Yes, I’m in the process of clearing out everything except their IF22A and the LT1
The crazy thing is, is that Convoy have some amazing wholesale pricing, I couldn’t believe it when he sent through the price list, just night and day difference over what I was used to with Sofirn. I’ve been stocking Sofirn almost since they first appeared on the scene.
I’m surprised to hear that, I assumed Convoy was selling their products with narrower margins due to their generally low prices/lack of discounts.
(also, hi fellow New Zealander!)
I’d guess if you’re carrying stuff like Noctigon / Emisar, or Zebralight or ReyLight. Maybe you can charge local customers more than direct MSRP and earn a decent margin.
Customers buying those brands seem to value fast shipping and local warranty coverage a lot more, and are less sensitive to marginal price differences.
On the other hand, I’m surprised Sofirn don’t leave local distributers a profitable margin…
It’s too bad you have to drop them, you have done some valuable marketing for the brand.
My impression is that the different departments within Sofirn don’t coordinate well if at all. One part of their operation can make a decision that seems right from their standpoint but isn’t good for other departments. An example is the release of the mini-LT on their website which seemed to take Barry by surprise.
Manufacturers generally should not undersell their dealers. Wholesale is not what it used to be. I used to sell fireworks but even buying wholesale has become too expensive, too small of a profit margin for a small business.
I used to be a dealer for Fireflies and the difficulty selling an unknown brand here is terrible. I had to drop prices to cost and it still took 8 months to clear 6pcs PL47.
Anything with Anduril is hard to sell since it’s not a UI that suits the general consumer, just looking at the full diagram has them running for the hills. Most like a simple UI: 3-4 levels with a battery indicator and they’re happy as. Even with the V2’s Simple UI it requires the thermal sensor calibrated and I do that for all customers, takes up my time and if I don’t do it, it takes up even more time explaining why their light is misbehaving. Not worth it
Zebralight had a dealer here and they ditched the brand due to not enough sales.
Noctigon also had a dealer 12 months ago and the same thing happened.
I believe there’s not enough people in New Zealand who like to branch off onto brands that aren’t popular.
Led Lenser is the most popular brand here, even though it’s way overpriced, people would much rather their 7 year warranty
That’s cool, hardly ever bump in to anyone on BLF from NZ
Oh. Didn’t know you were catering mostly non-flashlight people.
Yeah. That’s an entirely different story I know…
I sort of object to the idea that they are “non-flashlight people”.
I suspect that a lot of these people have a much greater need for lights than people on the forum, shining lights at walls for no real reason and absolutely obsessing over tints down to 100K steps and whatnot.
Catering to people with primarily indoor/urban/boutique flashlight needs is partially to blame for the proliferation of less-practical control schemes in the first place.
Flashlight business:
I'd probably recommend just selling the 'bigger' brands as a seller, and maybe just a few enthusiasts lights (with clear warnings).
If you niche down your audience to just enthusiasts, it's a different story, and you can sell Emisar, Firefly etc.
If you're trying to reach the average Joe, who needs a flashlight, I probably not sell any Anduril based lights, and just focus on the big brands.
So all the choices should be dependent on your audience.
I'd be interested in how many people return or ask for warranty for the cheaper lights. Not knowing the data, I'd probably stay away from certain budget brands.
Convoy never goes on sale and the regular pricing is a bit high in comparison to other brands in China. For example, Convoy sells their C8s at about 100 CNY (15 USD) for common Leds while other comparable brands sell at 65 CNY (10 USD). I imagine you could get their C8s wholesale at under 10 USD.
Regularly priced Sofirns have a lot of available margin but they go on sale a lot. Can you not beat their sale price or regular price as well? On sale, I was able to get a IF22A for only 145 CNY (just over 20 USD). The wholesale price for IF22A could possibly be above this.
Thanks to my quality control which is second to none, I rarely see a warranty claim, nothing in almost 2 years.
The real question is, how many issues do I find? Heaps from Sofirn & Wurkkos, but rarely ever from Convoy. Convoy just require centering the LED in a lot of them, I haven’t had a failure on a Convoy in 2-3 years, just driver bugs now and then if it’s a new driver or firmware.
Issues on Sofirn & Wurkkos (same factory)
- dirty contacts causing flickering light or no light.
- uneven shelf in multiple models, worst was 8pcs SP70’s in one order where the LED fried. Dropped that model immediately.
- covered scratches with this black stuff from the factory
- short tubes machined wrong. This seems to still be happening often
- onboard charging faults
Thankfully Sofirn send me new units without a video or even proof. Wish I could say the same about Skilhunt and Mateminco, even as a dealer they require time consuming videos.
I ditched Mateminco at the end of 2021 after discovering they don’t honor a warranty. I had a few remaining TK04 (FT02S) units, sold one to a customer and he noticed one die wasn’t lit. I contacted Mateminco for them to say it wasn’t covered since I sold it. Apparently, the 12 month warranty they provide as a dealer is just while it’s in my hands, if it fails after a sale I have to pay. What the hell lol. I don’t think they understand what it means to be a dealer
Yes, it’s $24 plus shipping. Including shipping it jumps up to $27-28. That really sucks that they drop coupons and sales at below wholesale. Great for you all though 
Btw, I’m not under any agreement to not share wholesale pricing.
The thing about Convoy is they just have an AE store which charges an additional 15% tax on anyone from New Zealand. I buy direct and so that makes it much better. I sell mostly to hunters who want flashlights sooner rather than later, for general users they’re happy to wait 30+ days from AE and so it’s harder to get the sales for non hunting models.
I sell the Convoy C8+ and L21B for heaps and make a very good profit. I sell the L21B for $102 and on sale at $80. Good money.
Does anyone know a factory that makes a decent C8 style flashlight with built-in USB charging? Possibly under $10 USD at wholesale quantities.
Might pay to open up your own thread with that question, you could attract the attention of someone who knows.
I'd get the sales, but with local distributors taking a rather large cut and the competition makes for not much profit. The Nitecore HC65 was priced at $92 incl tax and sold at the best flashlight store here for $110 nzd. I've been having a good think about things and I'm going to place my own brand on the Convoy C8+ and L21B. I opened a thread on here for some ideas and someone said Zealight could be good (New Zealand) or perhaps since my name is Jacob I'm also thinking JLight. Both aren't trademarked here.
Made to order lights with many options (various drivers, UIs, LEDs, MCPCBs, individual color switches, mixed CCT LEDs, and so forth) actually that is a poor resell idea (emisar), exactly due to the made to order aspect and the fact that it caters to lot of individual whims and individual needs for experimentation, jumping on a new LEDs, rendering old stock useless, etc, it’s actually the counter idea of reselling and maintaining stocks of a certain product.
I feel like an outcast nowadays for refusing to buy a budget light with onboard charging.
They are failure points both due to miniaturized high-current electronics (which most lights have one of anyway) and stress.
They are potential water ingress points.
They are wear items, more so than threads.
Sort of off topic, I guess.