Bill Cooksey
07-14-2004, 10:50 AM
Gentlemen,
I wanted to take a few minutes to answer some legitimate questions posed by our customers as well as address some of the attacks against Avery that have been expressed on numerous websites over the past several months. While we are a manufacturer that only sells to dealers and not directly to the public, we take pride in the fact that we listen to the end user of our products. We are waterfowlers first and foremost, and this is why we got into this business in the first place, but as businessmen, we have experienced all of the good and bad that this industry has offered in the last thirty plus years.
Our goal at Avery since 1994 has been to produce high quality and innovative products at the lowest possible prices. It appears that many people have forgotten what they paid for a quality ground blind just four years ago. Many (I include myself in this number) have forgotten what it was like to hunt without a slip-in style floating gun case or floating blind bag. Others seem to have forgotten what they paid for a dozen of the same full body decoys they have been buying since the 1980’s, or what a dozen G&H Standard Mallards cost just a year ago. How about the price consumers paid for Fast Grass three years ago before we introduced RealGrass? I mention other companies’ products not to disparage them, but to point out how much we all had to pay for quality gear.
Despite what some people insist (I assume many of these people must be new to the sport of waterfowling), Avery was an innovator in the waterfowl industry from day one. The Quick-Set Blind was the beginning, the Floating Gun Case and Floating Blind Bags were absolutely original, the Neoprene Shell Belt and Neoprene Chest Pack came straight from our cutting table, the Finisher Blind was revolutionary both in design and price and while decoys are certainly nothing new, Greenhead Gear took production decoys to a level never before seen. I welcome anyone who truly believes that we are a knock-off company to call me at the number below, and I will be happy to point to our record of dozens of “firsts” that are now copied by as many as 10 companies.
The fact is that very few of our decoys have actually experienced any price increases at all from 2003 suggested retail prices. Dealers set prices where they feel they can best move products so you should be aware that supply and demand controls all retail pricing – we have nothing to do with it. Although 90% of the GHG line of decoys and accessories have kept the same suggested retail prices from 2003, I would like to offer a review of a couple of them because I think the facts are significant when you realize that their prices have stayed the same. The highest demand we are seeing for decoys this year is on our full body Canadas. As many of you know, we are offering three uniquely different styles in the Active, Feeder and Looker bodies. Each body style has three head styles to go with it, and each 6-pack carton of these decoys comes with two of each pre-flocked head style. The brand new RealFeet Foot Base is a technical wonder to me, and I cannot believe that our guys created something so simple yet so technologically advanced in the world of decoys. You will have to see it to believe it, but I can assure you that there has never been anything like it before. To review, that’s three different body styles, nine different heads and a brand new fully injection molded foot base system all at the EXACT SAME suggested retail price as 2003…am I missing something here? Please keep in mind that this is only our second year to be in the full body goose decoy business, and we already offer more body and head styles than any other production decoy manufacturer with plans for as many as three more bodies and 15 more heads over the next 12 months. I’m sure it is not a good idea for me to do this, but I am going to let you guys know that there is actually a catalog retailer offering our full body decoys at $10 per 6-pack below the suggested retail price, and I am willing to bet you that the price wars have not even begun. Please do not ask me to tell you who this catalog retailer is because we have a policy against directing business to any dealer – I just wanted to make you aware of the fact that some dealers will sell our full body decoys below last year’s suggested retail prices. Again, we have absolutely nothing to do with where our dealers set their prices – we do, however, encourage them to avoid price wars because we feel they are unnecessary in the end. Additionally, there has been no price increase whatsoever on our truly revolutionary Hot Buy Mallard decoys. I feel that the only decoy that it can be honestly and fairly compared to is the G&H Standard Mallard