Sorry about the pun in the title, I promise that is the last 2020 vision one I’ll make. I just really needed to get it out of my system.
I’ve had a lot of people contact me in 2019 via email, social media and on forums. From these conversations there will often come a great idea directly or indirectly on how to make our products better. Most of the time what happens next is I think “what an excellent idea!” and sadly almost immediately have to put it aside to keep working on the business of making and shipping these wonderful test kits of ours.
Thankfully 2019 has been a year of great conversations, getting the business side of things running smoothly, and almost figuring out what I’m doing. If you’ve ever run a small business you’ll know that you never 100% figure out what you’re doing – it’s way too busy for that!
So what happened behind the scenes in 2019 and what is coming to light in 2020?
5ml bottles are becoming 10ml. Salt Detection Reagent 5ml and Total Alkalinity Buffer 5ml are both going to 10ml sizes. This is a result of a combination of delivering better value, standardising sizes, and making bottling and labelling easier to automate. This won’t effect the price of the Total kits.
Labels are being made easier to read. Some people have mentioned that the box sides on our small kits have been tricky to read in some lighting conditions, we worked out this is due to the font and printing we use. This has been upgraded, enlarged, improved and all sorts of other words. These new labels will be phased in over the course of the year.
New Product Photos! I’ve been meaning to take new product photos for about 3 years, ever since the last product photos were taken 3.1 years ago. At some point in 2020 there will be new photos or I’ll never hear the end of it – from myself!
Magnetic Stirrer developments? Rumour has it that an affordable magnetic stirrer has been sourced and is currently being tested here in the labs. If it passes our strict quality control procedures (which may or may not include a hammer) we’ll have some availabilities. It will be after February at the earliest, so not for this summer unfortunately.
Website shuffle. I don’t have plans to change the shop layout, but the site frontpage needs a reshuffle to make news and updates easier to see. Got to make it easier for you all to see when these changes and product improvements are announced!
Better Bench Protectors are live. Many of you with salt kits will have noticed our new bench protector sheets – the same quality of protection but these new ones are larger and in lab approved fashion colours. We have a good supplier for these and they are here to stay.
2019 saw some improvements and 2020 will bring even more. Can’t wait to get some of this exciting stuff out into the field and into your hands!
Thanks again for the support, it makes this job easier knowing I’ve got the best customers in the business :)
–Brett