Leland Outfitters is closing out Sage.
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Ouch, sounds like they are pissed. I found this article explaining a little bit of the back story.
Big Box Wholesaler Costco Plays Dirty – Aiming Low Prices on Top Brands to Lure Fly Fishermen
In Sage’s defense, I am certain they didn’t want to be in this situation in the first place. For background, Sage is owned by Farbank, which is a division of the Joshua Green Corporation. Farbank also owns Rio Products and Redington. I think those acquisitions were made around the 2004-5 timeframe, when things were looking pretty decent on the whole.
Then the economy crashed. I’ve met the present Mr. Green one time and he is a very sweet older man. He just came over and started showing me stuff in the Sage booth, like he worked there.
Sage was basically left holding the bag. They had something like three times as many employees as their nearest domestic competitor–and those are Americans making American salaries. They had done very well selling high-end rods at volume on the strength of really good design and really huge advertising budgets. But that high-volume, high-price model just was not sustainable with the economy melting down and I am sure their sales nose-dived.
Similar things happened at Simms. But Simms was pretty darn nimble and they successfully positioned themselves as a player in the broader market. Soft goods were perhaps better positioned for that in the first place — it’s not like Sage could come out with a line of bait rods, not reasonably anyway. So where Simms was able to turn lemons into lemonade by opening the big boxes (after a little spat with Farbank about sales reps, incidentally), Sage was not so lucky.
I don’t think Sage is in any danger as a company. Indeed last I heard they were still in acquisition mode, with Farbank making a play for Fishpond that didn’t wind up happening. But, you have to know their dealers have been hurting and no one likes to see someone else get a better margin deal than you yourself get.
Leland may be the first of several of these large shops to make this move. And Sage may need to retract a bit and get more nimble themselves. They certainly know that — there are good heads in charge over there, and I am sure they’ll be fine.
Zach
I wouldn’t be surprised if Leland and other online shops drops Simms in the near future. Apparently their sales of Simms waders have dropped noticeably since Simms started selling direct.
We are experiencing the same kind of thing here. We have been a Sage and Simms dealer for 10 years now. We are not huge, by any means, but good sized for our market. Both have added a new dealer within our area in the past couple of years, and now, a box store that carries both is to be added to our market. Trying to decide what to do now. I mean, how do we compete with a store that has a larger ad budget than our store annual open to buy budget? Not trying to cry a river about this, but both customers and vendors have to realize that unless they support small dealers, we will be a thing of the past. Think it will keep us in business when you buy all your big things at a box and come to us for flies and tippet? Think again. If that is the progression of the world, then it will be what it will be. But, if you want local shops to stick with it, support them.
One last thing. We have a customer loyalty program which give back 5% in the form of gift cards. I run bimini or blind splices when doing outfits. We rarely charge for backing, and often toss in a line with an outfit. The box stores do some, but not all of this. We even have a book we give away to anglers looking to get going detailing the most effective flies, knots, etc we had put together for our area. So how, in an sense of the word, do people still think you save money by shopping at a big box store? We are not unique. Many small shops do this. We are trying to earn your money, not just sell you stuff. I wish people would keep this all in mind when shopping. Thats it for my 2cent rant. Thanks and tight lines!
I completely agree Steve.
Shops that go that extra mile really do impress – especially because the extra mile in anything is so very rare these days. We have a couple of great examples in the Atlanta area – the Fish Hawk and Cohutta Fishing Co., and we are lucky to have them. Quite a few times I have pulled on my man pants and bought a rod or reel from them, even though I clearly could have bought it online and saved on tax, or even found it cheaper. It is my cost to have them, and it is worth it.
One thing that, I think, given the high price of top-end rods, that shops must really be fighting whether they know it or not is the used market, which seems to be everywhere these days. The equipment that was produced 5 years ago is so much better than the stuff 15 years ago – all of which you can get for a song used. There is no real reason to buy new. I am sure others strongly disagree, but all of the gains that rods have been making since maybe 2006-7 have been very incremental, and diminishing.
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