Miners Den Group In Australia Have Lost Their Minelab Dealership

[Aureous]

11 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Gosh golly what a gossipy place DP is today.

Nothing 'Gossipy' JP, its just news is all. I agree with everything said here....times are changing and ML have decided to change with it....but all dealers should see these changes and be wary. If the most prominent dealer in the country gets the boot, its a worry. Sure, the experienced detectorist is always gonna buy the latest Minelab because it provides the best performance, but the newbies who rely on advice and training etc, are all gonna be left in the breeze and these sales are surely gonna decline if this new focus trickles down to the smaller dealers. Plus with the MD team being such a prominent player in the Oz marketplace, their efforts in promoting Nokta, Algo and (possibly) Garrett are gonna hurt Minelab to some degree. Not a smart move I'd suggest...

[Jonathan Porter]

2 minutes ago, Aureous said:

Nothing 'Gossipy' JP, its just news is all. I agree with everything said here....times are changing and ML have decided to change with it....but all dealers should see these changes and be wary. If the most prominent dealer in the country gets the boot, its a worry. Sure, the experienced detectorist is always gonna buy the latest Minelab because it provides the best performance, but the newbies who rely on advice and training etc, are all gonna be left in the breeze and these sales are surely gonna decline if this new focus trickles down to the smaller dealers. Plus with the MD team being such a prominent player in the Oz marketplace, their efforts in promoting Nokta, Algo and (possibly) Garrett are gonna hurt Minelab to some degree. Not a smart move I'd suggest...

Like I said I have no idea on the reasons why nor can I conjecture on it, I suppose when one door closes another opens and MD will do what they need to do to remain viable, although the Algo, Garrett and Nokta-hopeful markets seem to be well saturated with dealers at present, so discounting and volume sales will have to again be the order of the day 🤔, I feel sorry for the ground floor dealers of Algo who did all the groundwork and heavy lifting to get the brand name out there, wasn’t there already an established Algo dealer in Bendigo? I wonder how he’s feeling right now? I’m pretty sure not too many would lose sleep if it was my dealership that was cancelled? Probably a few hallelujah’s and celebratory beers drunk instead hey? 😝 🎉 🍻  

With gold price at AU$145+ a gram I know where I’ll be putting my efforts from a marketing perspective, but that all hinges on my customers actually finding something with the products I sell, which thankfully I know how to do. 😊 

JP

[Jim McCulloch]

Hi gang, Jimmy McCulloch here. I seldom respond to controversial issues, but I thought I would like to share some information with you that has not been addressed. First off, when I was one of White's Electronics top dealers, I sold MANY hundreds of GMT's, face to face, for full retail, PLUS sales tax. How did I "discount"? By including an assortment of quality accessories, providing training, "where to go" information, and, after-sales support. I made a lot of friends that way, and I would estimate that most customers went on to find gold, which is what they wanted. I made sufficient profit from each sale to justify the time and effort spent. EVERYBODY was happy, White's, the customer, and me.

 

Yes, I lost some sales to mail order firms, as attested to the telephone calls from frustrated non-customers who first told me they had "saved money " buying their GMT from the online store, but then they went on to ask if I would "take them with me" the next time I went prospecting.  Why? "Because I want to see how it's done, and I want to know where to go." That is one of the main issues between local sales and online sales, customer service versus price. 

Regarding GMT sales: in time, a problem arose: counterfeits. Counterfeit GMTs from China. Yeah, that really happened.  Big Time. They were selling for $189.00, POSTPAID, from China.

 

Once, when Simon was in the market for a 24k, I contacted UPS to ask how much it would cost to ship a 24K from Los Angeles to Wellington NZ. A whopping $139.00. Now, I assume that the GMT, whose shipping carton is twice the size of the 24K, would cost MOST of the Chinese GMT sales price of $189.00 just to ship it. In other words, it would be a profit-less sale. THAT is ONE of the reasons Kenneth White choose to retire, and close White's Electronics, Foreign counterfeits.

Anyway, forget bickering, enjoy your success in the goldfields, and Happy Hunting. Jim

 

 

[phrunt]

Nokta's had incredible growth since the Legend, so it would never hurt to have more Nokta dealers, I'd not be surprised if Legends well outsell the Equinox, better price for a better-quality detector with similar if not equal performance for less money.  The thing Nokta need to do is the big box stores, their pricing strategy, build quality, social media exposure and packaging appeal is well suited to big box stores as they'd get walk by traffic buying them then, not just people seeking out to buy one at a dealer.

If they can pull off similar with their PI and better the Axiom and be competitive to the 6000 that will shock the market, their lower pricing will quickly have them take over, if they move between the Axiom and the 6000 with typical Nokta low pricing then ML are still in a situation they're going to be affected quite heavily.   The dealers of these brands are quite possibly moving more stock than Minelab dealers are.

It was thought people only wanted the best and only the best would sell, Algoforce proved otherwise and really is selling very well.  When Miners Den start marketing the Algoforce and Nokta's PI like they have been doing for well over 200 episodes of their ML show they're going to be pushing a lot of them off their shelves at the cost of sales Minelab may have otherwise had but at the same time creating a whole new market of people that would never pay Minelab pricing yet still get well performing machines that can get them out there finding gold.

