Thanks for listening to your customers. There are a few issues which if they hadn't all come at once would just have been an annoyance to a few types of people. But as they all came at once you managed to annoy most of your customers in the space of one short year.
You released a supposedly limited 1oz Dragon coin in greater numbers and put a privy on it to get around your own restrictions, this was not a great move but many of us, myself included bought them anyway.
You reminted previous years' coins, which many collectors were relying on using as an investment because of their low mintage, but many of us bought them anyway.
No one is really sure how many coins have been minted and released in different packaging, this means some collectors missed out on releases because they didn't hear about them until too late, but we buy them on the secondary market anyway. We also find out that a supposedly low mintage coin is being repackaged and sold overseas.
You gave preference to overseas customers, releasing products overseas which we then had to try and source at an inflated price, but many of us tried to get them anyway.
You did fix the computer ordering system for the release day of the snakes so thanks for that.
Most of us realise that you are a business and that it is your job to get every last penny out of us, that it is in your interest to do this with the least amount of expense to yourself, which is why it might be easier to remint a coin than produce a new one and why it is easier to add a privy than it is to come up with a new idea.
We also realise that Australians only make up a small fraction of your customers and you need the overseas trade to keep going, even if we feel that it is at our expense.
We take into consideration the high costs of production in Australia which is why you can't match prices from overseas mints, even though we feel that we are paying too much for basic bullion.
We understand that you have a reputation for producing quality products which is why you don't want to produce a cheap round, even though we could do with a product somewhere in between the high premium 'legal tender' and the poured bars.
However as you have seen people are chosing to vote with their wallets, we do have access to overseas markets where we can buy all the things you don't provide at prices you can't match.
The few people who are trying to maintain sets will buy what they need to keep going, just be aware that many coin collectors are waiting for the Queen to step down so they can finish collecting all the different series, it might not be the end of the series in your eyes but collectors feeling the pinch would rather say they have a complete collection of the QE2 series rather than struggle to keep up with all the new releases.
I enjoyed the Dragon releases last year and bought my first coloured coins and my first ANDA show coins ever. I wanted to get a full set but missed out on a few key coins. Nothing this year has tempted me, in general I am not looking for modern collectables from the Perth Mint, the Dragons were a one off so really the mintages are not what is turning me away from the Mint.
The new transparent mintages is a great improvement and will be welcomed by many I am sure, it is the first step in winning back the trust of your past customers. However, I am not sure that it will be enough considering everything else your marketing team has inflicted on us this year.
...at least you are not as bad as the RAM!
