Garrett Axiom Pricing & Pics Of The Pretty (box) Packaging

[Gold Catcher]

3 hours ago, Northeast said:

Until we see that it is genuinely going to work well across Aus goldfields (especially re: Ground Balance) then it probably won’t sell well at that price. 

And due to the price, we aren’t going to see many units in peoples hands to get that knowledge.  

And until we get that knowledge we aren’t going to pay that price.  

And because we won’t pay that price due to not having the knowledge we will never get that knowledge and therefore be unwilling to pay the price.  

I think these are really good points. An alternative marketing strategy could have been to price the Axiom with very little profit margins, just to break into ML territory and to (potentially) proof skittish prospectors that they are a serious contender to ML. This would have allowed for a much more convincing market positioning of the brand as a whole, and it also could have paved the road to secure higher profit margins in the future with subsequent detector models. It looks like they have chosen to price themselves out from this opportunity. Perhaps a lack of long term vision here.

GC 

[jasong]

ML can always drop the 6000 price and/or announce a potential upcoming new lightweight GPZ too to make things real interesting in Australia if Garrett got a toehold and ML wanted to recover customers or prevent potential Axiom sales.

I'm guessing some tactics/ideas like these went into both the US and AU pricing. Price wars benefit the customer greatly, but they are usually massive profit sinks for the corporations, maybe a fine line is being walked to not wake a sleeping giant? No clue, that's the type of strategizing I'd be considering if I was on the marketing department of either company though.

 

[phrunt]

That's what we want, competition!  ?

 

[jasong]

For sure! But if you ask the gas stations in my town, they might have a different view.  One lowered it 10 cents to be cheeky, the station next to them lowered 20 cents in response, and within 2 days every gas station was selling $1.50 below what it was a few days ago and now I have to assume they are all close to losing money. I'm loving the cheaper fillups though...

Garrett might well find themselves in one such of a price war if they get too far ahead of their skis on their first run of the season. 

No clue though, just theorizing one potential reason behind outwardly illogical pricing...

[geof_junk]

                                                                    ?

The want of money is the root of all manufacture's prices.

Can Garrett get back to this level again.

[Tony]

This has been a good thread…my final thought and comment is this…….

Garrett USA would sell more Garrett detectors if there was no Garrett Australia dealers and thus improving their (Garrett USA) bottom line. I don’t want to sound harsh or unfair but Garrett dealers in Australia are a hindrance in todays market……let them compete on the open world market. I don’t see why I should have to be significantly out of pocket by being forced to pay their premium prices. I am completely okay with a fair markup price but…….all our local Garrett dealer has to do is pass me a box after I’ve passed him my Visa card. That 2 or 3 minutes is likely to cost me at least $1500 more than it should ?

[Gerry in Idaho]

2 hours ago, Tony said:

This has been a good thread…my final thought and comment is this…….

Garrett USA would sell more Garrett detectors if there was no Garrett Australia dealers and thus improving their (Garrett USA) bottom line. I don’t want to sound harsh or unfair but Garrett dealers in Australia are a hindrance in todays market……let them compete on the open world market. I don’t see why I should have to be significantly out of pocket by being forced to pay their premium prices. I am completely okay with a fair markup price but…….all our local Garrett dealer has to do is pass me a box after I’ve passed him my Visa card. That 2 or 3 minutes is likely to cost me at least $1500 ?

It's out of my control buddy and I feel your pain.  I'm just an old school dealer trying to give options to the people who enjoy the passion I've been privileged to live for many years.

[Gerry in Idaho]

On 8/1/2022 at 1:16 AM, mn90403 said:

 

Ok, I've got enough time to respond and give my thoughts on 'Gerry's Answer' to my question.

His very basic answer is this:

 

I'll say this.  The Axiom can find a variety of gold nuggets the $3400 SDC-2300 can not.  It can do things performance wise and ergonomically that a $4000 GPX-5000 can not.  It can find gold and ignore rocks/minerals a $6000 GPX-6000 can not.  It can even do some things and find gold in situations a $8500 GPZ-7000 can not.  Now to be fair (life is not fair), those machines can do things the Axiom can not.  Heck, the new improved 24K can find gold none of the above mention can find.  That's a fact.

