Clever Glock marketing strategy perhaps?

[FlyingHunter]

Exhibit A: Glock 43x

1st: New model with silver slide which some love, others not so much. Excitement slows down then...
2nd: Reintroduce with black slide option, that covers the colors and when excitement slows down then...
3rd: Reintroduce 43x with light rail (now available in EU), once in US, will likely sell well, when excitement slows down then...
4th: Reintroduce with MOS option (total guess on my part)

A slow roll which markets the pistol in possibly 4 different iterations over time to keep the "buzz" up tempo and has people trading in the 1st version for the 2nd and so on which keeps used market humming along nicely as well. Seems like a clever way to maximize sales of a single engineered design.

[ggammell]

This is not clever. This is marketing. See also:

Ford changes the Mustang circa 2007ish. First model available is a V6. Because people will by the new model because Mustang. Wait a year or so and here comes the 5.0 V8. Because people will buy the new model because Mustang.

Dodge circa 2006. Want a Hemi in a car? You’re buying a Dodge Magnum. A station wagon. Wait a year and 2007 brings you the Hemi Charger.

Why give your customer exactly what they want up front when you can milk them for two or three of the same product for simple improvements?

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

Glock has been killing the competition with their marketing my entire adult life. Their first coup: ditching nearly every standard safety convention (heavy first trigger pull, manual safety, etc) and just calling this "safe action." I always compared it to whoever named the "smart" car. I know they were sitting around with focus groups who said the first word that came to their mind was "dumb" and the marketing guy said, "well crap, just call it the 'smart' car...problem solved."

[Todd.K]

I'll counter.

My wife quite likes the silver slide. I think she might be the target of marketing more than guys on a shooting forum. I don't care about the color. It looks like a pretty durable finish so far, and it's not pink. I'm surprised so many manly men on a shooting forum care.

I'm not putting a light on at this time, and if I do there are several options that seem up to CCW use without a rail. I won't be putting a u boat on a 43X, but people are running out to buy G45s to run one on...

[1168]

A woman I work with was stoked about the two-tone on her new G48. She’s probably part of the target market.

[Arik]

I don't know who the target audience is but I can safely say the color of a gun has never been a deciding factor in any of my purchases. Typically I'll buy whichever is cheaper. If someone were to release a gun without finish but priced $100 less I'd be all over it!

[Uni-Vibe]

At the gun show the other day there were olive drab Glocks , and desert tan glocks. Looked pretty cool.

[grizzlyblake]

Of course it's marketing. The G42 and 43 were developed at the same time but they released the 42 first because if they were released together nobody would have bought the 42. They aren't in business to sell each person one perfect handgun. They are in business to sell as many units as possible.

[CoryCop25]

I hate to bust your marketing bubbles folks but that's not the reason Glock made silver slides for the G43x and G48.
Glock spent tons of money trying to get the .mil contract with the G19X. Part of that money was spent on the equipment used to make the FDE slides. The process used to make FDE is different than making black. Because they lost the contract, Glock tried to recoup their losses by using the same equipment to make the lighter colored slides on the G43x and G48. Now that they made some money with the silver slides, they will now offer the slides in black.

[grizzlyblake]

You're saying the same thing essentially. The question is why they delayed the release of the black slide, and the answer is that they knew people wouldn't buy the silver ones in the volumes they already have if they guns were offered in both black and silver from the beginning.