which had a “sale price” of $54.99 per dozen in last year’s Cabela’s catalogs. The G&H Standard Mallard decoy sold for years at $79.99 per dozen without anyone ever complaining about its price. Now before anyone feels the compulsion to cry “Paint issues!” please let me point out that we ended up with less than a 2% return rate on these Hot Buy Mallard decoys. If you did not know, we recalled a full container of Hot Buy Mallards last year after we determined that they had been painted with the incorrect base coat which caused the exterior paint to peel off in water. Mistakes are going to happen, especially in the second year of a highly technical and quickly growing manufacturing process, and we feel that it is how the mistake is handled that matters. Mistakes can and should be corrected, and more importantly, humans can only “learn” through making mistakes so we are actually glad we had the experience although we regret the unfortunate inconveniences it caused many of you. The most interesting fact here is that when it was all said and done and the number tallied, we received fewer Hot Buy Mallard returns than we issued recall letters for so I wish somebody would explain to me who would have any incentive to use the Hot Buy recall against us. Think about it guys, if you received a recall letter from us, then we took care of you 100% and made it right if you chose to send the decoys back. If you did not receive a recall letter but still had faulty decoys, we took them back every single time the requested return was legitimate. Either way, you got beautifully painted weighted keel mallard decoys for between $19.99 and $24.99 per dozen, and I cannot remember this ever happening before last year. Guys I just can’t leave this issue without mentioning that no other decoy manufacturer has ever issued a recall on molded waterfowl decoys even though the quality of certain batches of their products justified doing so. We are not proud of the fact that we felt the need to do it, but it was our obligation. I have personally owned decoys from other manufacturers that had worse paint than any of the decoys in our bad batch of Hot Buys last year, and those companies would not even return my call. Our Hot Buy Mallard recall was unfortunate but necessary for our own growth as a new decoy manufacturer, and we handled it the best way we knew how. I want to say a personal “thanks” to all of you who helped us get through it.
Regarding the few price increases in our decoy line, very few models have actually gone up in suggested retail price, and I am going to offer you some insight as to why they have. Our Over-Size Goose Shells have gone from a suggested retail price of $39.99/6-pack to $119.99/dozen which is a 50% increase in retail cost. We realize this is a huge jump in cost, and it happened for a variety of reasons, and I will give as thorough an explanation as possible. Major retail catalogs require product line presentations and pricing as early as the December/January prior to the sales year, and in ’03 that meant we had to price our O-S Shells prior to Fred even carving the original decoy. Making “the ultimate goose shell decoy” required a substantially larger molded body than he had first thought, but rather than take the easy way out and make an “also-ran” decoy or just tell our dealers that the price was wrong and needed to be adjusted (we avoid ever being accused of using the bait-and-switch tactic, and we take our medicine with a smile), we simply manufactured the decoys as we had presented them and lost money on every carton we sold. That was our problem to deal with, and you guys never heard us complain one time about it. Our decoys are molded from virgin polyethylene (PE) which is a fuel-based product so if you compare gas prices all of this year to gas prices of January 2003, you will start to understand what has happened to the cost of PE since we set the original price for the Over-Size Goose Shell. The increased cost of shipping containers 8,500 miles is another component of the cost increase, and it is significant, but, again, it is our problem, and we dealt with it by increasing the wholesale price on the shells to an acceptable level. Now for the good news: 1) all of our 2004 Canada goose decoy heads are electrostatically flocked at our factory so, if you attribute the cost increase to this fact alone, you are receiving flocked heads for only $3.33 apiece, and 2) we are now showing a profit rather than losing money on these decoys which helps our bankers justify the money they loan us to make them (certainly you would afford us a small profit in this thing we are trying to do?) By the way guys, our flocked heads are truly unbelievable – you can just about drag them behind the truck!
