The underhanded shooting gear marketing pressures

[Wapiti]

Bit of a long winded explanation here, but here goes.
Believe it or don't, this was what I was told.

A few brave others and I (mainly me) have had a shot at the shooting sports marketing saturation that's been going on for ages in ALL of our print and online media. All sorts of cheap stuff made in other countries for a pittance, brought in here by greedy importers and sold at 2, 3, 4x that price it costs to buy in bulk from the huge manufacturing cities in China. Sold to still sit under the prices asked for quality European and US-made gear, even to squeeze them out of the market.
Thermals you need a degree to zero, things that last a year then mysteriously fail, optics that make your eyes point in two directions. Plastic sh*t that degrades even in the dark.
And there's still a fortune left over to throw at the magazines and to buy off the fake "reviewers" on YouTube by constantly giving them free stuff for positive comment, and every second article is about the same Chinese brands, and the pages are full of colourful ads as well.

Look at workboots...
Cheap Chinese boots, bought by Aussie brand names for $40 a pair and sold for the SAME price here as our endangered Aussie companies making boots and paying Aussie wages - Redback and Mongrel Aussie brands to name only a few left employing Australians and making the best boots ever.
Oliver, Blundstone, Steel Blue, Chinese-made stuff sold for $200/pair, and suckers buy them. Marketing.

So There's a gunshop in a local town that, for 5-6 weeks or so, has been asked to promote an "open night" for a certain importer flogging a certain Chinese made Thermal scope and monocular brand.
Not going to say who, or what the brand is. To protect the sites owner and me. Because this story is pathetic.
Again, I'm only putting here what I was told from the horses mouth.

So, this shop has been selling these brand thermals, mostly to farmers as this is mainly a farming demographic. The ones that sell are mostly the $1500-$2200 range, as the market here just doesn't have the disposable income. There are a few well-heeled people who make money using these scopes out this way, and mostly they are the only ones who buy the $4-5K stuff. However very little of those are sold.
This shop was convinced to buy one of these expensive units, but it sat there for a year and is still there.

Anyway, they have about 30 cockies from different farms confirmed firmly to be coming to this do, as well as the usual blow-ins that will come and the rep for the brand has advertised a 10% discount for any scopes or hand-helds sold and paid for that evening. Pretty crap discount I reckon, buy hey.
So the rep has pressured the store owners, a small family-owned gunshop, to buy another 4 of the $2k units, they are hoping to sell them on the night. They reckon they've sold these units already at about the rate of one every three months, so they do move.
They have bugger all cashflow, so this is a big purchase for them.

So, this week, the rep that's hosting the evening calls up and says, yes it's a 10% discount on units sold on the night, but it's not going to be given to the units you've already bought. It's only for ones he sells from the ones from his company car boot only.
Basically (my comment here), go suck eggs.
Oh, and by the way, my boss says you also need to buy one of these $4500 scopes to sit in your counter window, or the whole thing's off.
And they haven't been able to sell the one they've already got.

So there's already a crowd coming, at their risk! To call it off with 3 days notice and look like fools?
So what did they do? Tell the germ to go get f***ed and never sell their sh*t again?
No. The shop owner bought the $4.5k thermal, another one. Fell for the ultimatum.

What would you guys have done?
I would've told this clown to GAGF and never return.
Tell you what, I would hate to have a business selling this stuff nowadays. The seller is the one with all the risk. Screw the market up and you lose. And the suppliers look at you like an idiot.

Edit: again, this is what I was told, and I'm not the only one who knows. If someone knows this is BS, tell me and I will delete the post. I haven't named anyone, or any brand, except for workboots. And I will not be confirming any brand at all. Because I'm sure this is not a good look.

[Damo300]

I do not fold for anyone anymore.
Walk away.

If that were me, he'd never be in my store again. I'd sell the rubbish on the shelf at below cost, and forget his idiot even exists.