FWIW, the bike business is about the same. Markup on often-bought little stuff is insane, but we don't make that much on bikes.Originally Posted by okie john
FWIW, the bike business is about the same. Markup on often-bought little stuff is insane, but we don't make that much on bikes.
"Everything in life is really simple, provided you don’t know a f—–g thing about it." - Kevin D. Williamson
The Hamburg, PA Cabela's is not too far from us. Interesting place overall, they used to top the highest single-location gun sales in the nation. How do I know? We hired an employee that worked in compliance for them and found out that fact, and that in 2013 (may be off on the year) that Cabela's had over 38,000 firearms transactions just at the Hamburg location. They actually shipped 4473s straight to the ATF as they had no way of storing them on site.
Anyway, Cabela's is a large corporation that has a corporation-normal employment turnover. They have (or had, at least) something like 4 steps of verification BEFORE the actual background check was submitted, and then a few after as well. I have purchased guns from that location, the non-busy day wait was usually 45 minutes to and hour and a half. If it was busy? 3+ hours. Something about quantity having it's own quality I guess...
So, to add to the Cabela's dumb-assery stories, the last gun I bought there was a minty G20C. It was priced under what a normal used G17 would sell for used and, as such, was worth the wait to buy it. As I had taken my ticket to be served and was in the queue, one of the counter guys, seemingly being helpful, asked it I knew what I wanted 'for sure'. I told him that if the G20C had the box and all the goodies inside I would be buying it without question. He basically jumped me in line, that was cool. I found out that the Glock had everything I wanted and he got me started on paperwork. And that's when I found out he was an idiot. He started asking why i needed a 10mm for self defense and how it over penetrated and how expensive ammo was and on and on and on. Anyway, filling out the PSP AROS seemed to take forever. I later sold that G20C for $850, so it was worth it IMO. But I know to expect that at places like that.
Anyway, it has been years since I was there and I already know that if I want to buy a gun, even with an FFL, it will be a long wait peppered with bad commentary.
"Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife." - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Brown v. United States, 256 U.S. 335 (1921)
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
That is amazing.
Here’s an article from my inbox regarding how a change in CEOs, and with them, the corporate vision—from reaching new enthusiasts, to profits—killed the bike that younger Harley riders wanted to see brought to market. Some parallels to the current conversation, I suspect:
https://www.revzilla.com/common-trea...davidson-bronx
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
Bronx looks like an 80's Honda 750 VF. No wonder they killed it.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
The Hardly-Rideable thing reminds me of the issue that plagues a lot of companies that have been making a legendary product for a long period of time- it's hard for them to introduce an actually innovative product. Gibson guitars & Colt's semi-automatic pistols also come to mind. Their customer base kinda wants them to keep making the exact same product they first made back in 19XX, which can be good for a while. But after a while, it's just more about nostalgia bait as the customer base gets older and wants to buy the thing they couldn't afford as a kid.
This is bad, as the old stuff doesn't quite have the same appeal to the younger crowd. They've got aspirations for spendy gear, but it's for different gear than the legacy brands. What non-Boomer motorcyclist wants a Harley?
When the legacy brands do try to innovate, they tend to go too hard, flail about, and utterly fail. Colt's All American 2000 and Gibson's Firebird X & Robot Guitars come to mind.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
H-D’s experience with Buell comes to mind.
Ken
BBI: ...”you better not forget the safe word because shit's about to get weird”...
revchuck38: ...”mo' ammo is mo' betta' unless you're swimming or on fire.”
Back then H-D had (as my father and grandfather would say about anything they were jealous of...) more money than brains.
Building a sportbike around a Sportster engine would have been easy enough (and cool, IMO) but trying to manage Buell as a separate business unit that shared showrooms just eliminated all of the efficiency that could have made them more money with less commitment and associated risk. Discontinuing a model is a lot less painful than closing a division. Buy a couple of suspension components from Showa or Ohlins and go make a motorcycle the same way you were already making the Sportster (or maybe cast a frame and swingarm) instead of swing your dick around and buying a company for big bucks. Price it just above the Sportsters (1200 and 883) and young people that want a sport bike can buy from the same dealer as their dad and wear the same t-shirts.
As far as guns go, it seems like some of the innovated successes might come from doing exactly that, creating a firearms division from an otherwise successful manufacturing business.
It's been my impression that several aviation machining companies have successfully branched out into the AR world. Of course, AR's are kind of the lego blocks of the firearms world.
Adding nothing to the conversation since 2015....
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