Economy And New Releases

[longbow62]

I wonder how much the health of the economy factors into if a company like Minelab wants to release a new product. Do they hold off if the economy is weak? No matter how good a product like a metal detector is people have to pay for the necessities first. I wonder how this plays out with the inflation at least in the U.S. the highest it's been in decades. Gas prices and food prices on a steadily rising to the point the public has to tighten their belts so to speak. All the talk or wishful thinking has been about Minelab releasing a flagship detector. Flagship models are generally a companies most expensive model. Would they release a flagship model when the economies around the world are doing so poorly?

[schoolofhardNox]

Good point. But how long can you wait? What if a competitor releases a machine cheaper than your machine and gets what little market share there is left. Release too early and there are fewer buyers due to the economy, release too late and someone else has already teased out sales with a lower price tag. A hard game to play for sure. Stockholders always want sales, but they also want you to get the maximum for each machine. Sometimes its a no win situation. I would love to know how many GPX 6000's were sold per country. I have to think it was not that many. Minelab made its mark with great sales on the Equinox, but Deus answered back, although I think a bit to late. Will Minelab counter with a great high end beach machine or will it be a true relic machine?? No one knows 😄

[nickelNdimed]

It is a relatively cheap hobby. What if sales were better as people looked for more economical hobbies than others they might have?  

Also, I’m probably wrong but, detectors come in all price points. Flagship detector buyer might not be as affected by the economy but lose a few sales due to some not being able to stretch their budget up there.  Hard to say where the bulk of the sales go or the demographics.

Someone who has sold detectors through ups and downs may be able to shed some light on that.

 

[phrunt]

If a CTX 4040 came out and for some reason I didn't have the money to buy it I'd sell a kidney to get it as the CTX is the best deep old silver machine I've ever laid my hands on and it feels like I could go out blind folded and pull up a silver.  I think if it does come out it's going to be similar pricing to the existing CTX which maybe out of reach for a fair few buyers, I think that's partly why the Nox took off so well, it was more affordable.  The CTX being pretty expensive seems like it struggled to get the popularity of the Nox even when it was the hottest new thing in town.   The Deus 2 faces the same thing, the Nokta Legend is stealing a lot of the Deus 2 sales because it's priced better, a lot of people who bought it are outright saying that's why they bought the Legend over the Nox and Deus 2 and with the world economies how they are price is likely to dictate a lot more buying decisions over the next year or however long.

If a Nox 1000 came out (it needs to now they'll losing their dominance) then it will likely be affordable enough based off the existing Nox prices that it will sell like mad even with bad economies.   Hopefully they improve build quality while keeping the price right, they'll save money in the long run with warranties anyway.

I doubt the GPX 6000's sold well at all compared to when the 7000 came out and the sales it got are certainly not their forecast sales levels.  It came out at a bad time and had a rough release.  I wonder if more people are giving up prospecting than are taking it up too, bound to happen at some point as the gold gets even harder to find.  There was a flurry of older model GPX's being imported into NZ prior to the 6000 release from Africa with people using them as trade in's for the 6000, I bought one of them but they've completely dried up, they stopped shortly after the 6000 release, I might be reading into that too much but perhaps the Africans didn't find it as good as they were expecting or they just didn't have the financial means to justify paying the price it sells for over what they could get a GPX 5000 for so the people offloading their 5000's ground to a halt.  I'm glad I got one of the African imports when I did as I really like the GPX 5000 and the fact it's got discrimination for deep coin hunting and on beaches and the crazy good figure 8 anti interference coils and it handles the bad hot rock areas better than the other high end machines.

The Nox was at the end of it's good sales cycle anyway as most who wanted one already had one by now so they're due for another release and the longer they take the more sales they'll lose to the Legend and Deus 2 and people who just bought a new detector are less likely to jump on another one.  They either release it soon or wait a year or two and just have low sales figures from the Nox in the mean time.

[EL NINO77]

I think there is definitely a "core" of detectors ... who have been waiting for years for the new Minelab, which will carry the qualities of ETRAC and CTX .... and which will be separation and depth capabilities and target identification and Ergonomics .. over Equinox 800 ... .

...but the performance of the detector will be the most important factor...👍

Another important factor here may be the price and availability of additional coils, and accessories .. - it may also decide to buy a new detector from Minelab ..

... I estimate the price of this detector at the level of 1500-1600 dollars ,,, quite similar to ETRAC and also a Deus II ... this is a price that can pay a sufficient number of advanced detectors, or even novices who are financially all right,

....finally detecting hobby is not the most expensive hobby in the world ...many of us can agree on that...

[midalake]

On 6/10/2022 at 9:01 AM, longbow62 said:

I wonder how much the health of the economy factors into if a company like Minelab wants to release a new product.

I think companies would think about economy timing. [I would] 

[UT Dave]

If the product is ready to ship, start recouping development costs ASAP.  The cost is sunk.  Time value is ticking.  Economy doesn't really alter that decision?

Budget for projects still in development?  Different deal altogether.  Devil would be in the details and outcome could go either way.

- Dave