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Another tackle shop going

Damian Kimmins said:
Angling Direct hanging in there? Really? Just like the powerful supermarkets Angling Direct is choosing to undercut everyone else - commonly known as the race to the bottom!
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Do AD undercut other tackle shops? I'm not sure they do. They are always seem a little more expensive to me?

They do seem to keep very good levels of stock in my local shop. As much as I don't like the way they are monopolising the tackle shop as in the long-term this cannot be good for the angler, I do have to concede that my local AD store is very well run.

AD must have tremendous buying power from their suppliers and must be able to source tackle cheaper than their rivals. I suspect this is why they are so successful.
 
Damian Kimmins said:
Angling Direct hanging in there? Really? Just like the powerful supermarkets Angling Direct is choosing to undercut everyone else - commonly known as the race to the bottom!
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That's not the definition of a race to the bottom. A race to the bottom is defined by businesses cutting corners to provide as minimal a service or product quality as they can get away with, for competitive advantage.

So unless brands like Daiwa, Shimano, etc start lowering product quality to compete with AD own brand products it's not a race to the bottom.

The supermarkets and AD are simply using buying power to be competitive, but I buy more from TFT than I do from Angling Direct, and more from W & X supermarkets, than from Y & Z, so as long as there is choice, none of these businesses are even a monopoly (which would be illegal anyway).
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I would imagine Angling Direct make a loss from their shops. From what I gather half their sales are from the sheds and theyre barely profitable as a company. Their return on capital employed is very low as well - nobody’s getting rich.

I like my local AD, it’s a bit of a journey but everywhere is when you live in north London, parking is easy and free, they have everything in stock at a good price and the staff are friendly and a mix of older guys and younger guys and women.

I know ultimately a company funded by private equity gradually taking more abd more of the market isn’t what’s best for the sport or society come to that. But what can you do?
 
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Angling Direct doubled their profit last year. However 1.5m on 100m turnover isn't great.

The company would hope that the 100m however, taken from small retailer businesses would help them reap the rewards in the future when the opposition fails.
 
Graham Elliott said:
Angling Direct doubled their profit last year. However 1.5m on 100m turnover isn't great.

The company would hope that the 100m however, taken from small retailer businesses would help them reap the rewards in the future when the opposition fails.
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When you factor in that they acquired 6 new stores last year, that's pretty impressive.
 
Phil Nixon said:
It was another nonsensical post by Damian, I googled the boilies and it looks like Angling direct sell them. Assume he was insinuating you use them because you wrote a positive post about them.
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Glad I'm not the only one who couldn't make sense of the comment. Advanta is ADs own brand, btw, but I've neither bought their boilies or posted anything about them.

Maybe Damian can clarify what he meant.
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Re Angling Direct, even if sale prices are comparable with other tackle outlets, you’d expect their sales margins to be much better, based on simple economies of scale. If as an example they put an order into Shimano or Daiwa for a 1000 reels, compared to my local tackle shop, who may only buy 10 of the same reels, who gets the better price from Shimano or Daiwa?

There was a time when Drennan wouldn’t supply to online only retailers and that included the BFW shop I seem to recall. Drennan also used to set and enforce the RPM (resale price maintenance) and if a tackle dealer undercut this, Drennan would stop supplying them. On two occasions and with two different tackle dealers, I bought pairs of Drennan rods. When I asked for a discount on buying a pair, it was a big fat NO, due to the above reason. I’ve no idea if this still happens, but when did you see Acolytes going cheap?
 
I was going to ask this, I mean, with smaller independent shops going one after the other, who's to blame? Are the brands giving places like AD the better prices which the smaller shops cannot compete with? We've all seen the low prices that some korum stuff gets sold for at AD for example and I know my local small shop cannot compete with those prices despite being a korum dealer too. So are the brands as much to blame for killing off the little guys too?

I'm just thinking out loud with no experience of retail.
 
