Like all other threads about regs you guys aint got a clue so I'll give it to you. The only ones the manufacturers are trying to protect is themselves. They don't want to force your dependancy on YOUR lds. They want to force you to make at least one trip per year to a lds that sells their products. This is why I can't service a brand that I don't sell. It's that simple.
So who's side are you on here Mike? And more generically, who's side is the shop - generically - on?
If its not mine, as a customer, then you've destroyed the basis of my loyalty to the shop. Which will go an awfully long way towards insuring that I will buy my gear from the lowest-priced seller, since I have no reason to maintain loyalty to someone who is cavorting with others to stab me in my wallet.
I know its a common dodge to say "we can't do anything about it; its all forced down our throats."
Unfortunately that's simply not true, which adds intentional deception to the list, and further damages the case for shop loyalty.
I know you and I disagree on much of this Mike. But the fact remains that there are multiple ways to skin this cat, and it would not take many shops to bring down the house of cards. Just look at what ONE - LeisurePro - has done to the retail marketplace for scuba equipment. They have DECIMATED the retail environment. And they're just ONE lonely shop in New York - one of the most punitive and high-cost environments possible to do business in the United States.
So, faced with this reality, it would appear you have a few choices to make.
You can "give up" and leave the market, of course. That's always an option, and a valid one at that.
Or you can continue, as many other shops have, to cling to a failed model and one that drives customers away. Some will stay, begrudgingly, sold on your view of "need". They'll stay not 'cause they want to, but because they believe they must. That's a real nice co-dependant relationship you're fostering there, eh?
Or finally, you can find ways to change what is there, into a sustainable business for you and a band of loyal customers working with you.
Reality is that the second choice is one you can't succeed at. LP is not going away Mike. They will be cloned, just as it was in the photography business. There was originally one NY "gray market" camera store. 42nd street photo, if I remember correctly.
Today there are dozens.
25 years ago I saw this same thing in the camera business. I was a "high end" consumer; had my own darkroom (color even!) and did my own work end to end. I bought a LOT of photography gear and supplies. Thousands of dollars worth annually. As a kid at the time, this was my "big ticket" recreational expense - and big it was for someone my age and with my income.
Time came for me to replace my aging Minolta XG-1; I wanted a faster motor drive than it could accomodate. I started shopping for a newer model, and found a tightly-price-controlled market in the local shops. I was told the same story - no sales below some percentage off retail, or the shop would lose its dealership.
I refused to play. I bought my new camera from a NY mail order shop. The Leisurepros of the Camera world (you DO know they own a camera shop too, right?)
Well, the local camera store got rather upset with me over this when the owner found out, as he did when I came in to buy some new filters for that camera. They thought I was some kind of traitor and made quite a bit of noise about how they wouldn't service my purchase because I hadn't given them their holy mark-up. I was insulted. Greatly.
I never set foot in that store again.
The camera never needed service. I eventually sold it, in perfectly good working order, and bought yet a third SLR. The third one sits in my camera bag to this day - it still works great.
Where they missed the boat is that the camera was just one piece of kit I needed. I also needed film, paper and chemicals, and all three were consumables. Lots of all three, in fact. And there they found their downfall, because I shifted my purchases of THOSE items to mail order too. Over the next two years more than two dozen bulk spools of Tri-X and Kodacolor were mail-ordered, along with box after box of paper and chemicals. The store that insulted me saw exactly NONE of that business. I found that not only was the mail order system reliable, getting product to me in just a few days, it was 30% or more cheaper than the local store. The savings were considerable, but the savings weren't why I switched.
It was attitude Mike.
A few years later the store closed for lack of business.
Obviously, I wasn't the only one driven away.
It didn't have to happen that way.
In being nasty about a camera and lens purchase, and supporting a price-fixing scheme dreamed up by manufacturers and distributors, instead of supporting the customer, they lost not only the camera sale but ALL of the sales from me. The result?
They're gone, and so are virtually all of the others like them.
Learn from history.
Or repeat it.
Your choice Mike.
