Eagle Optics to stop carrying Nikon ? (1 Viewer)

There are lots of brands, but a good dealer is harder to find.

In Holland, by European law, a brand is obliged to deliver to a retailer/dealer when that brand has delivered earlier. There are severe penalties if they don't.
On the other hand, the dealer/retailer can stop whenever he/she wants.
Jan.

oetzi said:

There are lots of brands, but a good dealer is harder to find.

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the dealer is still there-with a lot of other brands

if a brand is hard on dealers,
can users expect better?

edj

jan van daalen said:

In Holland, by European law, a brand is obliged to deliver to a retailer/dealer when that brand has delivered earlier. There are severe penalties if they don't.
On the other hand, the dealer/retailer can stop whenever he/she wants.
Jan.

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Jan,

Perhaps that is true but I'm told they can make life very difficult. Earlier this year a retailer was telling me with some bitterness that they felt forced to drop your favourite manufacturer. The 'new rules' meant that they would be obliged to drop competing brands, carry vastly unrealistic stock levels, and devote a totally disproportional amount of their total display space to the company. There were a bunch of other minor conditions that sounded just ridiculous to me.

As far as I know there is no other seller of that brand within 50 miles. Who wins?

David

typo said:

Jan,

Perhaps that is true but I'm told they can make life very difficult. Earlier this year a retailer was telling me with some bitterness that they felt forced to drop your favourite manufacturer. The 'new rules' meant that they would be obliged to drop competing brands, carry vastly unrealistic stock levels, and devote a totally disproportional amount of their total display space to the company. There were a bunch of other minor conditions that sounded just ridiculous to me.

As far as I know there is no other seller of that brand within 50 miles. Who wins?

David

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Hi David

Wouldn't forcing the retailer to drop competing brands be in restraint of trade and therefore be illegal?

In any case I don't see this happening all over the UK so perhaps your retailer and Swaro had a rather specific falling out and Swaro engineered a situation where the retailer would be obliged to be the one to walk away.

Whatever its distasteful.

Lee

Lee,

I didn't quiz the guy about the details, just reporting the rant. He mentioned that the other alpha brands had been gradually imposing more onerous conditions but this seemed totally bizarre. There may have been a back story that I don't know about.

David

typo said:

Jan,

Perhaps that is true but I'm told they can make life very difficult. Earlier this year a retailer was telling me with some bitterness that they felt forced to drop your favourite manufacturer. The 'new rules' meant that they would be obliged to drop competing brands, carry vastly unrealistic stock levels, and devote a totally disproportional amount of their total display space to the company. There were a bunch of other minor conditions that sounded just ridiculous to me.

As far as I know there is no other seller of that brand within 50 miles. Who wins?

David

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Presumably Amazon will pick up the slack.
Not so good for the retail customer, her opportunity to actually handle and assess the gear before her purchase falls away. Good for the Royal Mail though.

typo said:

Jan,

Perhaps that is true but I'm told they can make life very difficult. Earlier this year a retailer was telling me with some bitterness that they felt forced to drop your favourite manufacturer. The 'new rules' meant that they would be obliged to drop competing brands, carry vastly unrealistic stock levels, and devote a totally disproportional amount of their total display space to the company. There were a bunch of other minor conditions that sounded just ridiculous to me.

As far as I know there is no other seller of that brand within 50 miles. Who wins?

David

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The first lesson I've learned in this job is: Be Independent.
For me, from this side, it's impossible to judge on the situation you are mentioning here, but I can shed some light on how things go and you can figure out for yourself how things could have gone.

All the three alfa brands have a three level retailer. Let's call it A, B and C or authorised dealer and authorised Center etc.
So a small shop that sells about 10.000,00 euro on a yearly base from a brand is A. He/she is not mentioned on a dealers list, does not have the benefit of free advertisement, does not get a bonus rated on his/hers total yearly sales etc. He/she does not have to have several models of that brand in the shop.
When a shop wants to be on the official dealer list of the brand, that brand wants in return the retailers committment to have several models in stock so the customer can actual see what that brand is about. So the retailer has to invest. There is NO sale on commission. The retailer pays the same price as the A, B and C dealer. This is where Nikon differences from the rest. In return he/she gets educational support, regular visit from the brands representative etc.
The toplevel retailer gets the most benefits. The bonus, visits to the plants, first knowledge of model changes, 2% of its yearly turnover for marketing matters, four times a year a total makeover of the brand POS material, displays, cut through models, first delivery, you call it, the brand makes it happen.
In return, the retailer has the most (we always have all) models in stock.

Every retailer gets a map from the brand explaining all this. So there is no hidden trick or secret. Everybody begins at the bottom and can work his way up.
One thing they are all very strict on is price integrity. So if a top dealer flushes the prices through the toilet he could loose his/hers bonus. In camera land, the end year bonus is where they often float on. That's a totally different ballgame in hunting and outdoors sale channel.