Mark Evans 2 said:
I was going to ask this, I mean, with smaller independent shops going one after the other, who's to blame?
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We are all to blame, because we're buying more of our stuff online.

But the 'industry' is also to blame. It seems that the distributors and the bigger brands especially, don't care about the little guys any more. Insisting that they place minimum orders and pay upfront. (I've had this conversation a few times with one.)

On that basis, the little guy often has to take more stock than he can shift in a reasonable time - exposing him to the possibility that the likes of AD will discount the product to less than the price (at trade) that the little guy had to pay.

So, in answer to Neil, the likes of AD are definitely getting better trade prices than the smaller independents - and because they have as much, if not more, power than the brands, I doubt they have to pay upfront. Which effectively means they enjoy interest-free credit, higher margins, but also (as above) the ability, if needs be, to shift gear at no loss, at a price that still undercuts the smaller guys.

Unless anyone who represents the big brands can correct me, it seems that they have forgotten about the people that made them successful in the first place.
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That’s a good point, I support procure to pay business process/IT systems for a living and you can bet the likes of AT will have far better payment terms than a small independent retailer i.e. payment due 60 days from invoice date.

The Drennan example I referred to, was originally to support small independent retailers, but that was also back in the day when Peter Drennan personally inspected every rod!
 
Following on with this topic, I was previously in the market for a Diawa TDR reel. At the time, my incredible fishery based dealer would price match to ensure a sale. He was amazed when I showed him the best online price that I had found and said that it would cost him more than that to put it on the shelf. I stood by while he phoned his supplier and complained bitterly that he was going to lose a sale because because the big boys(yes, you know the one) were getting such big discounts. Begrudgingly he was given that price but told that it was a “one off”. He no longer price matches and ended his points based loyalty scheme. Sad, not a lot different to all the pubs closing, largely due to being held to ransom by the huge multi national brewing corporations.
 
Neil Blood said:
Re Angling Direct, even if sale prices are comparable with other tackle outlets, you’d expect their sales margins to be much better, based on simple economies of scale. If as an example they put an order into Shimano or Daiwa for a 1000 reels, compared to my local tackle shop, who may only buy 10 of the same reels, who gets the better price from Shimano or Daiwa?

There was a time when Drennan wouldn’t supply to online only retailers and that included the BFW shop I seem to recall. Drennan also used to set and enforce the RPM (resale price maintenance) and if a tackle dealer undercut this, Drennan would stop supplying them. On two occasions and with two different tackle dealers, I bought pairs of Drennan rods. When I asked for a discount on buying a pair, it was a big fat NO, due to the above reason. I’ve no idea if this still happens, but when did you see Acolytes going cheap?
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I bought an acolyte plus on a discount from Fishing Republic. I think there was a bit of a fuss about them doing it after. And it was the old company before they went into administration and were bought by Go Outdoors which also might say something
 
Neil Blood said:
Re Angling Direct, even if sale prices are comparable with other tackle outlets, you’d expect their sales margins to be much better, based on simple economies of scale. If as an example they put an order into Shimano or Daiwa for a 1000 reels, compared to my local tackle shop, who may only buy 10 of the same reels, who gets the better price from Shimano or Daiwa?

There was a time when Drennan wouldn’t supply to online only retailers and that included the BFW shop I seem to recall. Drennan also used to set and enforce the RPM (resale price maintenance) and if a tackle dealer undercut this, Drennan would stop supplying them. On two occasions and with two different tackle dealers, I bought pairs of Drennan rods. When I asked for a discount on buying a pair, it was a big fat NO, due to the above reason. I’ve no idea if this still happens, but when did you see Acolytes going cheap?
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Not sure if Drennan still do the same Neil but I believe Nigel mentions in the video how grateful he was to the support from Drennan. Before a certain person throws out any accusations I have NO link to Drennan.
 
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admin said:
That's unlikely. Thread has been edited and tidied. Fed up with it ....................
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For the record, I have no idea what is going on here. PM sent.
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