 

When you take Gerry's training everyone gets a chance to test his observations above with their own detector.

Air testing targets on these different detectors proved to me that gold is missed no matter how many times you go over it or at what speed.  I have to assume from those observations that the same thing would happen if the gold were in the ground.   This is an objective test demonstrating a detector's strengths and weaknesses.

When Gerry says the Axiom will find gold the others will not find then I know what he means.

Gerry has shown us all of the additional gold that a 6000 has found in the Rye Patch area.  Last year when it came out many of his students went to a patch around the Burn Barrel that was first discovered by Sonny Baird probably in the late 70s.  Everyone has hit that area including me and found gold.  It was a fact that it was very, very hard to find gold there in the last few years.  Gerry and his students lit that place up again with the 6000.  I consider that to be objective.

Will it happen with the Axiom?  Someone will tell us I hope.  Much of the trash is gone and some of the clues but I'm sure it will be one of the places to first try the Axiom.

 

There is another way of being objective in using a detector and that is with a test garden.  If I want to know or a dealer wants to know how a detector performs then test it on standard buried objects.  It allows someone to test their detector and coil against a standard.  You either hear the target or not hear the target.  That would include hearing iffy signals.

My experience with test gardens is rather limited but useful.  I know of a garden in Gold Basin made by Dick Ward.  I went to one in Australia put in place by Coiltek in Maryborough (they test their coils on it) and I made one to test my AQ that was on the beach.  Each of these gardens let me hear a signal (or not) based on size, depth and a bit of quality.  Results are obvious to the user but it places objective limits on our detector's ability.  You can always bury something out of range of most detectors.

My AQ garden on the beach proved to me that the detector was defective, and I returned it never to use again.

I was not able to hear all of the targets in Gold Basin with my 5000 because they were buried too deep in some cases and my settings were wrong in other cases.  My 7000 handles it pretty good.

We all have seen the VLF tests on gardens between the 800 and ...

So, after all of this thought about the new detector and it coming from different engineers and testers, I believe it will have a place in my toolbox.  I still just need to find time and the places to use it.  There seems to be less of both.

 

Mitchel, I like what you posted and agree with most of it.

I want to expand a little if I may.  I've not tried to spend a day comparing it to a GPX-6000 on tiny nuggets at Rye Patch to see if it becomes the next Hoover.  From what little bit of testing on small gold I have done, it did better than most PI's out there at the location I hunted, which was not that hot of ground.  My gut tells me in more mineralized soils, I think the way the technology is built into the Axiom, it will indeed have improvements.  But is there am amount of mineralized soils that it may not do as well?  Could be, I have not found such site.

Much of my Field Testing is chasing bigger gold as I'm seeing the others finding little nuggets with it, which is great.   When the GPX-6000 1st came out, I was pushing all the gold missed at Rye Patch and showing it's capabilities.  I personally found over an ounce of those little nuggies and it looks impressive.  The 6K is a great tool for that task and I'm glad Minelab gave us that option.

With the Axiom, I wanted to find a "chocker nugget" and chase different Au.  So far I don't have the numbers of others, but I have the size and weight.  Not as much as I would like, so I keep going.  I've experienced some nice size gold for my efforts and when I compare the features vs other well known models from the friendly competitors, I'm pleased.

As for the beach hunting - I think it will eventually be the best PI detector.  The only thing I see being an issue is the coils and hopefully they make a water coil that sits on the bottom (for those who desire).

It's all about options my friend and if the price is right, then let's go swinging.

[Tony]

8 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

It's out of my control buddy and I feel your pain.  I'm just an old school dealer trying to give options to the people who enjoy the passion I've been privileged to live for many years.

We don’t have old school dealers like you Gerry…..unfortunately. 
The problem lies fully at the feet of Garrett Australia / Garrett Australia dealers.

Full credit to Garrett USA for giving us this impressive detector AND even more credit to people like you who support and promote the product (plus sell it at a realistic price ?). I think you’ll sell a ton of them ?

I’ll get my hands on one eventually but it sure won’t be a local purchase ?

…….now get off the computer and go find some chunky nuggets ?