[TPIN] Brassdeal.com controversy

[Michael Anderson]

This controversy over the launching of BrassDeal.Com and the announcement on
TPIN is silly. This was not SPAM. For the entire life of TPIN I have allowed
and encouraged businesses that are related to our topic to post to the list
announcing new services, sales, etc. I even allow this to be done by people
who are not regular members and who do not participate in the discussions. I
do NOT allow anyone to post spam over and over to TPIN. The business has to
be trumpet related and they have to subscribe to post, so we don't get
spammed by anyone.

Mike Thompson of Thompson Music contacted me a couple weeks ago to tell me
about his and Tom Raney's new online business and we talked about how to
first get the word out. I encouraged him to post to TPIN the minute it went
up. This is what he did.

BrassDeal.Com is modeled after Woot.Com, a very successful and popular
ecommerce site that sells one item per day. It is a clearance type site and
it is done in such a way to keep the costs of the items as low as possible.
Mike and Tom are in this for the long haul. Their launch this week is more
about "testing the waters" and seeing the reaction to this concept being
applied to musical product. I didn't feel comfortable giving their personal
information out because I wasn't sure what they wanted to do with that.
Contact info has been on the site since it was launched - Name of Business
and Address. Do you find personal names on Amazon.com? How about Music123?
Sure these companies have phone support, but one of the ways BrassDeal.Com
will keep costs down is to not provide any phone support. You can't call
Woot.com either. This isn't the kind of business where you can call up and
ask questions about the product. This requires a full-time staff just
dedicated to phone support and that raises costs that are applied to the
products. I am told that they will be putting up their personal info on the
site tonight.

For those of you who don't know Mike Thompson and Tom Raney, I will tell you
that both have been in the "biz" for a long time. Tom was operations manager
at Monette and Mike owns Thompson Music in Omaha and is a great trumpet
player and contractor in the area. Tom is also a trumpet player and a gifted
web designer/admin.

You might be able to find some of the things they sell on Ebay cheaper, but
not by much and you don't have to be worried about being ripped off by
BrassDeal. They have new Torpedo Bags today on there with mute bag and music
bag for 149.95. I have one of these cases and love it. :-)

MA - TPIN ADMIN