Rules of demand under price increase may not apply to SF if their main chunk of income comes from government sales and not from the average Joe consumer; especially when our military is fighting two fronts, I'm sure the DOD won't even feel the pinch. (just my opinion)
I thought for some time that Surefire brought most of their income in from military sales, and that civilian sales and marketing were more brand awareness efforts. More recently, I've noticed them branch out into more traditional retailers like Lowes and REI, where such price increases should result in more obvious demand elasticity (I think).
Does anyone have any ideas as to what percentage Surefire sells to gov't vs. Joe Consumer?
My father has owned and operated a small machine shop for the past 35 years, specializing in oil field and hydraulic small parts, much of which is aluminum. I showed him a 6P a few years ago and asked him how much he could machine one for. I was shocked at the actual pricing he came up with when dealing in large batches (of course he couldn't price the lense or lamp module).
Of course prices are going up for barstock, cutting tools, lubricants, etc... But if these rumored price increases come to fruition, I suspect they will be driven by increases in the soft costs. Advertising, warranty costs, insurance, regulatory costs, legal costs, etc, etc, etc. There is so much extra cost being layered into american businesses that it's surprising that we can compete at all. The only way my father has stayed in business has been to stay small and flexible, and located convenient to the businesses buying his product.
Of course, I've never opened Surefire's books and done a case study on their finances, so I could be completely wrong.
:twothumbs
