Price hike !!

It's not enough that the current batch of Minelab Excals have quality control issues ,and it's not enough that having one fixed will have you waiting a few months , and it's not enough of an insult to raise the price of a Sovereign by $200 while all this is going on , BUT WAIT , THERE"S MORE !!!...... In mid Feb. Minelab is raising the price of the Excal another $100 street price ........ You can't make this stuff up !!!.......Jim

Unlike grocerys where they can shrink the package or put less volume in and sell it for the same price, you cant shrink a MD. It is a heafty increase. Inflation Get used to it!

This is EXACTLY the way the marketeers want Joe Public to think!

Trying to create a sense of urgency in slow month of January to get cash flow going



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2011 02:50AM by jamt225.

I think that Minelab's move to America has rubbed off on them in a negative way ......They are already acting like an American business ...... Maybe they are working for the government now !!......They're adopting the " Give the people less , and charge them more " mentality !!........ I almost feel like we the consumers are "BAILING OUT " Minelab for all the problems that they caused themselves !!!...... It's not our fault , but wa pay for it anyway .......Sound familiar !!....It 's the way of the times anymore ....... Maybe I should charge my customers another $100 on top of their bill , and say that I missed the first house call , but they're going to have to pay for it anyway !!....... Oh, sorry .....That's $109 !!!.....There's tax on that first house call that I never made !!........ Who would ever think that we would be living like this ? ......Jim

This is material from a earlier post of mine:

TerraDigger
If what you say is true, it does not suprise me. Codan, a large business concern now owns Minelab. So, true to form & modern business practices, they outsource Minelab to Malaysia for cheaper manufacturing & customer support.....and then raise prices..........lol.
I won't give a business lesson here, but Codan has gone down the wrong road. I think they have a overblown perception that Minelab is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that current poor manufacturing quality and customer service will be tolerated because of the Minelab name. Good luck Codan!!!!

Earthmansurfer replied:

Minelab has been around since only 1985 - That is pretty hard to believe considering the impact they have had. Codan bought them in 2008 and that year had revenue of 110 million Australian dollars. Then revenue went up to 132 and then again up to 169 Million Australian dollars last year! Talk about profit and increase. I think it's safe to say that by default they must have put some money back into research. I expect their next release to blow us out of the water. :-)

And then I posted this below inresponse to Earthmansurfer's post, because, who wants to read a boring corporate yearly financial report.....lol..except me.

TerraDigger
Are the revenues your stating for Codan's total revenue as a company or are these figures for Minelab only? Minelab is one of many subsidiaries of Codan.

I will answer my own question. I pulled up Codan's 2010 financial report. I was correct in my assessment. The bulk of Codan's business is from their non-metal detecting related businesses. On the metal detector side of Codan......the majority of Codan's metal detection profit or increases is not derived from the Minelab hobbyist division. It comes from their other metal locating endeavors (military landmine detection and industrial gold recovery) business interests. That's why I surmise they made the decision to outsource to Malaysia. My personal opinion....Minelab hobbyist units will (are) losing their stature with the Malaysia move.......plus their competitors detectors are nipping at their heels in the hobbyist market.

New thoughts for this post:
Also, if you read Codan's 2010 yearly report, they state that their large increase in 2010 metal detecting holdings was a one time event (military & industrial sales) and not likely to be repeated in the future.
Plus they have closed their European (Ireland) manufacturing operations.
Minelab is no longer doing as well in Europe (competitors building superior units geared to that market).....my opinion
So what does Codan do?....just raise prices of their hobbyist units worldwide. Instead of building more advanced units by investing more R&D money...and then a price hike......if justified by real technological improvements. Like I said prior...........typical short sighted year's end profit margins corporate stategies........and this strategy as it currently stands...... will turn around and bite Minelab on the a**.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2011 07:25AM by TerraDigger.

JMO, ML has been setting the price of mid to high end detectors for the past few years.
The other companies see what they are charging, come out with comparable products
and charge likewise prices.
I really don't understand the concept either because what can a company sell the most of
a high end price or a lower price on flagships with top performance?
For instance, how many more customers will buy a 600 dollar unit compared to a 1500?
Sure they can get a 600 one with lower performance and less features only to find out they
need more.
I bet all the brands, dists and dealers are making a big profit margin off the high end models at the expense of the
consumer.
Then again "what the market will bear".
I always wonder why they don't make a 500 to 600 with same performance as their 1200 to 1500
and that begs the question do they "dumb down" those mid-priced units on purpose?
That last question is rhetorical.
Of course none of this actually matters if everyone in the metal detecting hobby has
enough money to burn at the current or future prices.
Those low end detectors IMO aren't worth getting since they don't have the one most
important feature, ground balance...nor an all-metal mode.

Minelab are still floating on their success from early 90 s with the BBS Sovereign and partly misleading advertising.

17 and 28 frequencies, both having the exact same waveform and are very close cusins. And are they really recieving on 17 and 28 frequencies?, what would it take from processors in early 90 s and in 2000 to process that?

The explorer is known to be good in high minerals and salt and on silver but in any other ground just a normal detector without high end user control and not at all good on lower conductors. It does not have a treshold based all metal mode and not any control over groundbalance.

