How Outfishers Does Business
How Outfishers Does Business
As a reseller of pre-owned fly fishing equipment, it's important to us that you know exactly where our products come from, what we do to them, how we get them to you, and how we stand behind everything we sell.
We want you to know we're not trying to slide in some lawyer language here. This is plain speak about what we do and how we do it.
Our business is simple. We buy used fly rods and reels. Then we resell them.
We source our rods and reels from individuals like you.
We've bought rods off folks that have found collectable Sage LL's at Goodwill, off wives of deceased husbands who were avid fly fishermen, and from ordinary people that simply have a dusty vintage rod in a closet they want to sell or trade in towards something new.
We don't purchase gear from authorized dealers, manufacturers, or defect or flawed inventory.
We do everything we can to ensure the rods and reels we buy work the same as the day they were sold new.
We don't make any changes to any products. Ever.
We don't repair any products, we don't replace any parts, and we don't knowingly sell any products that we think have repaired or replaced parts.
We don't use cork sealer, or repair epoxy chips, or replace logos worn off.
Enough about what we don't do.
This is what we do.
When we buy a fly rod or reel and it arrives in our shop, the very first thing we do is inspect it.
We've got a long list of components and elements we look at. In fact, we look at more 100+ checkpoints on a standard 4-piece rod.
We examine the finish, the cork, the guides, the guide wraps, the epoxy, the ferrules, the logos, the tube, the sock, and so on.
During that process we rate the rod on a scale of 1-10 in our various subgroups.
If anything doesn't meet our standards, Outfishers doesn't sell it.
Our standards for selling gear under the Outfishers brand generally means two things.
First, the equipment can't have a total rating less than 70. We sell plenty of good, usable rods and reels with plenty of life left that are rated in the 70's. But in our experience, any equipment that doesn't meet that magical 70 number for us isn't something a customer would be happy with, no matter how we priced it or disclosed the flaws.
Second, it's got to be something we would fish with ourselves. It's just common sense that any gear we put in your hands we better be willing to fish with ourselves.
Our products can have have scratches, dents, chips, or imperfections of some sort. We always note any flaws we find in our conditions details and we never sell gear where these flaws might impact performance.
We test every rod and reel thoroughly.
We put together each set of male and female ferrules and use a standardized pull test to ensure the fit is secure. We change the drag and inspect the arbors on reels. No stone unturned.
Our photos are real.
After all our inspections and cleaning have take place, we photograph every rod and reel individually.
This means that the pictures you're looking at are of the exact physical rod or reel you can buy.
Those aren't stock photos. Those aren't photos of other similiar products.
Those are photos we took of the rod you are buying.
We spent gobs of time and money on photography gear and software so that our pictures are accurate, transparent, and detail everything we would want to know about the rod or reel if we were in your shoes.
We ship our rods and reels in custom designed boxes we have especially made for our fly rods and reels.
When you buy a piece of equipment from us, we pull the rod or reel from our shelves and package up the gear in plastic, protected by heavy duty cardboard components that we designed to hold fly rods and reels.
Our box holds fly rod tubes of all shapes and sizes in the 3-dimensional center of a 200# test single-walled 32ECT cardboard box with a maximum weight limit of 65 lbs sourced here in the United States.
We ship our rods via 3-day UPS Ground and we insure the rod for the amount you paid for it.
If anything happens in transit, we get another rod as similiar as we can find to the one you ordered and we ship it to you as fast as we can. We'll deal with the postal folks but the most important thing to us is that you get the rod you want in time for your next outing on the water.
As far as our packaging materials go, we try to be good to mother earth.
We're not tree huggers but if we can make the planet a little bit better by spending an extra nickel on bio-degrable packaging, and its just as good at protecting your fly rod, then we do it.
At the end of the day, our value is giving you confidence.
If you don't believe that Outfishers will sell you a good product, will be transparent and accurate in describing your fly rod, and will have your back if something goes wrong with your gear, then we might as well close our doors.
We're here for you.
A lot of businesses these days seem to have forgotton what it means to be a good business.
It doesn't mean lobbing slick words like 'customer service', 'solutions', and 'support' at people that spend money with us.
It means standing behind our products. It means fixing customers problems. It means helping people.
And if we do those things, we are confident we'll earn your business time and again.
If you have questions, we're here to answer them.
If you call, one of us will answer (yes, actually pick up the phone and say "Hello") or at least call you back if we're busy.
If you email, we don't send automated reponses. You will get a written response from one of us on the other end.
Do the right thing and we'll all be better off.
Sounds simple but it takes work.
We know you can buy a rod on eBay, or Facebook, or Craigslist.
We know our business model for pre-owned fly rods and reels is a new concept for a lot of folks.
But we also know that if we do the right thing and carry awesome fly rods and reels, we'll be alright in the long run.
Thanks for your business and tight lines.