As an alternative to paying this admittedly large price increase for our Over-Size Goose Shells, I would like to make a very legitimate suggestion. This suggestion is not sarcastic nor is it meant in any way other than as constructive, and it is my own personal suggestion and should not be considered a statement on behalf of Avery or Greenhead Gear. You might consider purchasing G&H Magnum Goose Shells at $149.99 per dozen in Cabela’s catalog. These decoys are 5” longer than our O-S Shells, but they are narrower than and not nearly as tall as ours. To get these decoys apples-to-apples with ours, you might consider purchasing a flocking kit which runs between $28 and $40 (these kits advertise that they will flock 12-24 heads depending on the head size). If you are like me, flocking your own goose heads is something you will do only once, but it is an experience I recommend to anyone who has not tried it! I recommend it because it will certainly lead to a greater appreciation of the flocked heads that we offer as standard equipment with all our 2004 Canada goose decoys. If your time is worth anything to you, and I assume that it is, then please consider its value when determining whether the increased cost of our Over-Size Goose Shells is really that big of a deal. If, however, you choose to look at the flocking ordeal as a “hobby” or as something you have always wanted to try, then it is certainly justifiable time. Assuming you understand that you will be applying after-market adhesive and flocking to contaminated surfaces which will, in my experience, result in only average to poor adhesion/bonding and most certainly a limited life of the flocking on the heads, I calculate that you will spend a total of $178 - $185 per dozen on these decoys depending on the price of the flocking kit you purchase. Based on the advertised flocking volume of between 12 and 24 heads per kit, you will spend anywhere between $13.67 and $15.42 per decoy plus several frustrating hours of your life spent flocking the heads when you could have been brushing blinds, shooting clays, training dogs or going to the zoo with your kids. Our Over-Size Canada Goose Shells retail for $119.99 per dozen or $10 each with enormous Over-Size flocked heads standard in the box. In addition, nobody will argue that our shells are anatomically perfect in every way, and we pride ourselves in the fact that we went ahead with an expensive decoy rather than go down the beaten path of long, narrow and short goose shells that so many others have done before us. An important fact that I want to state here and now is that G&H decoys are awesome decoys, and we recommend them to anyone who simply will not buy ours but still wants high quality decoys. They are made in the USA by some great folks, and if this is important to you, then G&H is the only option I can personally recommend. I won’t take “the overseas thing” any further except to say that everyone has the God given and constitutionally protected right to choose to purchase American made goods, but I only ask that Avery and Greenhead Gear not be held to a different standard from that which you use when purchasing computers, clothing and a list of everyday household goods you buy every day without ever thinking about where they might have come from. Guys if that is not fair request, then I don’t know what else I can say.
Our Life-Size Series Mallards have also seen a price increase at many dealers from $39.99 per dozen to $49.99 per dozen, and this is a direct result of dealer requests. Several of our larger dealers have computer modules that alert them when a product has too much demand and is selling too fast as was the case with our Life-Size Series Mallards last year. These dealers try to avoid “sell-through” situations at all costs as backorders are very expensive for them to manage. In order to maximize their revenues and profits, many dealers will increase the retail cost gradually until a less frantic and more manageable demand for the product is reached. This is simply maximizing profit which is done in every business I have ever been involved with. Remember, we only sell to dealers, and this requires that we listen to their suggestions as readily as those of the consumer. To reach an acceptable level of production as well as demand, we increased our wholesale price on these decoys to cover our increased costs of raw materials and freight, and the dealers consequently set their retail prices where they felt they could maximize revenues and profits while avoiding in-season sell through situations. We have absolutely nothing to do with the retail prices at which our decoys are sold and to manipulate these retail prices in any way would be a violation of several federal laws. We don’t mess with the feds.
