>I will give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they didn't
>want to go through the cost/hassle of becomming a distributor for
>another brand but still I find the behavior interesting.
As you ponder why more fly shops don't carry Okuma reels, consider
this: a typical retail markup is 100%. That is, the shop's profit is
100% of the wholesale cost from their distributor.
If a Sierra reel sells for $35 then the shop will only make $17.50
for each reel they sell, the other $17.50 being their cost to buy the
reel from their wholesale distributor.
By comparison, if the same shop also carry Ross reels and a Canyon
large arbor retails for $250, then the shop makes $125 for each one
they sell.
Assuming a 100% markup, a shop would have to sell more than seven
Sierras just to make the gross profit amount selling just one Canyon
would generate. Let's face it, fly fishing is definitely a 'niche'
sport, so it's highly unlikely that any small shop would be able or
willing to trade gross dollar markup for the dubious volume of
Sierras they'd be likely to sell, even at $35.
The same math explains why so many shops stock Sage and Winston rods
instead of St. Croix. It's not that they're better rods (although
they'd sure like us to believe so), they're just more profitable.
I'm convinced it's human nature to be suspicious of deals that seem
to good to be true. So the first response of many fishers when coming
across a Sierra (as many comments on this list will attest), is to
wonder "What's wrong with it?"
From the perspective of the average flyfisher on a budget, the answer
probably is "Nothing!"
But to a fly shop, the answer is more likely "I just can't make
enough money on the darned things to waste valuable display space on
'em."
Kent Lufkin
