Originally posted by soggy_spinout:
quote:
I’m not so sure. My local guys tell me Glock is very difficult to work with and also inflexible.
Our regional rep shows up about one time a year, looks over our prices to see if we're in compliance with their MAP, asks a few questions about business, drops off some swag and promotional material for the counter and that's about the end of it from Glock proper. Since we're not a part of the Blue Label program I think that eases things quite a bit, plus since Glocks are typically ordered through distribution there's usually little contact with them directly unless we're ordering enough to warrant a direct drop ship from Smyrna, which is rare. Glock also runs incentive programs like most manufacturers (buy a bunch, get a reduced rate or maybe a freebie...that sort of thing), but again the interface is the distributor. With smaller volume dealers Glocks rarely deals directly.
SIG uses outsourced regional agents like most of the industry does these days. Our current 'rep' draws his paycheck from an outside firm, one that's not located in the PNW. Sometimes they can be annoyingly difficult to get a hold of, though the company that now does the local representation for SIG is far better than the last one was, who was very much locally owned. I found out that the rep who for them wasn't even a 'gun guy', and was more interested handling in his fishing gear accounts than anything having to do with guns and hunting. And he was a total POS on top of that.
EDIT: oh BTW, it appears that I should complain more in posts; some sort of voodoo happened that hasn't happened in well over a year. This past weekend we wound up selling a bunch of 320s that had just been lying around doing nothing, without any aid of a promo to boot. The RX models still aren't moving but the 320s with the X-modules did well these past couple of days, one X-5 and several X-Carrys. Even sold a couple of 320Cs. Maybe being a whiny bitch should be a thing...