On 4/12/2013 2:05 PM, Bill Pearce wrote:
> Oly and Panasonic do poorly in the North American market, which is a huge
> one, because they are either stupid, incompetant, or just plain don't care,
> as their attempts at marketing are too little too late. If Panasonic can get
> TV's in every Best Buy in America, why not cameras? Why doesn't Oly get
> cameras in camera stores?
Your lack of understanding of how products get - and stay - in mass market
stores appears considerable (not uncommon here).
You can make special cost deals, pay slotting fees, and, maybe, get them in. If
they don't sell adequately, they are
OUT. Each cube of shelf space is evaluated for profit and ROI. There are
categories and items that are simply required,
even if contribution is below standard, because of customer expectations. You
can't, for example, have a camera section
without C&N. a cleaning section without P&G, and so on.
It may even be that the other stuff is mostly there to provide a broad enough
range of apparent choice. Long ago, some
folks at the huge retailer I worked for decided to get rid of some under
performing SKUs. I don't remember the exact
numbers ... The best selling brand of hair coloring had say 12 shades, and 3 or
4 accounted for 80+% of sales. So they
tried cutting back to 4 shades. Sales dropped like a stone. Apparently, buyers
need to look at a range of options -
before buying the same thing as everyone else. Without the range, they simply
buy elsewhere. Some categories must be
evaluated for contribution as a whole, not individually. (Fortunately, we/they
were savvy enough to only try it in a
handful of stores.)
Whether this applies to cameras, I don't know, but the mass market business is
chock full of such arcane realities.
The old systems of spiffs to counter people, if not long gone, don't apply
here. You have to sell the consumers on your
goods to get them in the big stores. Yes, I know, it's terribly frustrating for
lots of sellers, a real chicken or the
egg situation. But that's the way it works. New lines do break in, like Method
cleaning products, but it requires
something special that appeals to consumers in a new way, preferably one that
retailer buyers can see easily.
It seems to me that Oly may have a couple of extra problems. Unlike Sony and
Panny, they don't have an ongoing sales
relationship with the retailers*. Like Panny, they don't have a line of DSLRs,
and unlike Panny, their line of compacts
is obscure and mediocre, except perhaps in tough cameras.
I know we may not 'get' it, but I'm betting a majority of people who walk into
a BB to upgrade to a 'real' camera'
expect to buy something relatively large, of a certain form factor and black.
They may well be wrong about what would
serve their needs best, but nobody in the store is going to talk them into
something different.
I wouldn't be surprised if it were true that Sony NEX cameras sell in part in
the big stores because their lenses are so
big and macho looking. They MUST be better, mustn't they?
BB and the rest LIVE or DIE on volume. You probably can't believe how much that
is so. If the product doesn't move fast,
they can't afford to stock it. Non big business people get hung up on margin,
and forget turns. Half the margin, 2.2x
the turns, and you just made about 20% more ROI. And inventory, goodness, 'ya
gotta keep that down, too.
Ex Mass Moose
* If you've broken in before, and failed to sell, getting another chance is
really tough.
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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