Des D said:
A bit of Marketing History
Back in the day, December 1999 to be precise, a NEW detector from MInelab was going to be unveiled and, it was decreed that it would be the FIRST of their models to top the British Pound Sterling Price of £1000
Years later, again a NEW detector was to be unveiled and E Trac emerged at a price that EXCEEDED the Explorer by an extra £249.00 (British Pound Sterling) £1249.00
After that a French company unveiled a NEW detector the XP Deus and that was priced around the same as E Trac.£1296.00
Why?
It was clearly indicated and understood by XP that [ THE MARKET COULD BEAR IT]
2016
The NEW MX Sport is to be introduced very soon and [ it bears a resemblance to E Trac (handle & long battery compartment) and it's meter bears a resemblance to the CTX (waterproof and square with a meter)
White's have clearly seen that whatever price it is pitched at [THE MARKET WILL BEAR IT]
And you are correct that,
AT THE TIME and perhaps the location, THE MARKET WILL BEAR IT.
We can even roll back to the '83 to '85 period when all of a sudden the industry saw the first models with visual Target ID and then Tone ID introduced and the race was on! Teknetics [size=small](the 'original' folks)[/size] hit the market with their Coincomputer 9000 with an LCD display and the Coincomputer 8500 with the needle meter display. Then their 'B' upgrade added the audio Tone ID. White's, Garrett, Compass and every other manufacturer who had the engineers to figure out how to make a competitive model ... AT THE MUCH HIGHER PRICE ... jumped on the opportunity because the hobby was still in its growth stage and about to peak, ... AND THE MARKET COULD BEAR IT.
Through more recent years, however, we have seen some steady decline in the number of detector dealers and detector shops. A decline in the number of metal detecting clubs. A decline in the number of people actively involved in this fun hobby. And also a decline in the number of detector manufacturers. Yes, there are still some detectorists around who have the funds to purchase the high-dollar detectors like the Minelab FBS group, the XP Deus, and even White's VX3 and V3i ... but I think those numbers, as a whole, have been dwindling in percentage because more people have ended up frustrated by the weight, the complexity, and quite often a lesser amount of good target recoveries than they used to enjoy with lower-cost and less-featured models.
Also, we can look at other more interesting and obvious marketing trends. Garrett Metal Detectors, formerly Garrett Electronics, has almost always been the industry leader when it came to marketing. They even got into the trend with more digitally designed detectors with notch segment Discrimination and many features, even competing in the over $1000 USA price with their GTI-2500, and they had other GTP, GTAx models priced in the higher dollar market, but things got sluggish for them.
Garrett had set a new trend in the lower-cost model with modern TID features when they brought out their Ace 250, and it had a lot of brisk business. Why? Marketing and the low price. Both the upper end units were still struggling and they took another bold approach, and that was to thin out all those upper GTAish series models and bring out the AT Pro. More features. More adjustments. More versatility than they had at the time, and even waterproof! MSRP was not sky high, it is $699.95 and it operates at about 15 kHz. Garrett's AT Gold works at about 18 kHz and is also waterproof for $799.95.
Garrett brought out competitive featured detectors, waterproof, and offered at a very affordable price point. Back in March of 2010 I bought, at MSRP price, a Teknetics Omega 8000 for $599. The same lead engineer, David Johnson, who designed the original MXT, designed it and the Omega 8000 was/is very close to the performance of the MXT Pro, and overall has more features and adjustments, yet retailed for $300 less, and that was almost six years ago. The new replacement with many different, modern features, the Omega 8500, came in at the same MSRP.
Nokta had the excellent 15 kHz FORS CoRe [size=small](Coin & Relic)[/size] priced at $999 or $1399 for the 3-coil 'Pro Package,' then just a year ago dropped the FORS CoRe to only $699 standard, and $899 for the Pro Package. A detector that has more adjustment features and overall better performance than the MXT Pro, and it is priced at an MSRP comparable to Garrett's AT Pro, so both are $200 less than the MXT Pro. Then along comes the 14 kHz Makro Racer, with an MSRP of $649.95, and that also has more features at $250 below the price of the MXT Pro w/10" DD coil, and it also outperforms the MXT Pro.
These are more of a modern trend example of
WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR and WHAT THE MARKET DESIRES, and I think White's needs to adjust the MSRP of their current line-up, trim the fluff that's not selling well, seriously get competitive and price more of their detectors where the modern competition is. Sure the new
MX Sport has a newer style display and physical packaging to be waterproof, and yes, some people might be interested in a waterproof detector, but it is a smaller percentage than the masses who just want a good land unit.
A new model doesn't have to me a 'multi-frequency' unit, or have an overabundance of adjustment features to get the attention of the more avid, enthusiastic detectorist ... it simply has to balance well, have a good set of search coils, and provide very functional performance ...
at a reasonably affordable price. Certainly a new
MX Sport that is based on the MXT series technology isn't going to make the MXT's or even the MX5 extinct or perform worse. These models are good performers and can still hold a good portion of the detector market in sales, especially if they were adjusted to reflect a more popular MSRP.
Some manufacturers through the years have carried too many models in their line-up and that can be confusing, and also spread the prices out over a greater range from low-to-high. I've thrown out some ideas on prices elsewhere, but even if the MX5 was changed to come standard with the 6½" Concentric coil and the price adjusted down to $549, and the MXT All-Pro was dropped to $649 w/9" spider, then bring on the new
MX Sport at $899 where the current MXT All-Pro is priced and it will attract many more buyers to the White's product line for all three of these models.
Garrett set a competitive mark with the waterproof AT Pro and AT Gold and that was the challenge thrown down to all manufacturers. It will be interesting to see what White's does with the pricing and new model entries to compete with that, and also to provide a performance level needed to step up what they have offered for the more avid detectorists who are going to be attracted to anything above the $500 price point. Most of us do not need waterproof. It might be nice. It might be just right for some who desire it. It must, however, still provide the performance needed for tough conditions as well as not be overpriced.
Looking back to my first factory-produced detector, it was a White's, and I have owned and used many excellent performing White's models through the decades. I certainly hope White's can offer us something worthy of attention based on performance, keep the price WHERE THE MARKET WANTS IT, and can get back into the spotlight after a few struggling years of poor sales overall. It's time for them to be the ones to challenge other USA detector manufacturers like they used to.
Monte
