Happy Belated New Year everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday season. Things were hopping here. Fortunately I didn't get a slow down in December this year.
I have to raise some prices starting in January. Going forward the threshold for free shipping for U.S customers is $35 and up. The new price for the 8 track foam pads is 40 cents per pad. This is still well below the competition. All Facebook membership group discounts, etc still apply of course (Facebook group membership discounts only apply to repair supplies, not actual tape repairs).
Repairs have gone up at as well. As these tapes age, a lot of them are becoming more time consuming to repair. And are requiring more replacement parts that I have to scavenge from other tapes (mainly the reels). So repair jobs of 6 or more non-Ampex tapes are $4 per tape. Anything under 6 tapes is $5 per tape. Ampex tapes with the melted pinch rollers are $5 per tape, regardless of the amount of tapes to be repaired. Repair jobs consisting of 15 or more tapes (U.S customers) will get free return shipping via Media Mail. Again, some 8 track related Facebook group members get discounts on repair supplies. But those discounts are on repair supplies only, not on actual repair jobs.
None of these price increases were taken lightly, but a lot of what I do is so time consuming. The cheaper prices just weren't cutting it. I don't want to sacrifice quality for cheapness. Those of us who have been into 8 tracks for many years know the problems that caused this format when that was the mantra at the factory
