Europes Largest Metal Detector Distributor Gives Minelab The Boot

[Past Member]

36 minutes ago, MSC said:

I still appreciate the Dealers I buy from and look down at direct-from-the -manufacturer purchase. Dealers are people we can meet or call and talk to, willing to help with problems, offer training, offer many other detecting products that you would have a hard time finding on your own or even knowing they exist. No, often manufacturers seem to be non-caring about individuals but look at us as numbers, it will be a shame if we loose our dealers and a big mistake for the manufacturers to ruin a good working relationship as it is now. 

 

Hi MSC.

Dealers played a valuable role...before the internet. Information such as you described, is achieved in a far more unbiased, thorough, and varied manner, via internet metal detecting platforms.

In todays internet world, manufacturer sales are obtained with free advertising and information from online users and metal detecting websites. Once the new or experienced potential purchaser gets that information from those sources, they find a dealer and place an order. In other words, it isn't the dealer that generates sales anymore. As such, it makes zero financial sense for a metal detecting company to keep giving a decent portion of their sales money to dealers.

In regards to your comment of, "often manufacturers seem to be non-caring about individuals":

That may be true, but it typically only occurs when one company has monopoly. There is no longer a monopoly in the metal detecting industry. More importantly however, and more specific to this discussion, is that whether or not a company has dealers, is irrelevant to how a company treats their customers. 




 

[dig4gold]

Money talks. That is all Minelab cares about. They don't appear to care about people & us the consumer of "their" products. Their silence is deafening on product quality issues. They are bound by law on warranty replacement but when there are so many continued issues without a peep from minelab, that is a concern. Their PR sucks.

D4G

[Past Member]

11 hours ago, dig4gold said:

Money talks. That is all Minelab cares about. They don't appear to care about people & us the consumer of "their" products. Their silence is deafening on product quality issues. They are bound by law on warranty replacement but when there are so many continued issues without a peep from minelab, that is a concern. Their PR sucks.

D4G

Those are textbook symptoms of a monopoly, especially when shareholders are involved.

In general, a monopoly results in planned obsolescence, price gouging, poor customer service, and denial of quality issues.

 

[Steve Herschbach]

On 5/26/2023 at 11:52 AM, phrunt said:

couldn't find a 2022 version without a lot of effort and can't be bothered

Sales in Africa down, up in other places. Remember as the report notes these numbers are 52% metal detecting, 48% communications.

https://codan.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Codan-Limited-Annual-Report-2022.pdf

[phrunt]

Thanks Steve, that's the chart I could find too but they combined metal detectors with communications in that one and communications was having the biggest growth according to their shareholder report so it's hard to know by that one how well the detectors are doing.  I was hoping to find one on metal detectors alone with communications being 48% of sales and having the highest growth.

I guess the previous chart is based on them combined too so it's all relative, either way my point was there are other significant markets outside of North America and Europe. ?

 

[Calarms]

Thanks for posting that Simon,

Do you think there might be price reduction in the near future

[Reg Wilson]

Xcoils, who undoubtedly make the worlds best detector coils dropped dealers and have for some time now have supplied direct. The price has been the same as dealer price, so they have picked up extra profit and don't seem to be too much effected by the change. GPZ coil sales have been such that the earlier GPX (5000) coils are no longer being made. A shame, as adding an Xcoil really picked up the performance of GPX and earlier PI models.

[phrunt]

Yes, sales of X-coils have snowballed so much they can't keep up with orders and that's selling direct to customers from Kazakhstan so selling direct can work.  How many sales they lose by not having local dealers I guess they'll never know but seeing they can't keep up anyway that doesn't overly matter I guess unless they really wanted to expand the business.  Seeing it's not even their primary source of income I doubt it, it was just they wanted coils for themselves, then they sold and gifted them to friends then it went crazy and became what it is today.

[phrunt]

2 hours ago, Calarms said:

Thanks for posting that Simon,

Do you think there might be price reduction in the near future

I can't imagine price reductions taking place, I think they reduced the price of the 6000 in the USA and not elsewhere to clear out the older stock with the EMI problems sitting around over there as even now after the EMI fix being announced in August 2022 they're still selling detectors new in USA with the problem, the ones being sold in Australia are all fixed up new models so you can see where demand is higher.  It also fits with them extending the sale in the USA until the stock ran out.