper.

There would be people who buy 3Leaf toilet paper and insist that keeping a roll on their board improves the signal to noise ratio in their 50-pedal chain.

 

[Erithon]

Not exactly. For one, I don't think Taylor (IE) specifies the number of slots that will be available for pre-orders. So there's not this real-time tracker for orders and there's not that drive to get 1 of 50 immediately. You don't know the speed with which people are submitting orders or the number of orders he's willing to fulfill. Sure, those who have been waiting to get one for themselves will sign up asap, but people who are not 100% committed may not feel as urgent as they would if it's a real time sale.

Also, the wait time is often 4+ weeks. So you are investing money up front, and don't have that instant gratification. I have to imagine this is less attractive to scalpers/flippers in some respect. You have to 'invest' a few hundred bucks that will be in limbo for a month or more. Likewise, you can't take immediate advantage of the market that was hungry for the pedal. With 3Leaf, you can get the pedal within a week or two and then pop it on the market for people who just missed out. Maybe it looks different in a month or two. Maybe the pre-order slots were more than you thought and the overhead on flipping isn't what you hoped. It's more of a gamble.

I don't know that it would be a night-and-day difference. That said, saying 'there's 50 of these and you won't have another chance for one of this until ~3 months later' is an easy way to ensure that they're scarce and people are buying them immediately.

I agree with all of these counterpoints and I'd add that a preorder/waitlist also means the builder can hold people to a limit of one pedal per person across multiple batches. (I do recognize that a waitlist system can be abused by folks using different names and addresses. Nothing is perfect.) With the 3 Leaf system someone can buy one Doom 2 or Octabvre or Proton v4 of each color which means someone else who doesn't already have one misses out. For this reason (and the preamp bundle) I've sat out both Octabvre MKIII drops: I already have a Black Oxide Octabvre MKIII and I don't need two. I sat out the Jade Doom 2 because another TBer sold me their Blood Red Doom 2 and I don't need two revoiced Doom 2s.

Overall, though, what Spencer is doing is working. He's begun to meet the demand and, crucially, he's publicly committed to continuing to release pedals--in bigger, less frequent batches--once he finishes these nine batches of 100 units each. Prices are already dropping. He should be commended for this. Has it always gone smoothly? No. He raised the price from $300 to $333 for no reason. (The first time it was explained as offsetting the fancy ink for the Royal Proton, but then it stayed at $333 for every future release.) And the tied preamp sale was bogus. But he also disabled Apple pay, helped out his international customers with bundled shipping, and is experimenting with alternative releases like these eBay auctions.

I think so long as Spencer continues to release pedals everything will calm down. Therefore, while I think a preorder system has the benefits @Grahams Groove identifies, I'm satisfied that 3 Leaf Audio is regularly releasing pedals once more. That's good for musicians everywhere even if the release process isn't the most optimal.

The IE method is you pay in full up front, and you have a ballpark idea of the wait time.

Incredibly, it's not even a ballpark timeframe. Iron Ether has been shipping exactly five months from the date the preorder opens.

 

[Charlie Tuna]

The guy puts out a product that surpasses demand in less than 60 seconds. You will never be able to beat that. Props to him. I can only wish that i could accomplish anything that even remotely touches his success. No matter what you could imagine to make a product like his pedals more accessible, step back and look at the reality of the situation; it ain't happening. Regarding what his customers do with his products, it IS a free market economy. Be thankful we don’t have to do this with toilet paper.

We did have to do that with TP in Key West at the start of covid. Not fun having to use velcro as TP, fortunately not hook sided. j/k it was hook side. j/k j/k no velcro but plenty of neighbors asking each other for rolls, not joking at all.

 

[Jantelagen]

There would be people who buy 3Leaf toilet paper.

More low end slam?

 

[Grahams Groove]

More low end slam?

Cleans up those brown notes.

 

[Gorilla Monsoon]

We did have to do that with TP in Key West at the start of covid. Not fun having to use velcro as TP, fortunately not hook sided. j/k it was hook side. j/k j/k no velcro but plenty of neighbors asking each other for rolls, not joking at all.

You could always wipe your ass with a chicken.

 

[labeledbass]

You could always wipe your ass with a chicken.

LOL - indeed, you could lol

 

[Lowendtech]

You could always wipe your ass with a chicken.

 

[Charlie Tuna]

You could always wipe your ass with a chicken.

Ha! You know the place well.

 

[3toes]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a price increase or another "off-the-wall" idea in the not-too-distant future...

Scenario: Spencer sells 3Leaf to Korg or some other large conglomerate, signs a 3-year Non-Compete, then when it expires relaunches as a new brand touting the superiority of the handmade aspect of his pedals. Korg in shambles.

Basically the New Coke strategy

 

[Swizzledoop]

Cleans up those brown notes.

Really tightens up the bottom.

 

[peterpalmieri]

Doesn't this just shift the stress of placing an order to being the first to send an email? If the queue for these pedals is sufficient to sell out in minutes, wouldn't it functionally be the same? Either you place an order first, or you send an email first.

I’ve ordered from both Stam and Audio scape. Stam you get on the list for the next batch and pay half upfront. Audio scape is a release that can sell out quickly. Like 3leaf it is what it is, if you really want one you’ll eventually get it.

 

[droberts444]

First auction ending

wonder who is paying lots

Spencer is still cool

 

[StayLow]

Good for him!

Spencer posted a haiku poem on the site too.

Spoiler alert: he did not use the phrase “

Spoiler

complainers in shambles

”.

 

[Matt Call]

Good for him!

Spencer posted a haiku poem on the site too.

Spoiler alert: he did not use the phrase “

Spoiler

complainers in shambles

”.

He did use the phrase “price discovery” though. Which, again: good on him.

Some people could view it as a cash grab, but if you average out 93 pedals at $333 and the 7 eBay auctions ending around $610: the average sale price for the run would land around $353.

If a reasonable price increase helps a one-man operation maintain a level of sanity & enough profit margin to be sustainable: I’m all for it.

All that aside, it’d be pretty amazing if he was somehow able to create a regular (*cough* offshore) production version and do limited color runs on top of it - similar to how Zvex has the Vexter series & custom shop.

OR put out a 3Leaf/Chase Bliss collaboration & watch the world burn

 

[Mighty Thumb]

I’m guessing the eBay auctions were the “price discovery”. Flippers aren’t going to buy those because there’s no money to make, so that helps inform him where the market threshold is for users to still be willing to buy, but flippers aren’t. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a price increase.