With all the “gimmicks” and promotions in the retail world, we thought you should know exactly what we were thinking around our little business when we started offering free UPS ground shipping July 1, 2007.    Seems like every time you turn on the radio, TV, your computer, or open a paper, you’re bombarded with the words “Free” or “Sale” or “50% off” or “90 days same as cash” only to find a catch in the fine print and realize it’s not quite as good as it first appeared.   I’m going to lay out exactly what’s going on in our hearts and minds and explain that we are not trying to “trick” you into doing business with Coolhorse.  

Why are we doing this?   This is probably where I’m supposed to say how we are looking out for you, our beloved customer.  That would be the politically correct thing to say, but that is a given and a constant around here (you just can’t stay in our type of business without that being priority one).  The main reasons we have gone to the free shipping are:  1) the long term health and growth of our business 2) we always pride ourselves in taking the road a little less traveled  3) the challenge of making this work (there is a financial reason you don’t see other businesses doing this-it’s expensive and risky!!!)  However, it does work out pretty good for you.  You should see an average savings of $9-$15 per order.

How can we afford to do this?  The first thing most folks will think is that we’ve simply raised our prices to cover these freight charges.  This is just not the case and the only way we are going to prove this is to encourage you to visit other tack and horse supply businesses and make sure of this.   We have some very large competitors in the tack world who do an awesome job and we want you compare their prices to ours.  While you’re browsing their sites and catalogs, make sure you glance at their shipping rates as well. Bottom line, we have to sell more and spend less in our business to make this work for both you and us.  

The math behind the free UPS ground shipping.  By the time we buy boxes, tape, and pay regular ground shipping in most of the 48 states, we normally have incurred costs of about $10.00 per shipment.  It’s a given that on the smaller orders, we are going to lose money and we are willing to accept that.  It’s a short term risk we are willing to take for the big picture of our business in hopes to gain your long term trust and you telling others about our business.  One other thing that we are counting on is that the “word-of-mouth” advertising will kick in and we can significantly reduce or even quit our expensive national advertising campaigns (you would be amazed how much it costs to advertise in national publications and web sites). We have already been able to cut the expense of printing out a catalog which helps tremendously with the first leg of this journey.  So, between the increase in sales and the decrease in our advertising budget, we calculate we can offer free shipping without increasing our prices.

Is this a limited time offer?  I wish I could predict the future and tell you we are doing this for the next 50 years.  Again, we are doing this as an experiment so we will know more in a few months.  However we’ve spent well over 16 months discussing, calculating, and budgeting for this so it’s not a rash decision on our part.   I will promise you we are committed to the Free UPS Ground Shipping for at least 1 year. Knowing the folks that work here like I do, I would be very surprised if it’s not for the rest of my life.

Final Thoughts. Free UPS Ground Shipping in the 48 states. Sorry, UPS won’t let us ship a few oversized things and items over 70 lbs in UPS Ground and we aren’t able to offer the expedited shipping for a free either.  Click here for the details of UPS Ground. But in general, we are going to ship ropes, headstalls, gifts, caps, saddles, tack, etc..  FREE.

Our little family run tack and trailer business in Amarillo, Texas is certainly not the largest place you can visit to purchase equine supplies.  We feel more like David in the Goliath world.  And even though the internet is our primary source of advertising, we are not a huge, computer run warehouse with scanners and belts and giant robots filling orders.  We still have the best hearted people in the world working here and our goal is creating long term relationships with our customers.  We want our kids and grandkids doing business with your kids and grandkids.  The free shipping is just part of solidifying that relationship.  Thanks for being so loyal and if I can ever help in any way, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Matt Harris
Owner