Selecting A Solution

There’s a new Water Weekly article on the web site that deals with selecting the proper solution to water problems. You would be amazed at the number of people that call me up and ask me to select a water softener based on the square footage of their home or business. And why a water softener? Yes, they do tend to solve a lot of water problems and even in the absence of problems they make the water better for cleaning, washing and bathing. But hardness and iron are not the only water problems people have. Choosing the correct treatment method/device is very important. That’s why I have people either acquire or perform their own water test. It does not make sense to try and guess what will fix the problems in your water. Even a crude test is better than nothing.

Other than that, business has leveled off a bit and this has allowed us to get caught up, and to get ready for the annual fall rush that comes every year. I am working on a new web site that will focus on other water treatment products but in much more detail than the current site does. There will be less products but more highlighting of those products. It’s more of an experiment than anything else. If it works out then maybe we’ll look into converting Water Value over into providing less products and more information. Right now with the price increases people seem to be shopping more for cost than quality/performance and more specific information on the higher quality products would help them to realize that they truly are getting the best cost effectiveness possible.

Exporting Product

Lately there have been several orders from the web site and over the phone that turn out to be products sent to exporters whose intent it is to send these products to destinations overseas. While the products are shipped by us to locations in the U.S., they eventually end up in Grenada, Brazil, the U.K., Spain and numerous other countries.

These sales have been both good and bad. Good because of the sale itself, but bad because of the added expenses of providing paperwork for all the various and diverse customs laws. Shipping to Canada is one thing, shipping to Brazil is quite complicated. No, Water Value does not export but the various exporters that are supposedly working for our end users are not informing us of the documents required by the receiving country’s customs agents. Every country seems to need a different type or style of invoice, receipt, packing slip and in the case of Brazil, a buyer’s license.

This latest example involves Grenada. They accepted the standard packing slip and did not require a receipt, but they did need a commercial invoice, and a FAXed copy was not good enough. They demanded the original document. Needless to say, there was no original document. All of our receipts are electronic in nature, so one had to be produced and sent to them “next day” air at Water Value’s expense.

If you’re reading this then you are likely aware of our prices and can plainly see that there is not much of a markup on our products. A $45 FedEx fee to send a piece of paper really cuts into that margin. This means that we would need to increase our pricing to compensate for the added expense of providing documentation and extra services for overseas orders. This would not be fair to our U.S. customers who make up the other 99% of our customers, so the solution would seem to be a policy of no overseas shipping or exporting even through the “services” of professional export companies.

I just read an article in Water Technology magazine that proclaims the future of the water treatment industry is overseas distribution or manufacturing. After all, there are several countries in the world with equal or worse water problems than the U.S. Maybe the solution is to find a reliable export firm that can handle the needs of the various customs agencies around the world, hopefully with more success than the ones we’ve had experience with.