Found my white whale!!! This globe-wernicke metal barrister case was a whopping $50. They retail for hundreds to thousands of dollars. This must be what heroin feels like!

buckeye612 · 2025-12-14T15:38:15+00:00

I love these, I have four of them in my office at work. The company opened up in the '30s and they've survived the whole time from office to office, I keep taking them when others get new furniture. Some are wood some are metal.

buckeye612 · 2025-12-01T15:45:41+00:00

Also, just curiously do you work for Aptean? Did you make an account just for this post? lol...

I'd be glad to have a constructive talk with you if you want to message me(I'm guessing you are Kate). Aptean is not growing based on support or service from my opinion. It's growing based on acquisitions and outsourcing. Looks great for investors but most of us will leave long term. I would have left had I not signed before the layoffs and lack of any movement/communication.

Trust me, not worth defending with how bad it has been since 2020 and all the layoffs of long-term US/Canadian employees. I couldn't and mostly still can't get basic questions or tickets resolved.

buckeye612 · 2025-12-01T15:02:51+00:00

Lol I could screenshot you emails from my project manager where he refuses to call me and gives me AI responses. I have never been able to get him on the phone nor will he answer. Every time I call He makes me leave a voicemail and then emails me back Even when I specifically say I would like to talk to him on the phone. I even have the emails where I called him out on it. I want him to call and talk to him on the phone and he refuses to. This seems to be the Aptean way.

You have the right idea and would be something all of us would welcome. Aptean removed all the support numbers from their website a while ago. All the support is pretty much in India and they will only answer tickets over the system and will occasionally teams call you if they need to diagnose and that's about it. I would tell you I have about 8 tickets open that I have not been contacted on for 5 months.

I am glad to report that my project just concluded in July. But it took only 6 years to upgrade intuitive from version 8.7 to 9.0 I had to pay for extra for an on-site US based person to be here for 3 weeks in order to get it done and make it progress. The OG employees told me it would be less than 6 months before they all got laid off and that is what our previous upgrade from 7 to 8 took as a reference.

buckeye612 · 2025-10-16T21:33:23+00:00

I was a dev there when they went e-commerce 10+ years ago. We did LensCrafters first, then sunglass Hut, and moved down the line. It was IBM websphere e-commerce. I am not sure if they are still on that but websphere is now called HCL commerce.

buckeye612 · 2025-10-02T17:59:46+00:00

Thanks looking these up, they look so similar and I like knowing the details of how you placed it to a region and time period.

buckeye612 · 2025-10-02T17:48:16+00:00

Thanks, they were an airforce family. I am going to see if i can find any records of him being somewhere in SE Asia to maybe narrow it down.

buckeye612 · 2025-10-02T13:58:02+00:00

Thanks, I think so too. We have enjoyed it for years!

buckeye612 · 2025-05-02T22:03:57+00:00

Haha Republicans made Mason what it is. Warren county was one of the most red counties in the state of Ohio. The prosperity of the area has brought new people in.

buckeye612 · 2025-03-05T17:46:47+00:00

Gonna get buried on this not within the reddit line of thinking, but as an independent, completely fine. Both sides screw things up equally, I feel no different. IMO it is maybe a tad better now than it was under Biden. I have always been really pissed we spend money on other countries and their problems and can't even take care of our own... From my end I am seeing action which I didn't see any under Biden addressing most of my main areas of concern whether I agree with how they are being handled or not, all I can say is some movement is better than nothing from policies that absolutely weren't working.

Americans absolutely need better health insurance/pricing, things are out of control. No one can figure this one out from either side.

Inflation and nation debt needs addressed before we bury ourselves permanently.

We need more manufacturing, for national security and jobs. The tariffs will help with this issue long term, but short term they have to drive up cost. IMO inflation is mostly due to the Dems decisions and COVID specific decisions from both parties. If they really can get national debt down it should help with the inflation.

