TJ, this is why your K2 argument holds no weight...

[Mark Toye-Nexus]

Originally posted by Chicago

That's the funny thing about paintball - these companies spend millions per year collectively sponsoring pro teams that play in two leagues, when they'd get more bang for their buck spending a half mil for an hour on one saturday on NBC on a well-produced program.

All they have to do is figure out how to produce a good program. Maybe they can pay Raehl a few bucks to do it for them.

Take the paintballer out of the sponsorship decision making protest and what you suggest would probably happen. Making a purely business based decision isnt going to happen whilst all the major manufacturers are still led/owned/run by players/ex-players.

My only caveat would, of course be the Raehl bit

 

[Red_Merkin]

Without any numbers, I would assume a significant part of the turnover is derived from companies like JT, WGP and Viewloader...

The biggest market for Brass Eagle (and walmart) is the rec market and the backyard warriors. These customers generally don't care about quality, they just care about price. (they are shopping in walmart afterall)

i think they were counting on a good name like JT to sell crappy product in walmart. After having seen how Paintball is sold in walmart, i'm convinced that whoever is running the show for K2 paintball hasn't go a clue.

It's totally not geared towards the type of customer they want to sell to at all!

But then again, nothing in the walmart sporting good dept is set up well.

Still, i think they got cocky, and thought they could make a ton of money by selling the crappy low end stuff, and it just dosn't work the way they thought it would.

It has nothing to do with tournament teams, these teams don't sell gear to the recballing masses.

Considering the bigger picture, sponsoring a tournament team is a huge waste of time. If i had a shop or brand, i'd spend my time trying to hook more recballers!

Besides, what tourament players do you know who actually have any money?

 

[Matski]

With products like the Ion around closing the gap between price and functionality, plus internet buying; The middle ground of positioning for the rec market and the tournament market is closing in my opinion. Rec ballers may not care at all what Dynasty shoot, but they still want as much as they can get for their money and they only have to check the net for 100 seconds to find a better deal than an ol cocker from the local Walmart.

Who really cares about turnover anyway Nick, its about cashflow and margins, both of which are currently **** in paintball due to the black hole we call promotion.

 

[Nick Brockdorff]

The biggest market for Brass Eagle (and walmart) is the rec market and the backyard warriors

Again - someone please show me some numbers - until then it's all just assumption

Nick

 

[Nick Brockdorff]

Who really cares about turnover anyway Nick, its about cashflow and margins, both of which are currently **** in paintball due to the black hole we call promotion.

It's about cashflow? - how so??

It IS about margins (also) - I'll grant you - but you can bet your ass the margin (in $) is significantly better on a Karnivor than on some piece of plastic sold at Wal-Mart.

You blame promotion? - I find that weird... sporting goods manufacturers in other sports would LOVE to be able to get away with "free product" being the main part of their promotions expenditure... paintball is nowhere near as expensive in terms of marketing as most other sports.... despite the market being fairly substantial..... the manufacturers just need to wake up to reality, which is that the days of 10% growth annually and sponsoring anyone who asks irrespective of ROI are over, and they have to start to run REAL businesses now.

The main real reason paintball sales has taken a slight downturn, is that world economy is in a crisis momentarily, which translates into people having fewer money to spend on "fun"...... that hurts the companies that base a significant part of their business on the lower parts of the market much more.

People have to realise though, that the lower part of the market is much less influenced by high end promotions, and as such the two do not really have any significant impact on eachother (and if manufacturers think they do - they are wrong).

Nick

 

[repairman]

You are all right................

Having worked for BE I understand that they are going thru the issue that they themselves have created. It has been in development from the purchase of JT.

BE's numbers at walmart were slipping due to competition on all levels. In BE's Walmart world it is all about shelving space. As Zap, Draxxus, National and others started to move into the Walmart arena, BE solution was to purchase JT and use the name brand to save the suffering BE business. At first it worked with the buyers of walmart and other sporting good chain stores knowing the JT branded name. FYI "Buyers" outside our sport do know the cool brands that exsist in our sport.

So now you have a JT branded product in Walmart and other sporting good chains that are bringing in the numbers, great. But as you pull away from the traditional market (which is your high margin area) you lose the capital needed to maintain brand awareness. Look at JT 5 years ago. Every magazine had plenty of adds pushing new designs, teams and current JT product. Have you looked at a magazine recently? Who do you see? DYE........... Very familiar marketing campaign. Dye is going to succeed where JT is stumbling. BE has cut JT in all areas. There wall street appraoch is chocking the life blood of a once great company. Now add the current world economic factors and you have a monster on your hands.

