
Originally Posted by
Azpilot
With respect to retailers selling crappy products (along with the good stuff)...
Once upon a time, I used to be into paintball in a big way. Mind you, this was some time ago.
I poured a ton of cash into (what was, at the time) one of the best guns out there...the WGP Autococker. Beyond that, I spent a bunch on modding it with a straight rifled hard-chrome barrel, remote feed with expansion chamber, etc. I did this all at a local shop that carried nice stuff.
The mouth-breather gun of the day was the "Stingray". It went for 99 bucks, and was a hunk of plastic junk. You'd snicker if you saw someone show up to the field with one.
My jaw hit the floor one day when I arrived to drop off most of my paycheck at my favorite shop, and I saw a stack of Stingray boxes on the shelf. I looked, incredulously, at the owner, and asked, "what gives? You really selling that crap?"
He then proceeded to tell me that he knew those guns were total junk. However, he also told me that he got 20 or 30 calls a week (the interwebz weren't so big back then) from people who were asking if he carried the Stingray. When he'd tell them no, theyd thank him, hang up, and most likely never set foot in his shop.
There wasn't much money in those guns...at 99 bucks, how can there be? However, like the firearm business, the profit was in the accessories...masks, paint, etc. When he'd turn a customer who was hell-bent on buying a crap gun away, he lost -all- of their business. Beyond that, when they realized that they'd bought a crap gun, and wanted to upgrade to a better rig, they'd probably end up doing it at the shop that had "taken care of them" for their initial purchase.
He hated the fact that he had to keep extra Stingrays on-hand to swap out the (inevitably) broken guns people would bring back in. The company had a decent warranty policy, but they were slow to ship replacements, and it was easier for him to hand customers another replacement and deal with the manufacturer, than to tell them to go direct.
Initially, I'd been kind of torqued that my favored shop had "sold out". However, that discussion was fairly sobering. Unless you're already independently wealthy, running a business is a for-profit venture. Owners have to act accordingly. If the masses demand crap, becoming a purveyor of crap is profitable.
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