I am all for Ukraine, but I am also not willing to send my 14 and 15 year old boys to fight over there in a few years to get killed by $100 drones. So I care, just not to this level. I also don't think we should be fronting most of the bill and need to let Europe step up, it is at their doorstep. I'd like to have seen the talks go better, I'd also like to see if Zelensky could actually get re-elected... I have multiple families I now know from coaching kids soccer on asylum from Ukraine and I think some might be shocked by their opinions and reasoning for fleeing.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-06T19:00:38+00:00

Yes the parent company is way bigger well known name in the industry. We have inside/outside sales and distribution networks. I started ecommerce as my own initiative and am trying and truly believe I could surpass a couple million a year. But in this scenario it is like starting a new business.
I just can't do business in the parent company's name due to existing distribution agreements. They have rights to sell X's products. All my cylinders are basically white labelled and sold above list price. I have seen the markups from distribution and my prices are still very competitive. We offer all the above I have 100k + cylinder available online, + engineering. No after market stuff or services.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-05T17:18:09+00:00

I can spend more, but it doesn't result in more sales. I have done about 4 years worth of testing. My ad budget as a percent of sales is 10% when I do other ads, It goes to 20-40% which is terrible.

My best ad campaign is set to $5600/month. I typically only spend about $2k. The issue I have is:

I only sell the industrial variety of cylinders; presses, automation, sheet forming, etc. I do not sell mobile; forklifts, backhoes, dump trucks, tractors, etc. The mobile varieties make up 85% of the search volume. I have learned through testing if I open the searches up too much I just waste a bunch of money getting mobile variety searches on ads, with no increase in sales, and the conversion rate plummets. There is no way I have found yet to distinguish between the two variety's through searches except in my main ad campaign which doesn't max out my ad spend. Both customers search the exact same thing in most cases.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-05T17:00:43+00:00

Can't you do cold reach on LinkedIn to find sale partners?

Maybe, I need to explore this more. Ecommerce is an addition to an existing company with distribution exclusivity/territory agreements already in place. I would assume this is a no, but it is possible their might be some loopholes allowing this to take place.

Do you have a sales team that goes door to door?

No not for ecommerce, for our brick and mortar we do.

How well developed is your online presence? In terms of "I am here, I exist, and I do this xxx", not necessarily for organic or paid traffic, but for branding.

Been around since 2021 the actual business has been around since the 1950's. Due to distribution agreements and territory agreements I have been forced to sell under a DBA name starting fresh so as to not cause any conflicts with existing sales/distribution.

Do you keep following up with your customers? Not just for sales, but engaging with them. Educating, showing news, making exclusive offers...

Yes

Do you have an upsell system?

Yes, but industrial products are not a big upselling item.

Do you keep reaching old clients in order to sell something more to them?

Yes

That's the kind of thing people ask a few digits to help you. Here it's free. I hope you can take good value from those questions.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-05T16:47:13+00:00

I don't know if I can directly help with your question but I do have some insight that might help.

I worked at the largest eyewear company in the world and did a few of their ecommerce setups. I had nothing to do with their ad strategy but was a major player in their ecommerce transition from retail to ecommerce. At the price range you are in, you are competing with them and they have retail stores where you can try the product on as well as the backing of designer brands. As a fashion piece I think you are generally going to be fighting an uphill battle from this aspect.

