Archery Industry: Where have all the dealers gone?

If you went to the ATA, this is what you saw. Empty aisles. When you did see someone they either had a vendor tag or they were media looking to sell you a magazine ad, or to sponsor a tv show.

I have been to many an ATA show as a vendor. The numbers of sales keep diminishing and the expenses keep going up. It's easy to spend $25,000 up getting ready for and having a booth at the ATA show. It takes a lot of sales just to break even. I know of many manufacturers that just walked the show with no booth or staff this year.

For dealers, they are already having a hard time this. 6 local dealers within 50 miles of me are closing their doors for 2018. Not enough sales in store and not enough meat on the bone for most products.

Now this is my own opinion.... we did it to ourselves. We got greedy. In the early 90's everyone wanted a new bow and would trade in each year if not 2. Prices kept creeping from $500 a set up to now it's very easy to get over $2000 for a full set up. Equipment is also better and lasts longer. But the biggest thing that hurt us is that we didn't care about who we sold to and we lost control of MAP and margin for the dealer. Some people believe it was all about counterfeiters, but let's look at a few things.

Here's what I saw and many other companies saw when they were are distributor shows. They would be a couple of folks that would come along and buy high volume and you thought it was time to celebrate. When in reality, you would get back to the office and have dealers complaining that some "internet site" was selling below MAP. Guess who it was??? You're grand slam account.

Let me talk in general, it used to be selling to distributors got you large PO's and you really didn't have to worry about who was buying after that. You made your money. Today, distributors are not ordering large amounts at a time. For the most part, they are just redirecting orders from dealers. Little do most dealers know that the same distributor is selling to another guy cheaper and they are selling online below the dealer because the "online yahoo" has no overhead and now doesn't have to worry about margin to pay the staff, the electricity, the rent, the heat, the internet, the donations to community organizations, etc.

Dealers need to make money on product otherwise, it's not worth turning the lights on. Boxstores like Scheels, Cabela's, BassPro have even more overhead and need that margin protected. The have been beaten up so bad at the the til matching prices to get the sale..... well most of you know the rest of the story...... how many boxstores filed bankruptcy or closed this year.

Who is to blame?? Not the dealer, not the boxstores, and not the counterfeiters. It was us... Manufactures who didn't protect their brands and who the sold to and didn't protect their brands by protecting MAP and margin and went for the quick sale to distributors.

Distributors hurt business these days for these reasons: the don't market to the consumer who is the cash holder in the end. Secondly, they don't control MAP, thirdly they take margin away from manufactures and dealers who actually sell to the consumer.

Amazon, E-bay and Wal-Mart.coms are not your enemies. You just need to know how with them.

Today there is a solution for manufactures to PROTECT MAP, Protect Margin, market direct to consumers and market to dealers. It also allows the manufacturer to sell on all these sales channels Boxstore, Dealers, Amazon.com, E-bay.com, Wal-Mart.com It handles distribution, warehousing, some social media and video production to reduce overhead. It even handles distribution in Canada as well.

Let's have a discussion and see how we can help you be more efficient, reach more people and make more money in 2018.

If you are interested in learning more, contact me [email protected]