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Local Whites Dealer Now Has A Garrett Sign Out Front


kac

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There is a little coin shop next town over from me that used to be a Whites dealer and now has a big Garrett Sign out front. Will stop in and see what they have for inventory. Seems Garrett is using some of the original Whites dealers for distribution. Nice to see the dealers still offer equipment and not disbanding local sales. Good to be able to see new units in hand rather than just online pictures and videos.

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6 hours ago, phrunt said:

I never understood dealers only selling one brand, for it start it means you can't trust a word they say as they've got an obvious bias, they're not going to tell you to go elsewhere and buy another brand that suits your task better no matter how superior it is.

I first started as a Dealer in '77.  I had a job in Law Enforcement, but my 'hobby' was metal detecting and I wanted to sell what I used because I felt that brand to be the best.  For me, yes, and therefor for others as well.   Through the years, until the end of 2013 when I got out of dealing, I was either a one-brand dealer, or a 'multi-line' of two or three brands.

For ME, I sold either one or multiple brands, but what I was selling was also what I was using because I was an Avid Detectorist.  Coin shops are usually operated by coin dealers and most of them do not, or have never, been really 'active' in the hobby.  They don't used them or know them, they just carry a popular brand name and draw metal detecting hobbyists into their business who shop for detectors and maybe get them into selling some of the older and collectible coins they find.  Or, maybe making some sales to them since they have an interest in older coins.

It's no different than some stores only selling one brand of bicycles or baseball gear, or other products that carry just one or maybe two brands of some product, and also the sales people never use many of the products, and the business owner doesn't use a lot of it, either.

It seemed like most of the time they didn't really know the product to try and 'sell' you on anything and simply referred to comments in the manufacturer's marketing literature.

 

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

Was it this case that this little Whites dealer had to start selling Garrett or close down or would the coins keep them going? Not a problem multi line dealers have to deal with.  White's method of distribution is partially to blame for their failure ,thankfully Garrett isn't like that and more accessible.  Its great you've got a nearby shop to go look at the products now though.

I can guarantee you that most smaller-size detector dealers were not making a living on detector sales alone.  Often it was simply an occasional sale with very little profit.  And, for the most part, we saw a lot of smaller dealers, either out of a business front or out of their home or trunk, back in the hey-day of the metal detecting 'craze' during the '70s and '80s that started dying off in the early-to-mid '90s.  Today, and it depends upon the country or region we live in, the metal detector sales business is a far cry from what it used to be.

Here in the USA we used to have a lot of metal detector dealers around.  In '81 I lived in a smallish town of about 15,000 people.  There was a White's Dealer at the paint and hardware store, a coin shop sold White's, and a guy also sold White's out of his home.  There was a Fisher dealer who sold out of his home, and I was a Garrett Dealer and had a metal detecting shop, and I also set up at Outdoor or Sportsman's Shows.

That was really getting into the high-times of the detecting industry which pretty much peaked from '83 to '86, at least here in the USA, and then sort of leveled off for a short while.  At that point many detector makers started to close up, from about 1990 on, and by then mail-order (actually using the mail and based on ads in magazines) became popular  and the big discounting started.  It really got a boost in discounting in '87 and '88 and progressed from there.  Then the internet started about '95 or so and it took no time at all before magazines died, local dealers started to close up, and we have had fewer and fewer local guys selling sicne so much is super-discount based.

Bigger businesses could afford to be a multi-line outlet, but most local dealers or individual dealers kind of stuck with th one or maybe two brands they used an that was it.

'kac' is fortunate to still have a 'local' dealer around, whether or not they know much about the product because he can at least stop by and check out some products in-hand.

Monte

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The coin shop certainly doesn't make a living at detector sales. It would be cool if they became a detector super store with a massive showroom but I completely agree with Monty.

Still nice to see a physical product rather than rely on user ratings and comments splattered all over the web to get any sort of judgement on a machine.

Bounty Hunter still seems to do well slugging machines out into retail outlets, that business model probably has landed many enthusiests into the hobby as they are often spontaneous sales. I would imaging companies like Minelabs would never be as large as they are without those initial sales and it becomes evedent with the battle of the bottom with introductory machines being developed more now than the mid and high end machines.

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