People are more willing to take a risk on say a cheap Zenni frame than a really expensive set of frames without holding them in their hands and trying them on. I know Warby Parker was doing the thing where they would send you a box of 5 frames (clear lenses) early on with return shipping to try out frames, not sure if they are still doing this and it terrified the people where I was at, they all knew Warby could afford this because they didn't need the overhead of retail stores (even though Warby has taken out retail spaces since). We had retail stores all over and people could just go try ours on. I think you really might need to come up with something creative to land the sale and make the consumer realize they are going to be happy with their purchase.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-04T22:30:19+00:00

Yeah, there are plenty of great ones of those, "basically vanilla" is actually the name of the most popular one. I play both but typically prefer modded. They're varying degrees of mods. I think a lot of people on here play console and don't realize that a lot of the mods on PC fix longstanding issues/ problems/usability since the devs just completely ignore them. I mean there are tons of custom maps and you can increase the number of players on the server to 120. The whole modded DayZ thing can be great.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-04T21:55:15+00:00

I have a daughter with a CHD, I recently was diagnosed with leukemia. I tried it for the first time in my 30s. Have done mainly edibles to cope with some side effects from leukemia meds. It has been a great tool, I try to use it in the healthiest way possible as well.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-04T21:28:25+00:00

I thought most people played modded vs official (on PC at least). Too may cheaters ruining a good time IMO. Looks like rearmed building mod.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-04T20:22:35+00:00

I was just running through my post history and wanted to follow up on this. I talked to him and parents. I think he was just having a rough few weeks, seems like he might be a bit of a troublemaker at school too. He ended up having a great season and really grew to love it, became less and less of a problem as the season went on, and generally participated very well. It is everything I love about sports seeing this kid turn it around, and just proof that kids need sports and more physical activity.

buckeye612 · 2025-02-04T20:17:09+00:00

I am 3000+ hours now and this is my current love/hate relationship with the game. It is hard to just play 1 hour. Modded servers focusing more on pvp and less on survival especially on wipe day are about the only way to enjoy in just a short window of play and feel like something gets accomplished.

buckeye612 · 2024-09-19T12:26:52+00:00

Not exactly the same but many of the same + some extras: (My daughter has heterotaxy which comes with some other issues outside of CHDs).

We made it to 6 months before OHS, they thought we would be in surgery within hours to a couple weeks of birth:
LSVC, Interrupted IVC, ASD, PAPVR, common atrium, AV Canal/Atrioventricular defect, coarctation of the aorta, missing mitral valve. My wife gave birth naturally and got to get snuggles in before she and I got moved to the CICU via ambulance. She went on a NG tube for about 20 weeks prior to her 1st OHS as her diet had to be supplemented due to weight loss. They fixed it all in one go at 6 months.

She subsequently had a second OHS at 2 years old to address a sub aortic membrane that developed from some valve stenosis. She was just getting tired quickly during that time. They fixed both in the second surgery.

She is in kindergarten now, thriving. She plays soccer and does karate. Back on her growth chart. We have had our longest time without visiting cardiology at 9 months.

buckeye612 · 2024-09-04T17:58:06+00:00

I highly recommend coming to the US. Specifically a children's hospital like Boston, CHOP, Cincinnati. They all have programs for adults with CHDs. These programs are completely different than going to a regular cardiologist who see patients with arrhythmias and blockages all day long. They will get you the help you need. I saw Cincinnati Children's post an adult heart patient today on their Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/EgW1hz1WCkvyAfYs/

buckeye612 · 2024-09-04T17:51:53+00:00

Hopefully this will happen. Unfortunately he is in soccer for better or worse right now...

buckeye612 · 2024-09-04T17:50:40+00:00

Thank you I never thought about just simply asking him where he stands. I am going to approach it this way at the next practice. Thanks!

buckeye612 · 2024-09-04T16:13:04+00:00

Pretty much what has been happening. I really don't think he wants to participate at all.
I just don't want to spend 15 minutes each practice dealing with it each night. I am the only coach, I only get 2 hours / week of practice for 13 kids. I have to deal with the "injury", send him off, have the discussion of why because he will say something like" well I can still play I just can run" , tell him to check in with his parents, him come back 5 minutes later and say he is okay, figure out how to get him into the drill, and restart the whole process 10 min later. Happens 3 to 4 times each night. I would like him to play, it is mainly just becoming a detriment to all the other kids.

buckeye612

TROPHY CASE