WaterWar.net

The following terms are currently used on iSoaker.com for noted the availability of a specific water blaster model:
- No Longer Made
- Coming Soon
- Hard to Find
- Few Stores
- Some Stores
- In Stores
- Online Only

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Now, I'm not quite happy with the breakdown, both in terms of how they describe various levels of availability as well as how well I, personally, am able to gauge whether or not a water blaster is available (and forget about me trying to determine availability on a world-wide basis ).

That said, I want to revise terms, but am looking for input on how to describe availability. Trying to highlight what can or cannot usually be found on places like eBay is something I'd like to avoid since that fluctuates too much. Perhaps one option is to break it down to:
- No Longer Made
- Limited Distribution
- Widely Available

That sounds good, although I would still include "Coming Soon" and maybe "Online Only."

Coming Soon ? that is one term that will never be used unless buzz bee tells you what they are making.

Online only should definitely fall under widely available or limited distribution. If it's easy to buy regularly at a reasonable price, then it's widely available.

Perhaps we should look at multiple factors:
In production: Yes/no
Retailers carrying: Most, some, few, none.
Easy of finding/buying: Easy, difficult, rare.

Retailers carrying would, of course, pertain to anyone selling the blaster regularly, be they online or brick/mortar. Easy of finding/buying would pertain to being able to find a product and being able to buy it at a reasonable price.

Some examples:
- Gorgon: No retailers carrying, and rare to find in aftermarket.
- Iron Man 2 (a few months ago): Few retailers carrying, Easy to find/buy (since Amazon had it for around $13.)
- CPS 2000: No retailers carrying, difficult to find/buy but still being regularly sold on eBay.

Lots of problems with this approach, particularly the fluctuations. I consider the Iron Man 2 to be difficult to buy in its current state, with few retailers carrying it (unless you don't count Amazon merchants as retailers). Anyway, despite the problems with this approach, may be able to get something out of it.

Perhaps it's better to limit to iSoaker's proposed 3 categories, but with a link to searches that help users find the blaster or information on its availability. The problem here, however, is that we almost always have to make very generalized recommendations (i.e. "CPS 1000/1200/2100" instead of "CPS 1000 in particular") for new people searching for competitive blasters.