Im done with Minelab for several reasons. The american manufacturers like FT and Whites makes better detectors with more useful features and better control at a better price. Coils are better and almost always waterproof, quality and customerservice on american products is the best also.

Wow, what a change. I really thought Minelab was coming out with a new machine as they stopped advertising in many UK publications and it had been 3+ years since the E-trac was released, but now they are raising prices?

I don't think raising prices is the way to introduce a new unit. Looks like they are staying put then???

No chance do I get an E-Trac for European conditions when I can get a Deus that is lighter and faster and has about the same depth. This is why their Euro sales have fallen.

Now to the American Market. They seem to be the king of deep silver but units like the Omega and now the AT Pro are within an inch or two (depending on the soil) for half the price? Sales should fall further. The economy is still down - sales should fall further. They are raising prices substantially - sales should fall further.

This really makes no sense from a customer perspective. Seems like a "cutting off your nose to spite your face" scenario. Oh Minelab, what could have been (if they don't release a new light and faster E-trac.)

Bring on that new high end unit Fisher. The market is there for the taking...

The Deus is what I was thinking of when I referred to detectors customized for the European market



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2011 10:17AM by TerraDigger.

Interesting read !!.....It's all making sense now ...... There are MANY more people in the hobby that are willling to pay $500-600 for a good detector before they will pay $1500 for a detector ...... I don't think that it really matters if it's the BEST detector out there ...It still get's people out detecting , and it STILL allows for plenty of good finds, it's faster , and in some cases it's actually a BETTER detector .....For the older folks and younger folks , it's lighter , and easier to use !!..... It has enough to keep a LOT of people entertained ..... I already have an E Trac , and an Excal , but once my AT Pro comes back , and it doesn't false as much as the one I have now does , it will be my "go to " detector for all of the above reasons ....If you have read a few of my posts , you can see that I am more a man of principle .... My partner KNOWS that I'm crazy with some of the things that I do .....He was shaking his head when I bought the AT Pro .....Now he looks at this machine in a different light .... I bought the machine to be a fast , light , and accurate , machine to run down the beach and dig as many recent drops as I can early Monday morning and see how much gold I can pack into my pouch ..... It will do all that an more ...... I'm not playing anymore games with Minelab ....They started with the Sovereign , and now they are continuing with the Excal ......Sorry boys, there are some new players in town , and they have better customer service , and while you are raising the bar on prices , they are raising the bar on technology !!.... Get over yourself !!.....Jim

PS ...In Minelabs defense .....They ARE making my machines more valuable when they raise their prices !

It sucks that they are doing this, but like I have said... they are the only detectors that work well in my ground. Until another detecting company can produce a superior machine to the Explorer/E-trac, Minelab will remain in the top spot in my book. Fisher would need to produce a multifrequency, ground-tracking detector that does well in mineralized soil for me to jump to that brand. The noisy single frequency F75 LTD does not cut it for me in my ground, and the $1249 price tag is outrageous.

Mojave Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It sucks that they are doing this, but like I have
> said... they are the only detectors that work well
> in my ground. Until another detecting company can
> produce a superior machine to the Explorer/E-trac,
> Minelab will remain in the top spot in my book.
> Fisher would need to produce a multifrequency,
> ground-tracking detector that does well in
> mineralized soil for me to jump to that brand.
> The noisy single frequency F75 LTD does not cut it
> for me in my ground, and the $1249 price tag is
> outrageous.

In really bad ground like you have, you are correct.

But in clean ground, neutral or low minerals both Whites and FT already have superior machines to the Minelabs. They go as deep, they are more sensitiv to smaller low conductors as gold and nickels , they have better recoveryspeed and they handle iron better. They can also be perfectly groundbalanced to the soil or offset at your preference. And to top that they cost less, many of them half the price. Minelabs are fixed detectors for bad ground, when you search clean ground you search with bad ground settings.

Lets see what FT has next, it may be a detector that also can compete with the aussies even in bad ground.

Minelab is making mistake by going up on models that have been around. Would only and did make me buy a used model. It seems FTP gets around this by coming out with new models and can control price points with features and just fade out the others. They also have the pionts mentioned above. WTG FTP. Were just starting to see inflation come on. Any one who went through this in the Carter Administration knows whats come next. Gas prices are going to fuel it quicker than you can imagine. A least we have it to buy unlike back then with RATIONING. Somebody needs to stamp out OPEC! Sure is hurting my MDing travel. IMHO

Mojave Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It sucks that they are doing this, but like I have
> said... they are the only detectors that work well
> in my ground. Until another detecting company can
> produce a superior machine to the Explorer/E-trac,
> Minelab will remain in the top spot in my book.
> Fisher would need to produce a multifrequency,
> ground-tracking detector that does well in
> mineralized soil for me to jump to that brand.
> The noisy single frequency F75 LTD does not cut it
> for me in my ground, and the $1249 price tag is
> outrageous.


I loved my F75 but like you it just couldnt do it in my soil. If Fisher does make a multi freq machine that can handle it. I would be the first to jump on it.