For those of you who have taken it upon yourselves to second guess our sales policies and offer your libelous accusations on chat rooms from coast to coast, I have been authorized to do something I never thought I would have to do, want to do or need to do. We are frankly disgusted with seeing posts where certain know-it-alls have stated that we offer pricing and terms to certain dealers and do not make these available to others. First of all this is not true, but what do our sales policies have to do with anything anyway? What has this Internet world come to guys? Is nothing sacred? I’m going to offer some information that I probably shouldn’t, but my job is to refute false accusations and to offer company information whenever it will help. We offer a layered sales program just as most other wholesale companies do. I will not go into all of the levels as they are not significant here, but I will outline our highest level in the program which is called the “Container Program”. This program allows for our deepest discounts and payment terms for ANY dealer that can fill a full container of consolidated products. It is offered to all of our dealers, and almost a hundred independent dealers were able to take advantage of it 2004 – that is an incredible number and one that we are very, very proud of. It works like this: When XYZ Sporting Goods takes advantage of the container program, it receives the same pricing/terms as any of our large volume dealers. Needless to say, some of our bigger dealers were not thrilled about it, but they see it as fair. This program is the best way we have found to truly help the smaller independent dealer stay competitive. We don’t want to see any of service-oriented independent dealers go the way that so many Mom & Pop hardware stores went when Home Depot moved into town, and we have tried to do our part to keep them healthy. Are other manufacturers and our competitors doing anything for these independent dealers? I cannot answer that question, but what others do is their business, and we can only hope that they feel the same way that we do about these dealers. Try complaining about Avery to one of these smaller dealers and see where it gets you. You might not get the kind of “customer service” reply that you would expect. We appreciate their business, and they appreciate the fact that we have made a level playing field possible for every single one of them. We hope to double the number of dealers that are able to take advantage of an even more aggressive and comprehensive Container Program in 2005.
Decoys are a very low margin product for us, but the Container Program is possible because we can mix other products with them. That’s right, we make some money on blinds and bags, and when dealers mix these items with decoys on a container we can show a profit. There are a few retailers who have taken advantage of this situation by not mixing the products that allow us to be profitable, but this will all be remedied as we move forward and learn more about how to do it better and better. I am not ashamed to admit that we are in this thing to make a profit, and we are still trying to make it happen! Avery’s employees, the folks who work in the plants producing our products and the retailers who sell them are in this to make a living. Most of us have families who depend on our incomes for shelter and food, and we take this responsibility very seriously. We have continually set the bar for quality waterfowl products at reasonable prices, but some still point to us as a symbol of corporate greed. As soon as someone here gets rich, I’ll be the first one to let you know.
I’ve probably spent way too much time on this as the people who seem to be complaining the loudest are the same folks who have stated they would never buy our products in the first place. I really would not want to be categorized with Hillary, but there appears to be a “conspiracy amongst some” to do anything they can to bring Avery down. I love my job. I have the greatest job in the world, and that probably pisses some folks off, but I am willing to fight for it. My job involves promoting our products to consumers, and I would hate to ever see that part of it go away. The constant public complaints and pot shots are to be expected I guess, but the lies and destructive statements about our products or our people makes our management want to do one of two things: 1) cut all direct ties to the public like all the other manufacturers and focus on manufacturing products that our dealers want, or 2) get compensated justly for the abuse by selling direct to the public thereby increasing our profit margins in such a huge way that it makes it much easier to swallow these bitter pills. Either way, I’m out in the cold unless I want to man a phone to take your orders. I realize that this is not your problem guys, but I am trying to point out that Avery is a company made up of people. All of us take this seriously, and there reaches a point at which it becomes impossible to see all the vicious crap being eschewed by the anti-Avery contingent and not fight back.
Guys I know that I will certainly be told by some of you that this post was juvenile, unprofessional, immature, etc. and that you will never buy another Avery product, you will tell others not to buy Avery products, etc. I have seen them all before, and I learned over the past year to stop and consider the sources in this age of the Internet where competitors can launch attacks against each other using assumed names and “rumors” that they felt they needed to pass on for the good of everyone. Let me have it if you feel the need. For those of you who have read this entire post and who understand the context in which it was written, I appreciate your patience and hope that the information it contains has been helpful to you in some way. I am always available for updates and company information so please do not hesitate to contact me if you need anything at all.
I would like to wish the best of luck to all of you for a safe and rewarding 2004 hunting season!
Bill Cooksey
Director of Media Relations
Avery Outdoors, Inc.
