New Survey Results + Mantis X10 Winners!
This month we conducted another survey, this time with non-customers. I’d like to announce the winners and do a deep dive into some of the findings.
In September we did a NON-Customer survey to find out how people who aren’t our customers thought about us and what features they thought were important. To encourage folks to take the survey we again offered some MantisX10 Elite Shooting Systems in a random drawing.
So before I move on, I’d like to announce those winners:
- ewint***9@gmail.com
- dansc***8@yahoo.com
- dons***o@ymail.com
(I obscured the full email for privacy (we're big on privacy at AmmoSquared!) and since these aren't current customers I don't even have a first name, last initial and location like I did last time.)
Congratulations to the winners of the Mantis X10 Shooting System! You should have received an email from us directly letting you know and to coordinate delivery.
For everyone that didn't win, we appreciate your time and we’ll be sending out a follow-up email this week with a special gift offer as well.
Now onto the results!
Non-Customer Survey Results
First off, I should answer the question: “Why do a survey for people that aren’t even customers, what feedback could they offer?”
It turns out a lot actually.
One of the biggest surprises of this survey was the large number of people that said they had never heard of our company! Keep in mind these are all people that are on our newsletter email list. Granted people on our list for a variety of reasons, including past giveaways we’ve done - which is where a lot of the folks that aren’t sure what we do came from.
But that was very interesting to me, it shows we’re not doing a very good job educating people about what we do. So we’ll be working to fix that in the coming weeks.
This is why we do surveys - they highlight our strengths and weaknesses. In the case of the customer survey we did in August, it highlighted some ways we can improve how we talk about our service. In fact, you may have noticed the home page design change over the past couple weeks. That was a direct result of the feedback we received when we surveyed our customers and asked them how they described AmmoSquared and what benefits were important to them.
Another interesting data point we have now is when we compare non-customers to customers. Here are some examples:
Opinion on Reloaded Ammunition - EXACTLY the same at 46%
Opinion on Military Surplus Ammunition - Higher for customers vs. Non-Customers (72% vs 61%)
Customers:
Non-Customers:
Opinion on Aluminum Cased Ammunition - Nearly the same and still lower than the other two categories of Reloads and Milsurp: 38% for Customers vs. 33% for Non-Customers.
Customers:
Non-Customers:
(Again, this result for Aluminum cased ammo really surprises me. I don’t shooting it, but it seems a large number of people don’t like it. I even talked to one guy that said he prefers Wolf and Tula Steel to Blazer Aluminum. Go figure!)
For other similarities:
New Feature Ideas
The number one most liked new feature idea for both non-customers and customers was the ability to pick brands and bullet weights. So without going into too much detail, this is something we’ve got on our list to build out in the future. I won’t be the same as an ecommerce store though… We have a unique business model and won’t be changing that - just giving customers and non-customers what they’ve asked for: more options and flexibility.
The second most important new feature differed between customers and non-customers however. Customers liked the idea of budgeting for a specific round count instead of a dollar amount. (ie you can set your Autobuy for 50 rounds of 9mm per month and the amount you pay will fluctuate with the going ammo price instead of keeping the dollar amount fixed). Non-Customers on the other hand liked the idea of rating what we send and being able to “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” ammo influencing what we send them in the future. That idea reminds me of Pandora music curation or some of the clothing subscription boxes. It is certainly valid for AmmoSquared as well and we’ll look at that after we get out some of our more pressing enhancements first.
How Often Do You Shoot?
This question was surprisingly similar for both Customers and Non-Customers. The highest answer was “1-3 Times per Month” for both groups. 41.8% for customers and 40% for non-customers. The second place answer was also the same and very similar. “Every Few Months” was 36% for customers and 33.9% for non-customers.
In general it appears our customers shoot a little more often than non-customers. In fact the answer of “Almost Never” was only 2% in customers and 6.2% in non-customers. Does having an AmmoSquared account make you more likely to get the range? I think so, that is certainly one of the benefits of auto buying your ammo and having it on an autoship schedule.
How much do you Spend on Ammo Each Month?
We asked this question slightly differently for non-customers and customers but the results were nearly identical. For customers we asked two parts, “How much do you spend at AmmoSquared every month?” and “What percent of your overall ammo buying comes from AmmosSquared?” Combining those two we get a pretty good idea of the overall ammo budget. For non-customers we just asked what they spent on ammo every month.
In both cases the majority said their average ammo spend was between $26 to 50 per month. This also seems about right because our customer monthly average hovers right around $50 in general, and has for years. Where it gets interesting is the 2nd place answer... For customers it is $100 to $149 but for non-customers it is $0-10 per month.
This again fits in with my theory that AmmoSquared customers shoot more and buy more ammunition in general. Since we make it easy for shooters to be “flush” with ammo, they are more likely to make it part of their monthly expenses, like paying a utility bill.
The real question is like “which came first the chicken or the egg?… Do our customers shoot more because they subscribe to AmmoSquared or did they subscribe to a service that makes ammo easy to buy because they like to shoot more? Ah something to ponder on…