[SURVEY] Four Question Purchase Habits Survey for VAF Members

[MattM]

Hello VAF! I'm trying to get an idea of what home builders spend money on and am hoping that some of you will be kind enough to help me out by answering the following questions:

1. What aviation-related product or service did you most recently purchase? (not limited to home building equipment, but rather anything related to aviation)

2. How long ago did you make that purchase?

3. Have you bought that same product/service in the past? If so, how often?

4. What was the approximate price of that product/service?

Thanks in advance to everyone who answers!

[Mike S]

Matt, a little background on the reason for this kind of request will probably get you a better response.

My initial thought-----right or wrong-----upon reading your post is this; What is a guy who just joined VAF 2 days ago, and lists himself as an "Entrepreneur" trying to find out this kind of info for????

[fatherson]

What Mike said.

In another post, Matt, I recall you said you were in your 20's. That is apparent to me both in your zeal (a good thing) and in your brashness (not necessarily a good thing). In my experience, you will be welcome here, just like younger guys have been welcomed here before, but your best bet is to read and learn and respect the community before you try to market anything to us.

Best wishes on your efforts to build an RV. It will take a long time, but don't let that deter you. Try to remember something most of us learn eventually during the life of our projects: we start out building an airplane, but we end up building a better person.

--
Stephen

[schristo@mac.com]

Originally Posted by MattM

Hello VAF! I'm trying to get an idea of what home builders spend money on and am hoping that some of you will be kind enough to help me out by answering the following questions:

1. What aviation-related product or service did you most recently purchase? (not limited to home building equipment, but rather anything related to aviation)

2. How long ago did you make that purchase?

3. Have you bought that same product/service in the past? If so, how often?

4. What was the approximate price of that product/service?

Thanks in advance to everyone who answers!

1. AvGas
2. Yesterday
3. Yes, quite often
4. 5.70 a gallon

[MattM]

Originally Posted by Mike S

Matt, a little background on the reason for this kind of request will probably get you a better response.

My initial thought-----right or wrong-----upon reading your post is this; What is a guy who just joined VAF 2 days ago, and lists himself as an "Entrepreneur" trying to find out this kind of info for????

Originally Posted by fatherson

What Mike said.

In another post, Matt, I recall you said you were in your 20's. That is apparent to me both in your zeal (a good thing) and in your brashness (not necessarily a good thing). In my experience, you will be welcome here, just like younger guys have been welcomed here before, but your best bet is to read and learn and respect the community before you try to market anything to us.

Best wishes on your efforts to build an RV. It will take a long time, but don't let that deter you. Try to remember something most of us learn eventually during the life of our projects: we start out building an airplane, but we end up building a better person.

--
Stephen

Thanks for your response, guys.

Yes, I am trying to get a feel for the home builder market, as I am a student of markets, but I am NOT here to try to sell you guys anything. The reason I posted this thread is because I enjoy researching what people spend money on. It's possible that it could be of use to me in the future in a business capacity, but that is not the intent of this thread. I am here for information only, and to get to know the people on this board and in the home builder community.

The other post of mine (about setting up a program for kids to build RVs) is a completely separate idea with no commercial intent whatsoever. I do not want to sound like the guy who comes on here and tries to sell a bunch of stuff, because that is not what I am doing. If I were to market an aviation product, I would not do it on this forum, as this forum is for discussion purposes only and I understand and value that. The purpose of this thread is simply to help me get a better feel for the aviation community for use elsewhere. Again, I am not here to sell anything. I cannot stress this enough. I apologize if that is how it looked. I am just looking for information and trying to get to know people.

If, after reading this post, any of you still feel I am out of line (even just one), voice your opinion and I will gladly delete this thread. I value my future relationship with this community much more than the information I could gather in this thread. Please do not misunderstand my intentions, as they are only the best.

Thanks,
Matt

[ka6dan]

Most of the small things I order result in shipping charges = or sometimes > than the coast of the item. When I need a small item it's holding up progress. So any vender reading this servey, it would be a service to use the most cost effective shipping an recognize putting two items in an envelop does not justify much in handeling!

[plehrke]

Originally Posted by schristo@mac.com

1. AvGas
2. Yesterday
3. Yes, quite often
4. 5.70 a gallon

Same for me.
For those of use flying this will be the response.

[fatherson]

Originally Posted by MattM

Yes, I am trying to get a feel for the home builder market, as I am a student of markets, but I am NOT here to try to sell you guys anything. The reason I posted this thread is because I enjoy researching what people spend money on. It's possible that it could be of use to me in the future in a business capacity, but that is not the intent of this thread. I am here for information only, and to get to know the people on this board and in the home builder community.

Okay Matt, I'll take you at your word.

For me, and for just about anyone still building, the answer will be "a tool." It doesn't matter which one. I find I'm buying a new one every few weeks. Even those who start with one of the "complete" kits find they still are buying additional tools throughout their builds; I didn't buy a kit, opting instead to buy stuff here (from various members via the classifieds) or from one of the ABC tool vendors who advertise here (ABC = Avery, Brown, or Cleaveland, although for me it's usually been ranked ACB by quantity and CAB by expense). I doubt a month has passed for several years now that I haven't bought another tool I discovered I needed (but I admit "needed" is sometimes more honestly described by "wanted").

If there were a service I'd be interested in which doesn't seem to exist, it would be a tool rental service, for some of the more obscure tools I only need occasionally.

Again, welcome Matt. If you take the time to read, read, and read-some-more in the archives here, there are vast amounts of useful information that will help you learn how to build and fly the best homebuilt kits available and to integrate nicely into a really amazing community of like-minded people--truly some of the best people you could hope to meet in your lifetime.

Donate as soon as you can to Doug's hard work here, and if you visit and read every single day for several years, you may still find as I do that no matter how much you learn from the brilliant folks here, there seems always to be more left to learn than could ever be grasped by one person. Best wishes to your efforts,

--
Stephen

[MattM]

Originally Posted by fatherson

Okay Matt, I'll take you at your word.

For me, and for just about anyone still building, the answer will be "a tool." It doesn't matter which one. I find I'm buying a new one every few weeks. Even those who start with one of the "complete" kits find they still are buying additional tools throughout their builds; I didn't buy a kit, opting instead to buy stuff here (from various members via the classifieds) or from one of the ABC tool vendors who advertise here (ABC = Avery, Brown, or Cleaveland, although for me it's usually been ranked ACB by quantity and CAB by expense). I doubt a month has passed for several years now that I haven't bought another tool I discovered I needed (but I admit "needed" is sometimes more honestly described by "wanted").

If there were a service I'd be interested in which doesn't seem to exist, it would be a tool rental service, for some of the more obscure tools I only need occasionally.

Again, welcome Matt. If you take the time to read, read, and read-some-more in the archives here, there are vast amounts of useful information that will help you learn how to build and fly the best homebuilt kits available and to integrate nicely into a really amazing community of like-minded people--truly some of the best people you could hope to meet in your lifetime.

Donate as soon as you can to Doug's hard work here, and if you visit and read every single day for several years, you may still find as I do that no matter how much you learn from the brilliant folks here, there seems always to be more left to learn than could ever be grasped by one person. Best wishes to your efforts,

--
Stephen

In response to what I bolded in your post:

From everything I've read, seen, and heard, this is the impression I get. It will be a while before I am able to build my own, but I always love being part of a community of genuine, passionate people.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

[crabandy]

Beer, today.