Are you in the retail business?
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kent Lufkin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 1:27 PM
Subject: Retailing 101 (was: RE: Okuma reel ?)
> >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
>
>
