2021 was an exciting year for Xscape Pod! In the spring we changed ownership and moved nearly everything from Portland, Oregon to West Middlesex, Pennsylvania. Jacob Unverdorben, who has a love for adventure and the outdoors, bought the company and entered the world of ecommerce and online sales. Leaving his management job within the foodservice industry with a little unease and excitement rushed to learn as much as he could before the summer camping season. We learned increasingly more with each Pod we sent out. Pods were stolen, broken, delivered late, and even lost in FedEx warehouses. Not every experience was a bad one though. We also shipped plenty of Pods out to all of you that went so smoothly that once we restocked the items on the shelf, we were in disbelief that nothing went wrong. There were so many of you that called in to thank us and that sent us photos so we could experience the trip with you. This move has been scary for sure and some days we look back and wonder what we got ourselves into but seeing how happy we have made all of you makes it totally worth it.
In the coming year we plan to bring back Glamping upgrades. As we noticed many of you would like to have a bigger tent and some gear to make camping a little less primitive, we are bringing back the GLAMPING UPGRADE. The upgrade is going to include a 4-person tent, hammock, French press coffee maker, and a solar panel charging brick. We are also working on a deal with a local coffee company here in West Middlesex to offer you packaged coffee to go with your French press. The idea of different food, hygiene, and survival kits is also something we are kicking around.
We have asked that you start sharing your photos with #conquercamping so we can all see the photos from your trip. This is a hashtag that we have been using for a long time here at Xscape Pod, but during the fall season and going into 2022 we are inviting you all to use it as well. We truly love to see your campsite, the views, and your adventures and we know most of you are so busy you forget to share your experience with us. We wanted to make things easier. Mostly everybody posts their experiences on social media so this upcoming year we ask you to use #conquercamping so we can experience that trip with you.
We are starting to work with a few local campgrounds to offer discounted gear to their campers. Our mission is to get as many people as possible outside as easily as possible. This was a goal we tried to carry out this season but never had enough gear to offer full pods rentals. Many factors were in play that stopped us from offering our gear to local campers like shipping times. Shipping the gear to and from our customers all over the lower 48 caused some of our gear to be out for over 3 weeks (Shipping to: 7 days, camping: 7 days, shipping back: 7 days). As we finally have shipping under control, because we are now shipping with UPS, we have faster gear turn around and can get more gear to more people.
We saved the most exciting for last! We understand some of you may want to someday own gear. We are camping made simple, so to simplify that process we are working with some new suppliers to offer you many different bands and types of equipment. Why shop seven or eight different websites or stores when everything you could ever need is all in one place. This is slow moving process as we add products and suppliers but by July 2022 our goal is to have this part of our site up and running.
We want to thank all you for a wonderful 2021 and hope that we can help you get outside and explore in 2022. Happy Holidays & HAPPY NEW YEAR!