800-333-5119
I wanted to take a few minutes to answer some legitimate questions posed by our customers as well as address some of the attacks against Avery that have been expressed on numerous websites over the past several months. While we are a manufacturer that only sells to dealers and not directly to the public, we take pride in the fact that we listen to the end user of our products. We are waterfowlers first and foremost, and this is why we got into this business in the first place, but as businessmen, we have experienced all of the good and bad that this industry has offered in the last thirty plus years.
Our goal at Avery since 1994 has been to produce high quality and innovative products at the lowest possible prices. It appears that many people have forgotten what they paid for a quality ground blind just four years ago. Many (I include myself in this number) have forgotten what it was like to hunt without a slip-in style floating gun case or floating blind bag. Others seem to have forgotten what they paid for a dozen of the same full body decoys they have been buying since the 1980’s, or what a dozen G&H Standard Mallards cost just a year ago. How about the price consumers paid for Fast Grass three years ago before we introduced RealGrass? I mention other companies’ products not to disparage them, but to point out how much we all had to pay for quality gear.
Despite what some people insist (I assume many of these people must be new to the sport of waterfowling), Avery was an innovator in the waterfowl industry from day one. The Quick-Set Blind was the beginning, the Floating Gun Case and Floating Blind Bags were absolutely original, the Neoprene Shell Belt and Neoprene Chest Pack came straight from our cutting table, the Finisher Blind was revolutionary both in design and price and while decoys are certainly nothing new, Greenhead Gear took production decoys to a level never before seen. I welcome anyone who truly believes that we are a knock-off company to call me at the number below, and I will be happy to point to our record of dozens of “firsts” that are now copied by as many as 10 companies.
The fact is that very few of our decoys have actually experienced any price increases at all from 2003 suggested retail prices. Dealers set prices where they feel they can best move products so you should be aware that supply and demand controls all retail pricing – we have nothing to do with it. Although 90% of the GHG line of decoys and accessories have kept the same suggested retail prices from 2003, I would like to offer a review of a couple of them because I think the facts are significant when you realize that their prices have stayed the same. The highest demand we are seeing for decoys this year is on our full body Canadas. As many of you know, we are offering three uniquely different styles in the Active, Feeder and Looker bodies. Each body style has three head styles to go with it, and each 6-pack carton of these decoys comes with two of each pre-flocked head style. The brand new RealFeet Foot Base is a technical wonder to me, and I cannot believe that our guys created something so simple yet so technologically advanced in the world of decoys. You will have to see it to believe it, but I can assure you that there has never been anything like it before. To review, that’s three different body styles, nine different heads and a brand new fully injection molded foot base system all at the EXACT SAME suggested retail price as 2003…am I missing something here? Please keep in mind that this is only our second year to be in the full body goose decoy business, and we already offer more body and head styles than any other production decoy manufacturer with plans for as many as three more bodies and 15 more heads over the next 12 months. I’m sure it is not a good idea for me to do this, but I am going to let you guys know that there is actually a catalog retailer offering our full body decoys at $10 per 6-pack below the suggested retail price, and I am willing to bet you that the price wars have not even begun. Please do not ask me to tell you who this catalog retailer is because we have a policy against directing business to any dealer – I just wanted to make you aware of the fact that some dealers will sell our full body decoys below last year’s suggested retail prices. Again, we have absolutely nothing to do with where our dealers set their prices – we do, however, encourage them to avoid price wars because we feel they are unnecessary in the end. Additionally, there has been no price increase whatsoever on our truly revolutionary Hot Buy Mallard decoys. I feel that the only decoy that it can be honestly and fairly compared to is the G&H Standard Mallard which had a “sale price” of $54.99 per dozen in last year’s Cabela’s catalogs. The G&H Standard Mallard decoy sold for years at $79.99 per dozen without anyone ever complaining about its price. Now before anyone feels the compulsion to cry “Paint issues!” please let me point out that we ended up with less than a 2% return rate on these Hot Buy Mallard decoys. If you did not know, we recalled a full container of Hot Buy Mallards last year after we determined that they had been painted with the incorrect base coat which caused the exterior paint to peel off in water. Mistakes are going to happen, especially in the second year of a highly technical and quickly growing manufacturing process, and we feel that it is how the mistake is handled that matters. Mistakes can and should be corrected, and more importantly, humans can only “learn” through making mistakes so we are actually glad we had the experience although we regret the unfortunate inconveniences it caused many of you. The most interesting fact here is that when it was all said and done and the number tallied, we received fewer Hot Buy Mallard returns than we issued recall letters for so I wish somebody would explain to me who would have any incentive to use the Hot Buy recall against us. Think about it guys, if you received a recall letter from us, then we took care of you 100% and made it right if you chose to send the decoys back. If you did not receive a recall letter but still had faulty decoys, we took them back every single time the requested return was legitimate. Either way, you got beautifully painted weighted keel mallard decoys for between $19.99 and $24.99 per dozen, and I cannot remember this ever happening before last year. Guys I just can’t leave this issue without mentioning that no other decoy manufacturer has ever issued a recall on molded waterfowl decoys even though the quality of certain batches of their products justified doing so. We are not proud of the fact that we felt the need to do it, but it was our obligation. I have personally owned decoys from other manufacturers that had worse paint than any of the decoys in our bad batch of Hot Buys last year, and those companies would not even return my call. Our Hot Buy Mallard recall was unfortunate but necessary for our own growth as a new decoy manufacturer, and we handled it the best way we knew how. I want to say a personal “thanks” to all of you who helped us get through it.
Regarding the few price increases in our decoy line, very few models have actually gone up in suggested retail price, and I am going to offer you some insight as to why they have. Our Over-Size Goose Shells have gone from a suggested retail price of $39.99/6-pack to $119.99/dozen which is a 50% increase in retail cost. We realize this is a huge jump in cost, and it happened for a variety of reasons, and I will give as thorough an explanation as possible. Major retail catalogs require product line presentations and pricing as early as the December/January prior to the sales year, and in ’03 that meant we had to price our O-S Shells prior to Fred even carving the original decoy. Making “the ultimate goose shell decoy” required a substantially larger molded body than he had first thought, but rather than take the easy way out and make an “also-ran” decoy or just tell our dealers that the price was wrong and needed to be adjusted (we avoid ever being accused of using the bait-and-switch tactic, and we take our medicine with a smile), we simply manufactured the decoys as we had presented them and lost money on every carton we sold. That was our problem to deal with, and you guys never heard us complain one time about it. Our decoys are molded from virgin polyethylene (PE) which is a fuel-based product so if you compare gas prices all of this year to gas prices of January 2003, you will start to understand what has happened to the cost of PE since we set the original price for the Over-Size Goose Shell. The increased cost of shipping containers 8,500 miles is another component of the cost increase, and it is significant, but, again, it is our problem, and we dealt with it by increasing the wholesale price on the shells to an acceptable level. Now for the good news: 1) all of our 2004 Canada goose decoy heads are electrostatically flocked at our factory so, if you attribute the cost increase to this fact alone, you are receiving flocked heads for only $3.33 apiece, and 2) we are now showing a profit rather than losing money on these decoys which helps our bankers justify the money they loan us to make them (certainly you would afford us a small profit in this thing we are trying to do?) By the way guys, our flocked heads are truly unbelievable – you can just about drag them behind the truck!
