jan van daalen
Well-known member
Ok, this has been a while�� but for the record, the following in not in my native language so bare with me please:
The “What if” scenario.
First of all it is important to understand that my business is work and not just a hobby. Work that next to the wellbeing of 7 staffmembers and a workethic of 10-12 hours a day, also an investment requires of 500.000,00 euro which is not by any way financed by Leica or any other company. Decisions like giving Leica the boot are very well overthought and made in consensus with the Optics Team.
What I’m gonna write down will give you an insight in how business is done in my optics world, from my perspective only and has to been seen in that light.
How we got into this business is allready written down by Lee in the interview section, how Leica got into this current mess will become clear below.
Leica is present in our shop for about 20 years now and from day one in the top 4 best sold brands. They contributed a lot of Point of Sale material to us as did the other brands. We visited the Leica plants, both in Solms and Wetzlar on several occasions as we did at the locations of the other brands. We don’t have only the good selling products of them in stock but all of them, like we do with the other brands. With the launch of the Noctivid it seemed to be a good idea to wrap our event car with a cutaway print of this model. Our goal is when people enter our shop they enter the optics paradise. We have a optics “museum” going from 1850 to the present time. We show the original optics trade catalogue from Japan which David Bushnell personally used to purchase optical equipment up to the original Minox Spy camera James Bond used in one of his movies. The road to collecting things is much more interesting than the possession of them��.
Since it is work and not a hobby, we take signals from the market seriously in order to be able to indicate where we will stand over five years. Bushnell is a sub brand in our shop from the beginning and compared to the sales of the big guns it is penny work, but……. Bushnell models in the USA cost 179,00 dollar on Amazone where in Europe 479,00 euro has to be paid within the normal margin rate. Amazone will come to Holland and will dominate the prices of the sub brands. So, where will these brands stand over five years in our shop?
Leica’s management has changed completely several times in the last five years and the current one seems not to show any respect for their authorised dealers who invested a lot of money in Leica stock. Not only decided Leica to sell the Retrovid exclusiv through their own channels, they didn’t inform us in any way about their plans while on every optics trade fair they kept yepping that the Retrovids were to be sold through dealers network. Untill 14 days before launching the Retrovid in their Leica stores. By then the Dutch Leica rep was forced to confirm to us what already was known on several Forums. Leica’s move on this has several benefits for them. They keep the trade margin for their country reps and for their dealers to themselves. Normally such a move would lower the consumer price since margins disappear. Direct sale from manufacturer to end consumer would be a cost effective tool. I did not see this happen with the Retrovid. It is in line with one of the Leica reps sales talks during our last meet in Wetzlar: “the higher the price we ask for it the harder the customer runs”.
Where does this leave us, the optic dealers? Where do we stand over 5 years when Amazone rules over the sub brands and A-brands starts to sell exclusive to the end consumer with or without full margin. For me, there is only one answer to that. Not on my watch. I can not and will not speak for fellow traders but if we do not give a signal……….
Trust is earned and it is short term vision against long term vision. Spreadsheetmanagers are not interested in long term, only in bonus and their next job. They seem to have no interest at all in the product the company is producing. But when they think they can roll over this dealer……think again!
Or, this is just the beginning of a new way of doing business in which case the future of the independent dealer is gone and brands start to sell through exclusive channels direct to the end consumer to reduce the cost price for them, using public fairs/own stores to show them the products in real life. If so, so be it, But no way I’ll accept to be kept in the dark and being mislead like Leica has done by yepping A and doing B in full disregards for the interest of their authorised dealer and seemingly purely for their own benefits.
This was the one and only reason we gave Leica the boot.
Jan
The “What if” scenario.
First of all it is important to understand that my business is work and not just a hobby. Work that next to the wellbeing of 7 staffmembers and a workethic of 10-12 hours a day, also an investment requires of 500.000,00 euro which is not by any way financed by Leica or any other company. Decisions like giving Leica the boot are very well overthought and made in consensus with the Optics Team.
What I’m gonna write down will give you an insight in how business is done in my optics world, from my perspective only and has to been seen in that light.
How we got into this business is allready written down by Lee in the interview section, how Leica got into this current mess will become clear below.
Leica is present in our shop for about 20 years now and from day one in the top 4 best sold brands. They contributed a lot of Point of Sale material to us as did the other brands. We visited the Leica plants, both in Solms and Wetzlar on several occasions as we did at the locations of the other brands. We don’t have only the good selling products of them in stock but all of them, like we do with the other brands. With the launch of the Noctivid it seemed to be a good idea to wrap our event car with a cutaway print of this model. Our goal is when people enter our shop they enter the optics paradise. We have a optics “museum” going from 1850 to the present time. We show the original optics trade catalogue from Japan which David Bushnell personally used to purchase optical equipment up to the original Minox Spy camera James Bond used in one of his movies. The road to collecting things is much more interesting than the possession of them��.
Since it is work and not a hobby, we take signals from the market seriously in order to be able to indicate where we will stand over five years. Bushnell is a sub brand in our shop from the beginning and compared to the sales of the big guns it is penny work, but……. Bushnell models in the USA cost 179,00 dollar on Amazone where in Europe 479,00 euro has to be paid within the normal margin rate. Amazone will come to Holland and will dominate the prices of the sub brands. So, where will these brands stand over five years in our shop?
Leica’s management has changed completely several times in the last five years and the current one seems not to show any respect for their authorised dealers who invested a lot of money in Leica stock. Not only decided Leica to sell the Retrovid exclusiv through their own channels, they didn’t inform us in any way about their plans while on every optics trade fair they kept yepping that the Retrovids were to be sold through dealers network. Untill 14 days before launching the Retrovid in their Leica stores. By then the Dutch Leica rep was forced to confirm to us what already was known on several Forums. Leica’s move on this has several benefits for them. They keep the trade margin for their country reps and for their dealers to themselves. Normally such a move would lower the consumer price since margins disappear. Direct sale from manufacturer to end consumer would be a cost effective tool. I did not see this happen with the Retrovid. It is in line with one of the Leica reps sales talks during our last meet in Wetzlar: “the higher the price we ask for it the harder the customer runs”.
Where does this leave us, the optic dealers? Where do we stand over 5 years when Amazone rules over the sub brands and A-brands starts to sell exclusive to the end consumer with or without full margin. For me, there is only one answer to that. Not on my watch. I can not and will not speak for fellow traders but if we do not give a signal……….
Trust is earned and it is short term vision against long term vision. Spreadsheetmanagers are not interested in long term, only in bonus and their next job. They seem to have no interest at all in the product the company is producing. But when they think they can roll over this dealer……think again!
Or, this is just the beginning of a new way of doing business in which case the future of the independent dealer is gone and brands start to sell through exclusive channels direct to the end consumer to reduce the cost price for them, using public fairs/own stores to show them the products in real life. If so, so be it, But no way I’ll accept to be kept in the dark and being mislead like Leica has done by yepping A and doing B in full disregards for the interest of their authorised dealer and seemingly purely for their own benefits.
This was the one and only reason we gave Leica the boot.
Jan
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