While still small, Airsoft Buddy is aiming slowly but surely. It plans to add more products in the near future. As part of the our ongoing series on featuring airsoft retailers you can trust, we have gotten in touch with Airsoft Buddy, by interviewing one of the partners, William. This is a republished feature story from the Popular Airsoft Magazine.

Popular Airsoft: Hi William, can you please tell us about Airsoft Buddy and how you came about to start it?

William of Airsoft Buddy: I have fervor to Airsoft – this modern combat sport. Being a regular Airsoft player, I know quite a lot of buddies [playing airsoft]. I love trying new toys, and therefore, I am also a frequent visitor to local Airsoft shops. For these reasons, a strong relationship is built with one of the largest local retailers and wholesalers in Hong Kong.

As a fan of Airsoft, I am “addicted” to new Airsoft guns and accessories, and I think that there are buddies all over the world that share similar excitements as mine. That is why I started the business, not only as a business but also to share the excitement of the game. Airsoft Buddy is officially established on October 2008 and we have two founding partners, one focuses on external affairs and the other on internal operations. As mentioned, we have a strong relationship with one of the largest wholesalers, thus we are able to access the latest news and secure products at the best prices.

Are you an avid airsoft player yourself? Where do you usually play in Hong Kong?

I love the mental and physical exercises bring by Airsoft, and as stated, I am a frequent Airsoft player and always try my new gears during regular games. There are some indoor and outdoor facilities for Airsoft in Hong Kong. Personally, I prefer outdoors. The venue I visit most is the one operated by Armed Forces Hong Kong in the New Territories. If anyone visits Hong Kong and wants to have a try, please let us know such that we could give free advice.

How’s Airsoft Buddy nowadays as an airsoft seller? Are you doing good business in airsoft?

We are a small Airsoft seller and not yet on the same scale as the other large sellers. However, we are doing very well in the new WE products, and we are satisfied with this good start.

You are the first to introduce the WE M4 GBB ahead of other established retailers. How were you able to pull this off?

As mentioned, we have a strong relationship with one of the largest wholesalers, the relationship is won by trust. This wholesaler is a strong support for us, and with their help, we are able to get hold of this new product ahead of others.

We looked at your Website and it seems that you’re not yet fully “loaded up” as an airsoft retailer in the number of items you sell online. Any plans of full stocking up on many products that players would like to buy?

We have a commitment to focus on WE suite at our initial start, so we focused our efforts on WE suite. However, we will add our stocks gradually in the coming few months, such to provide more convenience to our customers with a one-stop shopping experience.

Also, you do not have All-China-Made (ACM) guns in your list yet, mainly TM AEGs and the WE M4 GBB. Do you
have any plans of selling ACM guns too?

To put ACM guns on our Webshop is part of our plans in the coming few months. We hope to upload these information as
soon as we could after the coming holiday seasons.

How are the sales of the WE M4 GBB ever since it was announced in airsoft news sites (Popular Airsoft included)?

The sales of the WE M4 GBB are very promising and up to our expectation. We also want to leverage this chance to
thank all buddies who have trust in us and took the “risks” to place their order at us – a newly established reseller.

What will make Airsoft Buddy different from other Airsoft retailers from Hong Kong?

This is a difficult question. Other Hong Kong Airsoft online retailers were established for quite a long time and already have sizable businesses and customers. But we are just a new start-up and still in the initial stages to recruit our customers.

It is very difficult to compare and also impossible to compare at the time being.

We just want to focus more in our customer services. Unlike traditional face-to-face shopping, on-line shopping is very remote and “distant”. In order for customers to have the pleasure of shopping in our on-line store, we think that customer services are very important. That is why we call ourselves Airsoft “Buddy”, we hope our customers will feel that we are just like a buddy and not simply just another buying source. This will be also part of our future plan to continue to focus on customer services, and not just on expanding our business.

Times nowadays are tough, especially that Western countries are in economic recession. Are you feeling this crisis with lower orders from players around the world?

We have no track record on our business, so we have no burden to compare with our past performance. Our business
is still small, and thus we haven’t got heavy overhead as well. During this economic recession, we have the advantage over other large resellers that we could control the expansion pace of our company, and need not worry about cost control or cutting headcount. If the business is not as we originally expected, we could keep our business at current size. The only thing that we don’t want to sacrifice is the customer services part.

What are you plans in the future as a company?

We hope to expand our business in terms of the product varieties and operation size, and also to have a better finetuning of our self-services portal. The most important is that we hope that our service quality could maintain no matter how large or small the size of our company.

For this Christmas, being an airsoft retailer, what would Airsoft Buddy recommend to airsoft players to buy for
Christmas?

Of course, we will recommend WE products. We are going to launch limited special offer for WE just for Christmas. Please visit our Website, www.airsoftbuddy.com, later this week for further information.

Anything else that you would want to say to our readers?

Airsoft is a modern combat sport, it is not a main stream sports like Basketball or Football. We hope that buddies all over the world could maintain their enthusiasm on this sport, and to promote more the sport in the positive way. Of course, we hope our company could bring more new products to the market and grow with the market. Your support is crucial for us to achieve this.

Enjoy Life and enjoy your holidays, and forget the economic recession at least for the holidays. Wish all of you have a happy New Year!