Our YouTube debut
So we were extremely happy to put some boxes in front of Zeeree for review, and to get our name out there. We were even happier when his packs turned out some pretty good cards including a 1/1. All in all, a good thing, right?
I've always said never read the comments on YouTube. Well, we read the comments. Yikes.
Feedback
So the general jist of the comments was pretty negative, mostly focused on the price point of the All-Star Box and the value therein. Basically this was broken down into two lines of thinking - that you'd never get your money back, and that the packs weren't nearly interesting enough for the price point.
So we took our lumps and we've sat back to look at what we have offered, did some evaluation, and made some decisions. We also want to clear up some misconceptions and address some of the criticism.
You probably won't make money
Let's get this out of the way first of all. The reality of opening packs of cards is that you, very likely, will not end up with singles or rare cards that are worth more than the cost of the packs. This is the nature of opening packs, and if you are opening packs of cards to make money you are likely to be disappointed.
We offered this service because we *like* subscription boxes and opening packs. There is certainly a thrill to pulling a prize Young Gun or a Downtown out of a Donruss pack, but the fun for us comes in opening the cards, looking at different sets, having a little bit of everything in our collection. With something like a Hit Box, you get to have a little box full of different packs from different sets and years. It shows up on a schedule you choose and we offer a variety of levels for all price ranges. It's fun for us, and we hope it's fun for you!
The packs weren't very interesting
This was certainly constructive criticism, and something we took to heart. When we started building inventory we focused on the current sets since they were varied in price, but relatively available, and could be used to fill out all levels of Hit Box. This works well for the Rookie and Veteran boxes, and those have certainly been the most popular in the store so far. It does leave the All-Star box in a bit of a tougher spot though, and we agree that it should have some more exciting packs in it. We started with 2018-19 Trilogy and 2019-20 Series One but we agree that it could be better.
As such, we've started procuring some more exciting products including a variety of SP Authentic, and some 2016-17 Series 1 Hobby Boxes. These should be on-hand in time for the first monthly shipment of All-Star Hit Boxes on May 1st. This will allow us to alter the box contents a bit and put in some truly premium packs.
We are marking up the packs
Well, yes. We are a business and we do expect to earn something after buying the product, paying for the site and advertising, 'free' shipping which isn't actually free, doing the labour of actually getting the product out there, etc. We do try and build in some value by purchasing wholesale in volume to drive down the cost of the packs as well.
All we ask is that you look at the actual cost of the packs we are including in the boxes, and you'll see the actual value of the packs is almost the same as the cost of the Hit Box.
We are skimming/weighing/opening and resealing the packs
Absolutely not, and I can't state this enough. We do not, and never will, do anything like this. Every single pack comes directly from a factory sealed box or case and once that seal is broken, every single pack will go into a Hit Box completely unaltered. Part of the reason we started this service is that this is a promise that we feel needs to be made in a subscription box of this nature, and we aren't aware of anyone else doing so.
Now there is simply no way that we could feasibly put a camera on every single pack and every single box 24/7 for months on end, or otherwise audit every single pack. We are a small family-run business and all we can do as ask that you understand that we started this with nothing but good intentions, to share something that we love, and to give us the give us the benefit of the doubt. It may be hard to trust people in the age of the internet, but we will be as transparent and up-front as we can be.
Final thoughts
We took our lumps. We agree that some improvement is needed, and we will adapt and change to make sure that we have as many happy customers are we can.
We want you to get great hits, share them with us and others, and help us grow.
