Holy mother of Cthulu it's 2014 and we've been at this nearly a year now! Rather than panic and freak out (though having the time to do that would be nice) I think it more productive to offer some insight into where the company is going over the next 12 months.
First up, we're starting to put ourselves out there more. Normally, we operate as an online business and ensure our returns policy is solid enough so that if a customer doesn't like an item, they can send it back to us. Well, that's fine but sometimes you want to try before you buy other times you want to run around in a piece of tactical clothing because it's going to save your LARP character's arse. Well, we're booked up for a number of kit fairs and events with details to follow. The first of those is What's Your Game? in Gloucester on 8-9th February this year. We'll be there with our banner and boxes of our stuff. Of course, we can't get out to our international customers but as more and more of our stuff gets reviewed, we're hoping people will be able to get a better idea of our stuff.
Speaking of reviewers, we've had a lot of that in the last couple of months. It's fantastic to see people buying our stuff and sending us feedback. It's even better that it's not always positive feedback. We've had some fantastic constructive critical feedback from people and we're feeding that into our ongoing product review for 2014. There will be specific responses to each individual review in due course but for now it's safe to say that we're listening and responding. :)
More broadly, the company is expanding its lines. We're most famous for covering people in stuff and helping them carry more ammunition. However, two of the three of our team are experienced Nerf modders and have some fantastic ideas up and coming. Electrical modding is something that is a bit scary for a lot of people in the Nerf hobby and we'd like to use our resources to help change that. We've got a few DIY electrical kits in the pipeline (including select fire) with the aim of teaching basic soldering skills. A great modder once said that soldering is a skill just as important as rebarreling or dremel work these days (slight paraphrase) and we agree. Our RS switch plate was the start of that and we're aiming to make both that and our new lines as newbie friendly as possible. We know how scary electrical blasters can look on the inside so we're going to help change that.
I said up there that 2 out of 3 of the company's full time staff are modders. Well, we finally got legal clearance to start doing some stuff. We're finalising the details and will publish them when we know for sure but there's a good chance 2014 will be the year Blastersmiths UK can start arming the world's Nerfers with their own individualised custom blasters to wreck some mayhem. (Subject to final lawyer approval).
We've got some fantastic builds on the way both streams of our business. The tactical gear side of things will continue to grow as will the printing and modding side. We've got lots of plans for new vests and rigs. If you'd like something that we don't stock then drop us an email. Our development pipeline is still stuffed full so there's a chance we have a design somewhere and you commissioning one will force it to the front of the queue!
Anyway, next week is our first birthday so I'll leave all the thank yous and such until then. For now, 2014 is going to be a solid year. We're already really busy and we've lots to do. The blog will be updated as we go but if things go quiet for a little bit, it's because orders come first! :)
