Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Bob,

I was not able to see what was on sale. I just got an Orvis ad and their best fly rods (Zero Gravity) and on sale for 1/2 price. Wow.....cheapest one is $309...that's the SALE price!

Ernie

I used to work in retail (many moons ago) and the game is like this:

Product A is bought for $50 from the manufacturer (who has made a profit from it). Generally, they "keystone" it which means they mark it up by 100% to $100. BUT.....what they will do is take it to "keystone plus" (whatever they think the market will bear). In this example, we will take the price to $120 and sell it at this price point for a bit. We make a nice $70 profit on Product A. But then, things slow down (end of season) and we mark it at 1/2 price to $60. Guess what? We are still making a profit because we bought product A at $50.

That is why I hate buying retail.

I love buying direct from companies but very few do it. Albright (fly fishing) has just started doing this and is doing well. March Brown rods (out of CT) is also starting to do this as well. I hope more comanies will follow suit.

But.....there are some reatilers that give great service (Orvis is one of them) and that's why people pay the premium. And look at Green Top...GREAT place to buy fishing stuff and their prices are decent....not great but decent. But you get great service. Not so at BPS.

So, what do you do? You balance it and do what you like.