Diary of a Demented Store Owner

Thursday 17 January 2008

Bullseye Fusible Versus Spectrum System 96

It’s not really a valid title of course, as we sell and support both. How the heck do you think Mikey can afford wieners for his family’s Sunday Kraft Dinner extravaganza?

But do we love both equally? We don’t. And because of that, apparently, Spectrum is angry.

Mikey got a call this afternoon from Jim Matthews from Spectrum Glass. He felt that we’ve been a little hard on Spectrum Glass lately. We agree- he’s right, we have. Unashamedly.

And why?

In our opinion, it seems that Spectrum Glass, with all their might in this industry of ours, doesn’t like to be criticized or editorialized about. They would prefer people not make mention of any weakness to their fusing product line (they didn't like our blog comments about their colour selection being substantially less than Bullseye). Hey, they make a good consistent product, at a fair price- we’ve never denied that. We sell hundreds of their Rat Paks every year (as a matter of fact that’s our artwork of a rat that adorns every single crate they make). Spectrum even featured a front page Score Magazine article on us once. Sales of SP329.6 put my kids through university. I drink single malt instead of blended scotch now from the sales alone of SP100 Waterglass. How could we not love them?

But as a glass source for fusing?

Should they be ashamed of themselves for having such a small selection and act like they're the industry leader? Or should they acknowledge the fact that perhaps they’re not and promise to continue to improve their product rather than shoot the messenger? Their limited pallete is something that we have pointed out to us every day by you the customer. Is that why we prefer Bullseye over Spectrum then? Of course it is.

Hey guys, you really can’t have it both ways now can you? A couple of years ago, Spectrum took a big swipe at Bullseye (read it here), on why you should buy their glass instead of the ‘competitors’. It seems that no one but Spectrum is allowed to be critical of others in this industry. Bullseye didn’t take this criticism lying down- see here for their rebuttal. And here for some background on Bullseye’s litigation against Spectrum.

We will continue to carry Spectrum as it is our best selling line of glass and we like the glass- we really do. We will also continue to be a Bullseye dealer as it is our favourite line of glass for fusing.

Fantasy In Glass is just a small retailer. Spectrum Glass is a large company. Were they trying to intimidate us perhaps? I don’t know. I do know that we’ll just continue to call them as we see them.

Disclaimer: We are a Bullseye dealer (they called us and offered it to us). We are not a Spectrum dealer

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