The solution for K2 is to allow the JT and Worr brands to go back to what made them the brands they once where. JT needs to be the cool company it once was. The margins will allow the capital to develop the cool products again. Worr Games need to be in development of new prduct also. the Autococker was the marque peace of its time. However time has run its coarse and they new a new product that will put them back on top. BE should have taken the advice of its acquistion when it was said that instead of using JT to make their numbers in sales they needed to work on improving their own imagine.

Anyway time will tell the future of the BE group

 

[Liz]

Originally posted by Nick Brockdorff
It's about cashflow? - how so??

It IS about margins (also) - I'll grant you - but you can bet your ass the margin (in $) is significantly better on a Karnivor than on some piece of plastic sold at Wal-Mart.

I think they are going on the theory they would rather make $1 100 times over, than $10 twice - lowish ROI but the higher turnover more than makes up for it.

 

[Missy Q]

Walmart tell Brass eagle what price points to hit. Walmart tell BE the products they want. BE don't just make stuff and offer it to the buyers. Thats not how it all works. BE relocated to Arkansas so that they would be stationed in Walmarts HQ, and thier kids go to the same schools as the buyers. It is not BE's failure that the product numbers selling in Wallmart are shrinking. They are the only company that has blended into Walmarts actual infrastructure. The problem is the general downturn in spending. If you want to blame anyone, blame Bush, he's a moron. Perhaps God told him to ruin the US economy or something - I don't know. Fact remains - BE have done more for paintball than anyone. Lets not forget that.

As for the industry starting to run 'Real' businesses. I can assure you that the larger paintball companies are doing this. K2 is a giant. They don't need the paintball business 101 from some paintball players who think they know what's up.
One of the first steps to facilitate running 'real' businesses would be to cut unecessary spending. This would mean a LOT of teams/sponsorships getting cut, or at the very least, consolidated into a stronger direction with a focus on channelling exposure. I know for a fact that this is BE's strategy. They will channel through Dynasty. The other teams are not worth it to them and do not offer the same return. The return on team sponsorship money is insubstantial. So be careful what you wish for...


And anyone that thinks that BE's solution is to sponsor MORE teams and throw big bucks at a Pro spot is looking at this the wrong way, or rather, from a player perspective. If a BE executive was to make the same suggestion in the boardroom they would be packing boxes in the warehouse by the end of the week.

Just my opinion of course. Perhaps you guys are right and what K2 need to do is give a load nmore money and product away to the teams, who in turn will turn the business around for them, because they care so much...

 

[Buddha 3]

Good topic, good debate... sadly in the wrong forum. Moved it for your convenience.

 

[TJ Lambini]

Originally posted by Missy Q
Walmart tell Brass eagle what price points to hit. Walmart tell BE the products they want. BE don't just make stuff and offer it to the buyers. Thats not how it all works. BE relocated to Arkansas so that they would be stationed in Walmarts HQ, and thier kids go to the same schools as the buyers. It is not BE's failure that the product numbers selling in Wallmart are shrinking. They are the only company that has blended into Walmarts actual infrastructure. The problem is the general downturn in spending. If you want to blame anyone, blame Bush, he's a moron. Perhaps God told him to ruin the US economy or something - I don't know. Fact remains - BE have done more for paintball than anyone. Lets not forget that.

As for the industry starting to run 'Real' businesses. I can assure you that the larger paintball companies are doing this. K2 is a giant. They don't need the paintball business 101 from some paintball players who think they know what's up.
One of the first steps to facilitate running 'real' businesses would be to cut unecessary spending. This would mean a LOT of teams/sponsorships getting cut, or at the very least, consolidated into a stronger direction with a focus on channelling exposure. I know for a fact that this is BE's strategy. They will channel through Dynasty. The other teams are not worth it to them and do not offer the same return. The return on team sponsorship money is insubstantial. So be careful what you wish for...


And anyone that thinks that BE's solution is to sponsor MORE teams and throw big bucks at a Pro spot is looking at this the wrong way, or rather, from a player perspective. If a BE executive was to make the same suggestion in the boardroom they would be packing boxes in the warehouse by the end of the week.

Just my opinion of course. Perhaps you guys are right and what K2 need to do is give a load nmore money and product away to the teams, who in turn will turn the business around for them, because they care so much...

So as I said in tha first place, they need one team head-to-toe, gun, loader, goggle, jersey, tha works... And if Dynasty says no, they walk away wholesale and go to XSV.