Everything Must Go
I had been meaning to get this information out there in good time for the eventualities detailed below; however in true "by the skin of my yellow country teeth" fashion it is being delivered at the last minute.
It will be of no surprise to those of you who have been following for a while that thanks to the 1991 pedal, FLB has enjoyed an unprecedented level of success over the past 8 months; going from a tiny, almost non-entity to an award winning pedal boutique known around the world. Never did I think I would be running FLB as my full time work and I am extremely grateful to the myriad of people who have supported FLB's endeavours over the past couple of years in whatever way; be it as a customer, collaborator or enthusiastic liker of instagram posts. I thank you from the deepest recesses of my soul.
With the past covered, we must look to the future, but before the future comes the now. And "now" is very important as there are big changes coming imminently which I have detailed below.
There are now just shy of 1000 1991 pedals out there in the world; which is an incredible number in such a short space of time. Due to this, it has been necessary for me to register for VAT, which again is something I never envisioned happening.
My VAT registration is active as of June 1st 2022. For the most part this will have no impact on customers.
I have no plans to increase prices as yet. For the moment, I am going to absorb the 20% VAT as part of the current £99 price tag. It might be that this turns out to be unviable in the long run however I won't know until I give things a good run; as such, I have no plans to increase prices in 2022 and shall review things at the start of 2023. I am not trying to make a fortune out of this; I just want to make a living. As such you can be assured that I will always stick to my mantra of providing affordable pedals and as long as it is viable will not charge more than £100 for any pedal.
For customers in the EU; you will not be charged the 20%VAT and will instead pay it upon your pedal arriving in your country of residence.
For purchases from countries outside the scope of VAT; nothing will change.
The most significant change following VAT registration is that Funny Little Boxes will be a retailer of other builders pedals and second hand items no longer. I have always worked to very slim margins and with the need to charge 20%VAT on all products, this means that any margin I had on other builders pedals is effectively gone. It brings me great sadness to have to do this however it is necessary. Funny Little Boxes, will from June 1st be exclusively a producer and retailer of its own pedals. Things like patch cables and other utilities will still be stocked but with a 20% price increase to account for VAT.
To all the builders whose work I have stocked over the years; Zander Circuitry; Bad Penny Fx; Chevtone; Underfluked; JSA; Ritual Devices; Fairydance Creations; Forest FX; Demiurge Instruments; Stompkins Pedals; Practical Patch; Marcus Dlux; Sound Lad Liverpool; Magna Fx and special mention to Bluff Chill devices and Tate Fx whose pedals I did not stock but had a few second hand items through the shop. I give my heartfelt thanks for entrusting me with your wonderful pedals. I hope you feel I did a good job in getting your work out there.
As of July 1st; Funny Little Boxes as it is now (run as a sole trader business by me) shall cease to exist and shall resume trading as Funny Little Boxes Ltd. This will have no impact on the day to day operation of the business but it is quite exciting; I never thought I'd be a company director so it feels a bit special.
And finally, we come to the future.
The build queue for the 1991 pedal will close on June 1st. I am doing this because with the current numbers we will be on track to have cleared the queue by the end of September this year. This is great for 2 reasons. Firstly it means I won't have to manage the build queue anymore which means there will be a lot more time for other work to be focused on. Secondly it means that I can time re stocking the shop with 1991's to be in sync (hopefully, if things stay on schedule) with the release of the next FLB pedal towards the end of September.
So there's plenty of exciting things going on. I thank you for your support so far and look forward to bringing you more noisy joy in the future.
Going forward I shall be using the Funny Little Boxes mailing list as my main way of getting information regarding product releases, re-stocks, sales and maybe even pre orders... out to you guys. Please sign up below so that you can be fully in the know.
http://eepurl.com/g66ZCT
All the best
Andy