If I were a musical instrument manufacturer (mercifully I am not,) the fact that Apple has deemed the timing of Macworld San Francisco to be disadvantageous to product introductions should be a clarion call.
In fact, a January product cycle times the latest and greatest to coincide with the period of maximum retail burnout; the consumer is simply overspent after the Christmas holidays. Even this year, when the consumer spent many percent less at Christmas, they still spent more than they had in previous months. So there is retail exhaustion; everybody wants to take a break, a breather, a brief lapse in consumerism. This lapse may be semi-permanent, but that's not the point. Whether a boom year or bust, mid- to late-January might just be the worst time to promulgate a new program or stimulate sales. It works against the survival of the retail dealer, who is the front line in the battle to put goods in the hands of the consumer. Why should a dealer load up on product when the consumer is napping? And if recession/depression is the talk of they day, the dealer has every reason to lighten up in this time frame.
In the past, these practices might have wreaked some collateral damage to the retailer's cash flow. This assumes that the retailer has put together a horde of cash over the holidays, and that there is some kind of kitty to be raided. While arguably true in the past, those days are over. The retailer is lucky if the rent is paid, the payroll is met, and the tax authorities are at bay. Be thankful for small favors!
In the past, these practices might have wreaked some collateral damage to the retailer's cash flow. This assumes that the retailer has put together a horde of cash over the holidays, and that there is some kind of kitty to be raided. While arguably true in the past, those days are over. The retailer is lucky if the rent is paid, the payroll is met, and the tax authorities are at bay. Be thankful for small favors!
In the not-so-recent past, manufacturers had a large body of independent dealers to push around. To the extent that they've cultivated large corporate clients at the expense of this base, they've become beholden to them. Simple logic dictates that to be beholden to a small group of mega-retailers may not be the best way to survive or make money. For one thing, your fate is no longer in your hands but theirs. You end up making what they want made, and figure out how to do it cheaply enough to turn a profit. Of course, giant retailers often don't pay for goods or buy anything unless its sold. The manufacturer has to guarantee a profit level and take back that which fails in the marketplace,as well as anything the retailers deems to be broken, whether broken or not. There's a name for this: consignment. That's how you get shelf space in our modern world. And you make stuff so cheap that you can afford to take half of it back as defective and still make a buck. I feel sorry for anyone who buys an instrument that has been made with this operative mindset.
This is a great exercise in money-making, and there are successful, proven models, but the whole exercise does nothing for your brands and will in fact destroy them. After all, whatever magic is emanated from your brand name is derived from the uniqueness and freshness of products that became industry standards, and that were game changers. To just turn out a bunch of product that meets price points? Consider that the beginning, if not the middle, of the end of your product line. Going, gone; sold to the highest bidder. Let's look at some marketplace failures, like Fender or Honda shoes. Turns out that the brand only stretches so far.
Apple, of course, does not have all these problems. For one thing, they have their own stores, and these are predicated on providing exactly the kind of service you'd want if you paid extra for a computer. None of that PC crudeness here; you can get everything you want (and need) at Steve Job's restaurant. So Apple has created their own bulwark against any product-image damage that any retailer could do to them. They are simply doing a better job of selling their product than any of their dealers, so none of them can come to Apple and make demands for exclusivity, higher profit, or anything else.
Thus all the more reason to respect their decision to withdraw from future Macworld Expos, which basically sounds a death knell for the show. The bad timing is one reason, and the fact that they have the equivalent of 100 Macworld Expos in their store every day is another. And even the merchants who attend the show should and must contemplate other venues and methods to promote their products. There are methods that are thousands of times more efficient to promote your product than a labor- and capital-intensive trade show.
This could foretell the end of all such trade shows, especially those scheduled after the holidays, but then again, maybe all such shows. Although they may fulfill the wishes of cash-hungry manufacturers for order input in a slow time, they are damaging to the very dealers who they need to survive and thrive. And they are woefully inefficient at reaching their targeted audience
If you have to hold a show, I would think July/August is about the right time to tap into the western retail orgy called Christmas. And better yet would be a strategy that reaches the audience with far less cost and much greater efficacy. See you online!
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