Many companies are rather mysterious concerning the sale figures of their products. Competing companies might profit from them. Competition doesn't bother the APPELSPADE (yet), and so it seems O.K. to tell something about its sales. Up till now sale hasn't been frightfully high, but anyhow there is clearly an upgoing trend in it. In 2004 only three were sold, but in 2005 double that ! That's a proportional rise in sales, envied by many companies. That rise however is nothing, compared with the one in 2006. Up till August 23, 2006 allready 16 are sold, so more than double of 2005, while the year has still several months to go ! It should be noted however that I had a lot of help from the students of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam), who sold 15 as a study assignment (see also WEB SITES).

Who are those people who buy an APPELSPADE ? I tracked down all sales and have tried to categorize them :

• 7 cities, among them 3 parts of town from Amsterdam
• 14 private persons, I assume all amateur gardeners
• 4 miscellaneous, among them an allotment society and a company that does gardens

In the report of the students several opinions are to be read about the spade, namely negative, from prejudiced people who didn't use the spade, or used it wrongly, and positive, from experienced people who have used the spade frequently. To the first ones I would like to say : please read TESTS in this web site. Here are a number of quotes from the students' report :

• The man was enthusiastic but also doubtful and wanted to see the spade first. After that he still was enthusiastic and suddenly the spade was sold !!!!
• I showed the spade to my father and he thought it a fine thing and bought it. After that he enthusiastical showed it to a lot of people but they didn't share his enthusiasm. Luckily my father was loyal to his spade, digging happily around in the land of Assendelft, and he is very satisfied about the spade !
• The father of the student was very much impressed by the design of the spade and described the spade as a "very sympathetic spade". A few days later he went to work with the spade in the garden. He is very satisfied with the spade, and he is going to use it many times.

I want to emphasize that these are authentic quotes, so not made up for commercial purposes.

On December 31, 2006 I struck a balance of the sales up to then, and I have to say that sales have dropped somewhat in the second half year. On the first of July 2006 I got a computer, because internet sale was the thing, everyone told me. So with good cheer I went and made a web site that was ready for the web two months later. From that day on I began emailing potential customers. First I approached all Dutch municipalities, because almost half of my sales up to then were for account of municipalities. My roughly 450 emails to municipalities did not lead to one single sale. Civil servants obviously are too busy working to study a web site. Another reason might have been that I want to see money first before I send a spade. Most municipalities are not so happy with that. My experiences with municipalities however are not very good. In all cases I got my money in the end, but it took a lot of trouble in several cases. Furthermore the labourers are less enthousiastic than their superiors (see ACCEPTANCE) , so the spade is no longer used eventually ( and so doesn't lead to further orders). Such a superior told me :"I hardly can force them to use the spade." If only I had such a boss before. "Boss, I rather not work with that computer." "Well, that's OK son, you just use paper and pencil. It takes a little longer and it's a pity about the investment, but I hardly can force you to use a computer."

After that I aimed my emails at professional gardeners, garden designers etc. I found about a 150 email addresses of English, American and Canadian companies on the internet and from an English garden magazine. Not one of the companies from the internet replied, and just one from the magazine. They asked me if they could have a used one to try first. Yeah, right, like that is common practice with a normal garden shop. "Could I try that lawn-mower a few months to see if it works OK ?" I told them I don't do that, and that was the end of it.

My 4000 emails to Dutch professional gardeners, garden designers etc. led to only four sales. I've calculated the time I spend on the emails and the profit I made on the four spades and came to the conclusion that I earn about 50 eurocent an hour. After that I sent a second email to about 1500 companies to point out the fact that the stainless steel version of the spade is limited to the first 100 I had made, because a second edition (if ever) will be made out of normal steel, because the costs of stainless steel have risen frightfully since I had the spades made, because the manufacurer had more work than he had calculated, and because the stainless steel version is too expensive for most people.

Those 1500 emails didn't have the effect I was looking for. A few companies asked me friendly to stop sending them emails. I wasn't planning to. One response I have to mention. A professional gardener mailed me back :

not even if he was for free...

That was the complete text. Now with my email I sent them I accidently forgot to add my new text to the repetition of the old one. I thanked them for their response and sent them the new text as yet. After that I haven't heard from them.

To prevent my hourly wages from falling from 50 to 25 eurocent I stopped sending emails. If I went out on the street searching for change I had earned more an hour.

By the way, I sold a fifth spade through my web site. A websurfing student discovered my web site and wanted to buy a spade, but wanted a students discount. After I made it clear to him that my "business" is not exactly a thriving enterprise he paid me the full amount.