am I hearing this correct??

 

can you imagine the esn phone calls and the sales guys on the floor asking how to remove the faceplate. i feel bad for whoever is going to be the rep for eclipse, hope he has a good cellular plan

my prediction, the initail order, likely 250-300k will have poor sell through due to improper salesfloor training, at which point the guys on the floor will be "ancouraged" to be "creative" and sell through the stock. after poor sell through due to various reasons, none of which are future shops fault, the reamining higher priced stock will be discounted to sell through. then fs will reevaluate their future with eclipse and decide to move on, this whole process should take 2 model years, 18-24 months further devaluing a line that desparatley didnt need this to happen to it in western canada. this is not a shot at fs at all, they have very important jobs promoting car audio in canada through their aggresive advertising, as for mbquart, makes complete sense, they will cherry pick the line, and sell only the entry to mid level speakers, advertise the hell out of it(only cheap stuff to draw)sell of it into infinity(path of least resistance). the more good quality products that fs sells the better for me, in terms of how it affects mt business, i couldnt be happier, as for guys who sell those same products right now, support those who support and back you

 

ahh but with FS, when something new comes in, something old has to leave........

I think RF has outlived it's welcome at FS personally, and with it being BBY's #1 line, it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure this one out

 

eclpise will be a head unit only line at fs, at least that is my understanding, i may be wrong

[ March 25, 2005, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: defro13 ]

 

Of all the places I have worked, the only one with decent product and sales training was FS. Even those that have left FS would have to agree there. After that, it is up to the salesperson to retain the information and to use it - regardless of where they work.

If anything, the Eclipse would fill a void left when they dropped the eXcelon line.

The only person I feel bad for with the ESN system is the customer. IMO it is no theft deterrent - the crackhead only realizes it does not work after they have stolen it and it does not keep them from stealing another one.

As for something leaving - I haven't heard any rumblings about losing a product [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img]

 

In terms of the overall industry, products going in to future shop translate to dollars in the pockets of manufacturers and distributors. Sure, they are going to have to field some strange tech calls, and the service departments will see lots of NFF returns, but overall, the companies make money having their products in FS when their retail base otherwise doesn't, or can't support the product.

Competitions wise, yes, you need to be a smart 'specialist' retailer to be able to compete with the buying power of the big box guys, but the smart shops have absolutely no problem with it. The onesies-twosies shops are of course doomed to fail because they aren't taking advantage of the back-end programs available to them.

FS and BB are here to stay, they are only going to get bigger and the industry has accepted and embraced that. When I get questions about FS, I was happy to report that some of the best installers I knew 'used' to work there (at least, in the west).

 

I would agree, some very great installers "used" to work at FS. It is a great strategy, hire the best for a while, get the recognition and expertise, have them train your staff, and when they get too expensive, you can find someone else without dropping too much in quality since they have trained all your current guys. Eclipse and MB Quart will probably do very well in this market at FS if they can get the staff trained up. I did the numbers when I worked here and the Medicine Hat FS did on average %15 percent more dolar per unit sales than other stores in our region, which tells me that they generally sell higher end than the other FS stores.