BuckStoneCreek is a new website like woot.com for hunters and fishers. They offer items at discount for a limited time, aka a “flash sale.”

In an email interview I did with founder Michael Land, he said they are “currently…working with about 30 brands” in the hunting and fishing industry and they are “adding new ones every week.” The concept behind a “flash sale”  is its a way for companies to advertise their products and to gain brand recognition. It’s almost like Sam’s Club giving out samples of food in hopes that you will buy more food in the future. In fact the concept was originally called a “sample sale.”

One thing you will notice immediately when you go to BuckStoneCreek.com is you can’t see the products they currently have for sale unless you sign up for a free membership. I asked Michael about this and he said that “discounts…often violate Minimum Advertised Price or MAP requirements established by brands.” Essentially, by being a “closed” site they can “avoid MAP requirements.”

I’m a bit a of security nut when it comes to giving out my email address to anyone. As a test, I often create addresses on my domain-name that I can tie to the organization I give it to. Given BuckStoneCreek’s closed policy I was a little wary giving them my email address right off the bat. Today I looked at the tracked address I gave BuckStoneCreek when I signed up for an account on September 18th, 2012. They have not sold my email address to date and their founder has said they “never will.” Since signing up I have only received a weekly email from them announcing their latest items for sale. Of course,  that was the point of signing up for an account in the first place. The emails they send comply with the CAN-SPAM act in that they included a way to unsubscribe at the bottom of the email. Also when I log into my account online I can see they have an easy to find way to mange email alerts.

Anyway, the real question is, if you sign up for an account will they really have anything on sale at a decent price? The site says it sells items at 50-80% off retail price so I requested some past sales information from Michael. I took a sampling of the data he gave me and focused on the price differences between BuckStoneCreek and Cabela’s. Here are the results:

So that gives an average of around 40% off when compared to Cabela’s. To be fair BuckStoneCreek’s claim is for retail price and this is a small sample size. However, beating Cabela’s price consistently like this says something. In a few other instances, BuckStoneCreek beat prices on sites like WalMart and Gander Mountain by as much as 70%. Prices like these show their site is heading in a direction that meets their goal.

Shipping is where most shopping sites kill you. To check I took a look at what BuckStoneCreek charged to ship their “Hunter Safety System Tree Stand Life Line.” Shipping would have cost $7.99 for a single item and five of them would have cost $19.99, so shipping seems average and certainly not a killer.

After trying BuckStoneCreek.com for over a month, I would say that it is a site worth watching if you are into hunting or fishing. According to their founder, “you won’t find items they feature cheaper anywhere else.” Even if they don’t have something you want now, you may find something good down the road.

During my interview with Michael, he offered to make available a unique coupon code only available to the readers of huntingpa.info. When you enter huntingpa72 you will get and additional 10% off your first order. Sign up at BuckStoneCreek.com