As an alternative to paying this admittedly large price increase for our Over-Size Goose Shells, I would like to make a very legitimate suggestion. This suggestion is not sarcastic nor is it meant in any way other than as constructive, and it is my own personal suggestion and should not be considered a statement on behalf of Avery or Greenhead Gear. You might consider purchasing G&H Magnum Goose Shells at $149.99 per dozen in Cabela’s catalog. These decoys are 5” longer than our O-S Shells, but they are narrower than and not nearly as tall as ours. To get these decoys apples-to-apples with ours, you might consider purchasing a flocking kit which runs between $28 and $40 (these kits advertise that they will flock 12-24 heads depending on the head size). If you are like me, flocking your own goose heads is something you will do only once, but it is an experience I recommend to anyone who has not tried it! I recommend it because it will certainly lead to a greater appreciation of the flocked heads that we offer as standard equipment with all our 2004 Canada goose decoys. If your time is worth anything to you, and I assume that it is, then please consider its value when determining whether the increased cost of our Over-Size Goose Shells is really that big of a deal. If, however, you choose to look at the flocking ordeal as a “hobby” or as something you have always wanted to try, then it is certainly justifiable time. Assuming you understand that you will be applying after-market adhesive and flocking to contaminated surfaces which will, in my experience, result in only average to poor adhesion/bonding and most certainly a limited life of the flocking on the heads, I calculate that you will spend a total of $178 - $185 per dozen on these decoys depending on the price of the flocking kit you purchase. Based on the advertised flocking volume of between 12 and 24 heads per kit, you will spend anywhere between $13.67 and $15.42 per decoy plus several frustrating hours of your life spent flocking the heads when you could have been brushing blinds, shooting clays, training dogs or going to the zoo with your kids. Our Over-Size Canada Goose Shells retail for $119.99 per dozen or $10 each with enormous Over-Size flocked heads standard in the box. In addition, nobody will argue that our shells are anatomically perfect in every way, and we pride ourselves in the fact that we went ahead with an expensive decoy rather than go down the beaten path of long, narrow and short goose shells that so many others have done before us. An important fact that I want to state here and now is that G&H decoys are awesome decoys, and we recommend them to anyone who simply will not buy ours but still wants high quality decoys. They are made in the USA by some great folks, and if this is important to you, then G&H is the only option I can personally recommend. I won’t take “the overseas thing” any further except to say that everyone has the God given and constitutionally protected right to choose to purchase American made goods, but I only ask that Avery and Greenhead Gear not be held to a different standard from that which you use when purchasing computers, clothing and a list of everyday household goods you buy every day without ever thinking about where they might have come from. Guys if that is not fair request, then I don’t know what else I can say.
Our Life-Size Series Mallards have also seen a price increase at many dealers from $39.99 per dozen to $49.99 per dozen, and this is a direct result of dealer requests. Several of our larger dealers have computer modules that alert them when a product has too much demand and is selling too fast as was the case with our Life-Size Series Mallards last year. These dealers try to avoid “sell-through” situations at all costs as backorders are very expensive for them to manage. In order to maximize their revenues and profits, many dealers will increase the retail cost gradually until a less frantic and more manageable demand for the product is reached. This is simply maximizing profit which is done in every business I have ever been involved with. Remember, we only sell to dealers, and this requires that we listen to their suggestions as readily as those of the consumer. To reach an acceptable level of production as well as demand, we increased our wholesale price on these decoys to cover our increased costs of raw materials and freight, and the dealers consequently set their retail prices where they felt they could maximize revenues and profits while avoiding in-season sell through situations. We have absolutely nothing to do with the retail prices at which our decoys are sold and to manipulate these retail prices in any way would be a violation of several federal laws. We don’t mess with the feds.
