jan van daalen
Well-known member
Jan,
The rep told you “the higher the price we ask for it the harder the customer runs”. Leica is not doing spreadsheet management, they are doing brand management. They hold luxurious parties and events, open their own boutiques, serve expensive wine in their shops and I have seen them drop $5K camera bodies because they don’t even have a table to show their products. Also, they compete with their dealers.
You need to understand how *they* make their money, so you can make yours. It is clear from your post that you don’t any more understand what Leica does, because they changed. I have no problem with your refusal to carry their product, it is a commercially viable decision, but I still feel you have come to this decision out of a frustration born from a lack of comprehension rather than from an understanding of what is happening.
You obviously don’t understand this world; go to the center of Amsterdam, and take the manager of the Vuitton store out for lunch, give her a binocular for her partner or child, and as you are not a competitor maybe she will be frank and she will introduce you to the world of luxury marketing and branding, and explain what the future holds for you when suppliers follow this path. You need a friend or guide to a very different retail world which is now encroaching on your own zone of activity.
Edmund
Edmund,
I see, you changed your post after posting.
I do not know what your professional background is, but it is clear to me that you and I live in two different worlds.
Mine is described by Temmie (a BF member and customer of my shop), in a post of him, as "located in the Long Islands of Amsterdam where the rich and famous live".
According to your description of profiling this is the Leica target group. I know these people as hardworking where behind every successful man/woman a strong partner is present with equal power and presence.
If you are targeting on the "second shift" (the one he got thanks to his first wife) in other words the gold digger type, I must wake you up out of a dream. She is a vast minority. At least in my reality.
The Netherlands is a small country. You drive from North to South in three hours and from East to West in two and we are in the center of it. Our customers come from all over the country.
FWIW, Leica Store Amsterdam makes no profit. It is used as a place where every Leica product can be seen in a, indeed, luxurious surrounding with staff who knows their stuff and with a excellent attitude. I don't see them as competing with their dealers. Most of the dealers don't stock the most Leica items. Where should a Leica addict go to when most dealers don't stock? Right! To a Leica Store.
Let us at least agree that we disagree:t:
Jan
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