Dear Friends,
On our weekly Retail call this week, we discussed how to answer the question we get posed from time to time: “Why should I buy from Small Dog?” One manager related a story about a customer who bought a screen protector for her iPad mini. While we were installing the screen protector she bought free-of-charge, the customer asked why she should buy a second iPad mini for her other son from Small Dog Electronics as well. The employee looked down at what he was doing and the customer did, too — and she exclaimed, “Oh, I understand!” Always by your side is more than a slogan for us and with twenty years of experience in the business, we view customer satisfaction and delight as our most important task.
Perhaps the most compelling reason, however, is supporting the local economy. As I explained to our staff, it is great that customers feel good about supporting a local business rather than one of the big box stores, but there is more to it than that. When you spend your hard-earned dollars at a local business, a much greater percentage of that dollar stays in the local economy than if you buy from a larger company. While we work on extremely thin margins and much of what you spend will end up being used to buy the products we sell to you, the profit margin mostly stays in our community. We use that to pay wages, which our employees use to buy goods and services. We use it to buy advertising, services and other overhead items, all in the local economy. That margin circulates into the local economy making the overall community stronger.
Yes, we will install that screen protector for you, but we will also take the time to truly understand your needs before we sell you a product. We will demonstrate the product, allow you a hands-on experience and never up-sell you into a solution that is inappropriate for your needs. After the sale, we are there for you, too: With knowledgeable advice, Apple Authorized Service with genuine Apple parts, and a wide variety of technical support solutions, from in-home consultations and lessons to mobile device management for large companies and government agencies. And of course, you also get free small dogs with every order!
After reading a lot of gloom and doom stories about how Apple has lost its mojo and their quarterly financials would be poor, it was very exciting to see that Apple posted their best March quarter ever and had a lot of good news. I will go over the numbers below.
My special for this week is the iPad 2. This is the entry level full-size iPad with 16GB of RAM with Wi-Fi. These are brand new iPads with an Apple warranty. I am going to bundle this iPad with AppleCare+ for the iPad and a Hammerhead Folio case. AppleCare+ is a great value for the iPad as it not only extends the Apple one-year warranty to two years but it also extends Apple’s technical support from 90 days to two years. Without AppleCare+, Apple will ask for your credit card number before providing any support after 90 days, so with it, you’ll have two full years of tech support warranty on the hardware. And perhaps even more valuable (judging from the number of accidentally damaged iPads we see), AppleCare+ allows you up to two incidents of accidental damage. You just pay a small deductible, and Apple will replace that iPad — even if you accidentally drop it on the floor or in the bathtub!
For further protection, I’ve added a Hammerhead Folio case to the bundle. This durable case fits your iPad securely and provides excellent protection from impact and scratches. It converts into two landscape viewing modes to provide optimal angles for typing and viewing and will automatically wake and sleep your iPad. This bundle normally sells for $427, but for Kibbles & Bytes readers only, this week it is $399!