For those of you who have taken it upon yourselves to second guess our sales policies and offer your libelous accusations on chat rooms from coast to coast, I have been authorized to do something I never thought I would have to do, want to do or need to do. We are frankly disgusted with seeing posts where certain know-it-alls have stated that we offer pricing and terms to certain dealers and do not make these available to others. First of all this is not true, but what do our sales policies have to do with anything anyway? What has this Internet world come to guys? Is nothing sacred? I’m going to offer some information that I probably shouldn’t, but my job is to refute false accusations and to offer company information whenever it will help. We offer a layered sales program just as most other wholesale companies do. I will not go into all of the levels as they are not significant here, but I will outline our highest level in the program which is called the “Container Program”. This program allows for our deepest discounts and payment terms for ANY dealer that can fill a full container of consolidated products. It is offered to all of our dealers, and almost a hundred independent dealers were able to take advantage of it 2004 – that is an incredible number and one that we are very, very proud of. It works like this: When XYZ Sporting Goods takes advantage of the container program, it receives the same pricing/terms as any of our large volume dealers. Needless to say, some of our bigger dealers were not thrilled about it, but they see it as fair. This program is the best way we have found to truly help the smaller independent dealer stay competitive. We don’t want to see any of service-oriented independent dealers go the way that so many Mom & Pop hardware stores went when Home Depot moved into town, and we have tried to do our part to keep them healthy. Are other manufacturers and our competitors doing anything for these independent dealers? I cannot answer that question, but what others do is their business, and we can only hope that they feel the same way that we do about these dealers. Try complaining about Avery to one of these smaller dealers and see where it gets you. You might not get the kind of “customer service” reply that you would expect. We appreciate their business, and they appreciate the fact that we have made a level playing field possible for every single one of them. We hope to double the number of dealers that are able to take advantage of an even more aggressive and comprehensive Container Program in 2005.
Decoys are a very low margin product for us, but the Container Program is possible because we can mix other products with them. That’s right, we make some money on blinds and bags, and when dealers mix these items with decoys on a container we can show a profit. There are a few retailers who have taken advantage of this situation by not mixing the products that allow us to be profitable, but this will all be remedied as we move forward and learn more about how to do it better and better. I am not ashamed to admit that we are in this thing to make a profit, and we are still trying to make it happen! Avery’s employees, the folks who work in the plants producing our products and the retailers who sell them are in this to make a living. Most of us have families who depend on our incomes for shelter and food, and we take this responsibility very seriously. We have continually set the bar for quality waterfowl products at reasonable prices, but some still point to us as a symbol of corporate greed. As soon as someone here gets rich, I’ll be the first one to let you know.
I’ve probably spent way too much time on this as the people who seem to be complaining the loudest are the same folks who have stated they would never buy our products in the first place. I really would not want to be categorized with Hillary, but there appears to be a “conspiracy amongst some” to do anything they can to bring Avery down. I love my job. I have the greatest job in the world, and that probably pisses some folks off, but I am willing to fight for it. My job involves promoting our products to consumers, and I would hate to ever see that part of it go away. The constant public complaints and pot shots are to be expected I guess, but the lies and destructive statements about our products or our people makes our management want to do one of two things: 1) cut all direct ties to the public like all the other manufacturers and focus on manufacturing products that our dealers want, or 2) get compensated justly for the abuse by selling direct to the public thereby increasing our profit margins in such a huge way that it makes it much easier to swallow these bitter pills. Either way, I’m out in the cold unless I want to man a phone to take your orders. I realize that this is not your problem guys, but I am trying to point out that Avery is a company made up of people. All of us take this seriously, and there reaches a point at which it becomes impossible to see all the vicious crap being eschewed by the anti-Avery contingent and not fight back.
Guys I know that I will certainly be told by some of you that this post was juvenile, unprofessional, immature, etc. and that you will never buy another Avery product, you will tell others not to buy Avery products, etc. I have seen them all before, and I learned over the past year to stop and consider the sources in this age of the Internet where competitors can launch attacks against each other using assumed names and “rumors” that they felt they needed to pass on for the good of everyone. Let me have it if you feel the need. For those of you who have read this entire post and who understand the context in which it was written, I appreciate your patience and hope that the information it contains has been helpful to you in some way. I am always available for updates and company information so please do not hesitate to contact me if you need anything at all.
I would like to wish the best of luck to all of you for a safe and rewarding 2004 hunting season!
Bill Cooksey
Director of Media Relations
Avery Outdoors, Inc.
800-333-5119