What's Fisher Up To ?

[Tony]

Okay, I'm keen to work out what Fisher might be up to ?

Their website has a section for "New Products" with three spaces set aside.

I'm probably reading too much into this but what the heck......Fisher may redeem themselves 😍

I was set to go beach detecting but several Tiger Sharks were reported off my local beach.........and not the ones from Tesoro.

[phrunt]

I noticed that too but figured it was just the template their web developer was using, the sites very much a work in progress.

New Products - Coming soon would just be the template placers.

I wouldn't read too much into it but it would be great if they're about to start fighting back and their fire sale was clearing old stock for their new models.

There are only so many colours of paint on a painter's palette though. 😛

I'm hoping for a Gold Bug 3 and an Impulse Gold.

[Tony]

Oh well, we can dream............of three new products from Fisher 🙂

A GB3 has got a nice sound to it.

[RickUK]

I see it as a last ditch survival effort to save the company from going under,i took advantage of getting T2+at a crazy low price here in the UK about 6 weeks or so ago and never regretted it.I would have thought that you would keep some of the older models still going till after the launch of some newer models but that is not happening......if they do bring out a few new models then i seriously hope sales start ramping back up again for the company.

The bread and butter range has to be the middle of the range type of detector ie like the Equinox etc rather than a much narrower market in specialised machines like gold hunting and twin boxes.

Must admit i am glad i purchased a new T2+ as a backup just incase my old faithful original T2 does eventually go to the old detector grave yard in the sky,it certainly does not owe me anything and found me the most gold coinage for sure.

[phrunt]

I think they're just clearing excess stock; I don't think anything is going on beyond that, perhaps the cash flow is handy, always more outgoings waiting to be paid and with not all that many sales of the detectors.  Even at these discount prices they're not selling like hot cakes as can be seen by the Ebay listing's numbers available. 

I think their focus is moving away from detectors to the other larger parts of their business.  

Night Vision optics, line tracing, leak detection and the thing that appears to have a huge market in the USA, security detectors like the walk-through things at Airports and well, just about anywhere you can think of in the USA, even sports grounds and schools.

Hobby metal detectors to them appear to be like the Salads at McDonalds, they sell them, but few buy them, you don't go to McDonalds to buy a Salad.

I think this is one of the big money makers for them now.

See their website for the electronics manufacturing division. They have some cool equipment.

They're not going anywhere anytime soon, they just lack interest in metal detectors and are using what they currently have as supplementary income, and will continue to do so until they no longer sell.  The designs are well and truly paid for, they owe them nothing, they can just keep pumping them out like they do other people's electronics, except at minimal cost and still at these reduced prices they have a very high markup, you can guarantee that. 

It increasingly makes more sense for them to sell direct and with just big box stores as their retailers, and I'm sure there will be very few dealers left soon, if any as that's not their market anymore.  They're already undercutting their wholesale pricing, but they won't care, they don't need dealers for their business model.

[Steve Herschbach]

As a watcher of all things metal detecting I think one thing is obvious. Detectors made by First Texas have long since stopped being part of any conversation of the latest and greatest. One of the basics of advertising is making sure that when people think of something (metal detectors) they think of you (Fisher, Bounty Hunter, Teknetics). That is simply not true anymore of the First Texas brands. Do they even advertise or market at all anymore? If so it’s not reaching me.

In marketing parlance they have lost mindshare, to the point of being irrelevant. They have nothing remotely close to competing with the Equinox, Deus 1&2, Legend, or Manticore. Even something as basic as an X-Terra Pro obsoletes the entire FT lineup. Increasingly it is looking like when it comes to detectors the company will just milk existing product for as long as it sells, discontinuing models when they can’t squeeze another dime out of them, until nothing is left. Even if they wanted to sell out there is nothing to sell as far as the tech goes, so all they have to sell is the names. I can’t see anyone but a Chinese firm being interested as a way to gain entry into the market. It really does seem like game over for First Texas when it comes to detectors. As Simon has noted their interests as a company seem to lie elsewhere.

[glacialgold]

5 hours ago, phrunt said:

as can be seen by the Ebay listing's numbers available.

And their Ebay store is accepting offers below the posted prices.

On another thread, someone mentioned getting an Impulse AQ at a serious discount this way. I hit up the First Texas Ebay store out of curiosity, and on a whim put a $110 offer on an F-Pulse ($149 list price). They accepted the offer within an hour, no counter. Heck, I'm regretting not starting lower, like $90 or so.

[Jeff McClendon]

7 hours ago, phrunt said:

I think they're just clearing excess stock; I don't think anything is going on beyond that, perhaps the cash flow is handy, always more outgoings waiting to be paid and with not all that many sales of the detectors.  Even at these discount prices they're not selling like hot cakes as can be seen by the Ebay listing's numbers available. 

I got my brand new F19 that I bought off of FTP's EBay USA listings. It was definitely brand new, works great and actually had an 03 24 08 serial number so instead of being "old stock" this one appears to have been produced last month. I really wasn't expecting that.

[The_Stalker]

It has the same feel as when White's was going bankrupt.  I am not saying Fisher is going down, but it feels similar.  I guess for me it's time to buy all the Fisher products that I want for the future at a great price. 

[Luis]

something may come.  I recently contacted Fisher on eBay to tell them that they had to review the shipping costs and when they responded I took the opportunity to ask if they were going to release something new and the response was soon.  I leave the screenshot of the conversation