It's great seeing all this competition starting to hit PI's, it really shook up the VLF landscape to the point it's hard to define which brand is the market leader for VLF's.

[GotAU?]

44 minutes ago, Jim McCulloch said:

Hi gang, Jimmy McCulloch here. I seldom respond to controversial issues, but I thought I would like to share some information with you that has not been addressed. First off, when I was one of White's Electronics top dealers, I sold MANY hundreds of GMT's, face to face, for full retail, PLUS sales tax. How did I "discount"? By including an assortment of quality accessories, providing training, "where to go" information, and, after-sales support. I made a lot of friends that way, and I would estimate that most customers went on to find gold, which is what they wanted. I made sufficient profit from each sale to justify the time and effort spent. EVERYBODY was happy, White's, the customer, and me.

 

Yes, I lost some sales to mail order firms, as attested to the telephone calls from frustrated non-customers who first told me they had "saved money " buying their GMT from the online store, but then they went on to ask if I would "take them with me" the next time I went prospecting.  Why? "Because I want to see how it's done, and I want to know where to go." That is one of the main issues between local sales and online sales, customer service versus price. 

Regarding GMT sales: in time, a problem arose: counterfeits. Counterfeit GMTs from China. Yeah, that really happened.  Big Time. They were selling for $189.00, POSTPAID, from China.

 

Once, when Simon was in the market for a 24k, I contacted UPS to ask how much it would cost to ship a 24K from Los Angeles to Wellington NZ. A whopping $139.00. Now, I assume that the GMT, whose shipping carton is twice the size of the 24K, would cost MOST of the Chinese GMT sales price of $189.00 just to ship it. In other words, it would be a profit-less sale. THAT is ONE of the reasons Kenneth White choose to retire, and close White's Electronics, Foreign counterfeits.

Anyway, forget bickering, enjoy your success in the goldfields, and Happy Hunting. Jim

 

 

Jim, you are a first-class dealer too, I really appreciate the time you spent showing me the 24K ropes also! That was a valuable extra you included with the sale. Thank you!

[Steve Herschbach]

Is anyone gossiping or bickering? I call it sharing thoughts and opinions. It’s a forum so that’s what we do.

I’m the last guy to ever argue that being a knowledgeable full service dealer is not the way to go. It builds a firewall that allows one to succeed and prosper as a standout rarity, for people who appreciate that knowledge and service. It’s how I succeeded at building a hugely successful business. Yet it should be glaringly obvious that this is not the norm, and that sales by these few dealers pale in comparison to those made by mass marketers and direct online sales. That’s just a fact, as most people only want a low price delivered to doorstep, like it or not. Corporations by nature will always chase the biggest dollars, and those channels are where those dollars exist. Cabelas can buy more detectors with one check than every independent dealer in this country combined and that buys power a small independent dealer can never have.

It’s just like airlines. People say they want service and perks, but ultimately the majority of people vote with their wallet to be packed into sardine cans. It’s only the minority that are willing to fly first class, and that equates to the minority of the detector buying public that will pay for quality service instead of shopping the bargain bin.

There is no good high quality dealer anywhere near me. It’s order online from the dealers who support this forum as members for me. Well, usually on the phone, but end result is the same. Mail order to my door. That’s true of almost all of us. The local dealer is a big box store, or some coin dealer who knows nothing about the detectors they stock. For every good dealer there are a dozen working out of a garage or basement competing purely on under the table discounting. So we buy online or via good buddy dealers and get it mailed to us. There is not some super duper smart stocking training dealer nearby to support even if we wanted to.

[phrunt]

Many smaller dealers don't even have proper online stores, you can't pick your product, buy it and have it delivered through their online store, that's a failure as there is such a big market for that style of purchase.  Miners Den have a great online store and you could see the traffic that store gets, one thing I like about it is the little pop-up boxes that show up showing what someone just bought 

In the bottom left corner there, someone just bought a Sand scoop 54 minutes ago 🙂 Quite often when I'm browsing their site, I see someone's bought a GPX 6000 or a Manticore or something popping up.  Quite a good sales tactic having that little pop up going, I think.

They throw in a lot of freebies too, Cover, neck speaker, spare lower shaft, free training and shipping.   It's such a strange dealer for ML to get rid of, unless of course that rumour about behind on payments is true, it just doesn't make sense they'd not want Miners Den on their side.

[Jerry The Mining Monkey]

It would be nice to see First Texas Products and Garrett merge. The competition has gotten so fierce anymore that companies need to merge to withstand the huge market share of Apex Companies. It just seems really difficult to survive and be in the black without partnerships. 

[Aureous]

1 hour ago, Jerry The Mining Monkey said:

It would be nice to see First Texas Products and Garrett merge. The competition has gotten so fierce anymore that companies need to merge to withstand the huge market share of Apex Companies. It just seems really difficult to survive and be in the black without partnerships. 

FTP are seemingly doing absolutely nothing except milking the dribble of the past glories of Fisher, Teknetics and Bounty Hunter. Many of us have been saying that they should divest themselves of Fisher as a bare minimum and let another company 'roll with it' and perhaps revitalize this most famous brand. If Garrett took it on, I'd fear that they would just milk whatever is left and the Brand would vanish forever. I dunno if merging will save the industry....what customers need is MORE competition I suspect