I can't imagine that a brand does not wants to be representated by a retailer. Unless that retailer damages the interest of that brand or other dealers of that brand. And than still, he/she can make live of that brand difficult if they don't deliver any more.
We are allways very open to our customers about brand rules.
One thing I have never experienced is that a brand demands dropping off compatetive brands. If they would, they were the first to go.

Jan

Jan,

That business is mostly cameras but I imagine they would have comfortably met your official dealer criteria. All I can say is they were very unhappy about new conditions being imposed on them and were not intending to stock them in future.

David

interesting thread
but
does it really make any difference to BF members?

edj

edwincjones said:

interesting thread
but
does it really make any difference to BF members?

edj

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It makes a difference to me, in that although it is business and not personal it can still tell you something about a company and its culture. Sort of like having an insight into a person's character by seeing how they treat the "little people" like waiters/waitresses, help staff, cashiers, etc. versus "important" people, those who can help them advance or succeed or have something they want...

High impact advertising, highlight lighting, stylish point of sale displays, sales staff in suits and other promotional gimmicks might be appropriate to persuade people that hideous glass trinkets are valuable and desirable. I happen to think it's a completely inappropriate strategy for selling high quality optical instruments to a bunch of customers like us and really really object to paying a premium for it.

I prefer to make my purchases at establishments that value their customers, employ knowledgeable and helpful staff and give good after sales support (even if it is a bit scruffy), just like that place I mentioned and will be deeply saddened if that becomes a thing of the past.

David

Don't kill the messenger. This is the world we live in. If it is up to some ones expectations, that is an other matter.
Jan

I see B&H sold the last Nikon SE - I got the 2nd to the last, will be delivered in a couple days. As far as I can tell, no major (or minor for that matter) seller has another SE, and most of Nikons other high end glasses are out of stock everywhere.

I'm a Canon camera guy and a Swarovski fanboi for binoculars (except for a Nikon 8x20 LX and now the 8x32 SE) so I don't have a dog in this race, but Nikon seems to be up to something strange.

John F
LV NV

Caesar, it was important to know the date of manufacture at the time because, as you may remember, the original dual hinge EDG had major diopter problems when introduced....lots and lots of them. They were supposedly fixed later. I had run into a great buy on two EDG 8x42 binos that were salesman samples. I got the serial numbers and called Nikon to see if they were pre or post diopter problem and if they were fixed/good to go. Nikon CS was bumfuzzled, clueless, and couldn't answer that. I asked them to look up the serial # to see if they'd been serviced and they said they couldn't do that. This Nikon rep that frequents this board had no clue, tried to help and couldn't get an answer either. I said screw it and bought an SLC HD instead. Like I said, they need to stick to cameras and camera lenses. I have guided big game hunters for the past 10 years here in the US and have never seen the first EDG, Premier, LXL show up in camp in a hunter's hands. There are solid reasons for this, obviously.

This begs the question: why is Nikon optics in such disarray ? Seiko is kind of the same way, they have thousands of Seiko 5 models and also Grand Seiko brand. While Grand Seiko are excellent watches (better than Rolex) nobody has ever hear of them. I think Japanese in general have no clue of marketing. Europeans are the masters in this regard.

Then again it could be cheap Chinese ED binos are pressuring other established manufacturers.

marinemaster said:

This begs the question: why is Nikon optics in such disarray ? ... I think Japanese in general have no clue of marketing.

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WTF!? I don't see how you make the jump from cutting EO off to being in disarray or they have no clue about marketing. People bitch about Nikon not doing this or not doing that, but at the end of the day Nikon is pretty much #1 or #2 in market share in everything they sell in most of the markets they sell in.

So what if Nikon is not being all things to all people or even the best they can be. We only see from the customer viewpoint, but large companies are ultimately run for the benefit of employees, sub-contractors, lenders and shareholders. There is method behind the madness.

Would it make a difference if Nikon was contracting out some of it's lower and middle priced binoculars like the Monarch and ATB Series to the same contractors that Eagle Optics was using for their house brand and for Vortex? How many independent contractors are there in Japan and China who can do this kind of quality work?

Bob

marinemaster said:

This begs the question: why is Nikon optics in such disarray ? Seiko is kind of the same way, they have thousands of Seiko 5 models and also Grand Seiko brand. While Grand Seiko are excellent watches (better than Rolex) nobody has ever hear of them. I think Japanese in general have no clue of marketing. Europeans are the masters in this regard.

Then again it could be cheap Chinese ED binos are pressuring other established manufacturers.

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Huh?? In disarray?? Seiko and Nikon are if anything examples of well organized nanyfacturers of a broad range of products that appeal to a large number of consumers who have decided to buy their products. Seiko and Nikon thankfully have much broader and therefore more interesting product lines than their more narrowly focused respective competitors Rolex and Zeiss. Such success is hardly evidence of disarray.

RJM said:

People bitch about Nikon not doing this or not doing that, but at the end of the day Nikon is pretty much #1 or #2 in market share in everything they sell in most of the markets they sell in.

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So do you have the stats to back it up or are just making it up? Post 'em up. Nikon sport optics is a joke.