A message from Ross Nursery from our online tackle shop partners:

“I GUESS you’ve either seen the latest Total Fishing Newsletter or have seen something on the boards and wondered what’s going on. Hopefully I can explain.

In its simplest form, Geepster promotes our online tackle shop and in return we pay him some commission. It’s not a lot, he’s not going to retire to the Bahamas on the proceeds, in fact it probably won’t even pay his web hosting fees (but don’t tell him that).

I know that some users of the Total Fishing board have a connection with web hosting, web development etc. It is those people that know just how much it costs to keep a busy web site going. I read in one of the posts the other day that it’s possible to have a web site for £50 a year. Totally agree…but not one like Total Fishing. For a start Geepster has an outside company doing the web development, that’s not cheap. Even more expensive is the cost of bandwidth for a busy forum like Total Fishing. For those people not involved in web site production, band width is a measurement of the amount of traffic that goes to and from a web site, in other words it’s measuring how busy the site is. More traffic equals more cost, so the more popular a site becomes, the greater the cost of running it.

Sometimes these bulletin boards are part of a large commercial web site, and the cost is met by the main site. That’s how Total Fishing used to operate before its reincarnation, it was part of the David Hall publishing empire, and the man himself used to foot the bill. As you probably know, DHP decided to close the forum and Geepster took over the running of it. Now he has to find a way of bringing in some money to pay for the upkeep of the site. Whatever you might have read, it’s not an easy task. Gone are the days when advertisers would beat a path to your door, now there are lots of web sites and very few sponsors.

That’s where we step in. We have an established online tackle shop that’s been running for three years now. We already provide a shop for a carp fishing forum and we’ve also built the online shop for the NFA Direct web site. We’re an established retailer with a shop in Vauxhall, London and anybody who’s been there will tell you that it’s bursting at the seams mostly with match fishing tackle. We’re delighted to be associated with the busiest match fishing board around, and look forward to a long and friendly association. Incidentally, I realise that there are several people that post on the boards that have a connection with the tackle trade. People such as Mike S from Cumbria Angling Centre have contributed lots of useful information, and I truly hope that they continue to do so. I hope that they appreciate that this is one of the few ways that Geepster could have brought in some money to enable the site to keep going.

OK, that’s out of the way so let me try and answer a few of the questions that you might have :

Q. What are the delivery times like?
A. There are well over 2,000 individual items on the site, that’s not different sizes and colours, that’s 2,000 items with a description and a picture. I’ll let you in to a secret….they’re not all in stock. If all of your order is in stock it will be despatched the same day, see the next item for delivery details .When something’s out of stock we try to get it for you as quickly as possible. A couple of tips, put a home and work / mobile number on your order then if something’s out of stock they will phone and see if there’s any alternatives, also if something’s urgent, needed for the weekend or whatever place the order then phone them later (or next day if you placed the order in the evening) to check that they have what you want. Contact details are at the bottom of the page. Oh, nearly forgot…credit cards are not charged until the goods are shipped.

Q. What are your delivery costs?
Small packages with a value under £30 are sent by First Class Post and are charged at £3.50
Rods, larger packages and any parcel with a value over £30 are sent by courier and are charged at £6.50
Next day delivery of any package is available at a cost of £9.50. If you pay for next day and we are unable to fill the order on that day then delivery cost will revert to £3.50 / £6.50 whichever is applicable.

Q. Do you deliver overseas?
We do our best !!. Carriage costs on overseas delivery have gone through the roof in the last year. If it’s a small package, under 2 kg in weight we can send it by air mail at a reasonable cost. If it’s a bedchair to Australia the cost’s going to be frightening. In all cases we will email you with the delivery costs before shipping the goods, and will only ship when you have agreed to those costs.

Q. Can you get stuff that’s not on the site?
Probably, in fact it might already be in stock but has never been put on to the web site. Phone or email and we’ll try to help. Details are at the bottom of the page.

Q What’s special about the shop?
Well, it’s one of the most advanced shopping cart systems around and it’s been further modified by our programmer to make it even more user friendly. Some of its best points :-
– The search box is a really useful tool for quickly finding some obscure piece of tackle. If you’re looking for Trabucco T1 Elite Line then type t1 into the search box and it’ll find it
– The currency box allows our overseas visitors to have prices displayed in $US or Euros
– Once you’ve entered your details they’re remembered ready for next time you order (except for credit card details, they’re not stored anywhere)
– The tackle reviews section. It lets you add your comments be they good or bad on any item of tackle featured on the site, you don’t even have to have bought it from us !!. The only rules are that
1) You must own that piece of tackle, we don’t want things like “my mate Joe’s got one and it’s crap”
2) No profanities (swear words !) please.
3) Please be constructive, tell us why the item is good or bad.
If you stick to the above three simple rules I promise not to delete any review, no matter how scathing. This could become the only truly independent review of UK fishing tackle in the civilised world – it’s up to you.

Q How do we contact you?

You can access the shop just by clicking the bottom button on the Navigation Bar on the left. The actual URL is www.total-fishing-shop.co.uk

The address of the shop itself is:

Swiftys Bait & Tackle
44-46 Wilcox Road
London
SW8 2UX

Opening times – Mon – Sat 09:00 – 17:30

Our email address total-fishing@swiftys-fishing-tackle.co.uk