$$$ Money Lost $$$

I don’t know the behind the scene stuff with Humminbird at all. But I wonder how much money Humminbird lost out on by not having products in the stores for people to buy in the past few years? Seeing posts of stores that they got a few birds in and they sold out already or in a day. Have a lot of people switched from bird to Garmin and Lornace for that reason? I’m by no means bashing birds in any way as I’m sure a lot of it is out of their control. Was just wondering about people’s thoughts on this as the outdoor industry exploded, over the past few years.

When they had a record year of selling more units than ever before, it’s tough to be upset with lost opportunity. If they manufactured more and they didn’t sell, would have been much worse

Matthew Sandys wrote:

I don’t know the behind the scene stuff with Humminbird at all. But I wonder how much money Humminbird lost out on by not having products in the stores for people to buy in the past few years?

The problem is that any decision a company made/makes has a long string of both foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences.

I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Humminbird didn’t choose NOT to have products in the stores, the issue was likely a combination of chip shortages and other supply chain issues like labor availability at the assembly plant.

So while a business CAN choose to try to chase other sourcing avenues for parts and labor, the cost goes up and the quality becomes very difficult to control. Everyone I’ve talked to in manufacturing says it’s a damned if you do/damned if you don’t scenario. If you start chasing sourcing alternatives, you end up with issues that anger the customers and if you don’t, then you have angry customers because you’ve got no inventory or have poor quality.

Like I said, not bashing at all love bird, just wondering what happen, I’m sure chips and other stuff. I’m sure they did things to max profits with what they had.