Has Surefire slit it's own throat.

Patrick Hayes

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 15, 2003
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Charlotte NC
Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

I was wondering what other forum members thoughts on the new Surefire prices are. I can't help but think that Surefire has slit it's own throat. It has raised prices on almost all it's products at a time when it is about to face some of it's first real competion. (Pelican M6, Strategos) At the same time they have lowered the price on the G2. I feel this shows how inflated their other prices must be. The G2 has the same internals as many of their other lights 6p, d2 etc. Thus the cost diferrance is in the body and a few cents for the Lock out tail cap. Mag, Brinkman etc have shown that ALU bodied lights can be made at a reasonable cost. A even more telling example is the G2Z, their is no way that light is correctly priced at $75 dollars when the G2 is now at under $30. What are other peoples thoughts on this?
Patrick Hayes
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Don't mind paying more for a SureFire as they are quality lights...but I would like to see a reduction in the lamp prices!! Would make them a much more wallet friendly EDC!!!
yellowlaugh.gif


I concur that they do over price the lights though!!
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Where are the new prices? All I get is a blank screen when I go to their site.
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

I would always like lower prices. And I do agree that with the G2 dropping in price, there sure does seem to be too much difference between that and the G2Z. But as always, I think we each need to weigh the advantages and disadvantages to each light that is available. There are many people that buy PT lights because they are a good quality light at a good price. There are others that just won't do that and buy Surefire no matter what. To each his own.

I am really looking forward to seeing what Strategos comes up with!
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Economics 101 ....

Price is strictly a function of what the market will bear, not a factor of costs or worth.

If you build it, they will come.

There's a sucker born every minute.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Profit is the sole reason for the existance of a corporation.
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

The G2 is Surefire's "Loss Leader." Loss Leader is a retail term for an item that the company actually loses money on, per sale, in order to "capture" the buyer into a course of purchasing the more expensive items. I.E. a store will use a Loss Leader to attract customers into a store, and lure them to more expensive items.

--dan
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

I believe that the G2 price drop may be indicative of a move by Surefire to streamline its manufacturing process. Keep in mind that there is also an expected price drop in reflectored lamp assemblies (well at least the P60). With that much effort expended on the G2 I am not surprised that other lights have gone up in price. I don't think the G2 is a Loss Leader because the scale is not right (but what do I know
smile.gif
).

As Strategos and other manufacturers make available competitively priced alternatives I would say Surefire will be encouraged to revisit their price structure. I believe sometime in the next few months we may see some of their more mainstream lights (E2e and 6P) also drop in price. The fact that they consolidated their product line a bit is an indication that they are targetting a more focused approach to manufacturing and marketing.

Finally I'll mention that street prices may not change considerably on many of Surefire's lights.

Cheers.
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

I'd guess that surefire's civilian sales probably don't come even close to rival the product they move through LEO/Military contracts. Since right now they are by far the only one making serious mil spec weapon lights and mounts they are pretty well the only game in town there. That probably gives them some flexibility in their pricing.

I mean lets face it, if you can convince someone to spend $360 for a M6 flashlight, they will probably swallow $400 for the same light. At the prices surefire has charged for many lights they are already well past the "resonable" justification of the average person to spend on a light. They cater to a small demanding client base who demands a lot from their lights and will pay for it.

However that also means by raising their prices, and the recient issues they've had in quality control and customer service they have really left the door wide open for other companies to take shots at them.

Check out some of those Wolf Eye lights, I'm not saying they can compete performance wise with surefire because I haven't handled one and there have not been enough test reports from them. However if the quality is there, they are priced way under the surefire's similar offerings and in some cases the surefire's can't compete with their offerings (135 lumen main beam, 4 LED secondary beam, 80 minutes runtime, rechargeable, for less than $140). If they can come even close to surefire's quality and durability they have a huge price advantage. They could rocket to popularity very very fast. Same with Strategos, the new pelican light and some others. The door is open to take a shot at surefire, someone just has to step into the game with a serious offering lineup.

Just like any other product, surefire will always have it's die hard fans. There are and always will be people that surefire could package a empty box, charge $350 for it, and people would buy it, rave about it, and defend their empty box purchase to the last.

I don't think surefire is in any real danger, the only way I'd see them being in serious trouble if another company came in, with a full lineup of civilian and military offerings and mounts, of similar quality at a lower price point. If a company could start taking some of those contracts away from them, that would really hurt them. I don't see any other company doing that anytime soon. Just because it would take a couple years alone just to amass and test all the variety of products to compete with surefire's lineup.

However I love the fact some other companies are starting to step into the game. Competition is always good for the consumer. It lowers prices and increases quality and product options.
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

hmmm...maybe this is just a short term price range to produce an e1 sized light with a m3t output and as soon as r&d is recouped the price will normalize(word?)
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Originally posted by ToddM:
........................... Competition is always good for the consumer. It lowers prices and increases quality and product options.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I agree with the statement that with more competition, prices are typically lowered. As to increasing quality and product options, I think many cases can be made of current, price only, motivated competition actually reducing both quality and options. As an item becomes a "commodity" available only through the large chains, diversity and quality are trimmed away. I don't see this happening with specific and nich illumination tools but I would suspect that if a player came in and gave SF a strong run for their current market share, we would see both SF and this competitor trim their lines to the 20 that bring you the 80. Lean and mean for survival. What is left available to the consumer is likely at a better price than before but diversity as well as quality to some extent may be trimmed along with some of the fat. You can't have it both ways.

- Don

EDIT: Idle ramblings and half thought out opinion above.
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

I still bristle at the notion that the few LEO's and Spec Ops military forces are the dominant part of Surefire's customer base.

Most of the soldiers and cops I know bought SF's with their own money, since issued tools are usually much more "economical" products.

I would like to see some information on the number of agencies issuing the SFs and in what numbers, because I think the number of blank-check agencies, which I think we are describing as SF's core market, is quite small.
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Hmmmm....

Whenever the Harris County Toll Road Authority thinks use is too low, they raise price.

Whenever our lttle po dunk company wants to sell more, we lower price.

I guess Surefire ain't po dunk enough (and is much more like goverment!)

I desire an E2. But if I couldn't afford it at whatever price it was, I ain't gonna ever have one at higher price.

I guess my ARC, CMG, PT, UK and Pelican stuff will have to do as bright for cheap...
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

if we stick together and refuse to pay such rediculous prices they will come down. anybody remember the infamous A2 thread? whether or not it had anything to do with the price decrease who's to say, but it damn sure didn't hurt! sf lurks here, i guarantee it.

i keep my sf purchases to a minimum, i have an E2E, that's it. i have an A2 on the way which may or may not replace the E2E. if strategos releases a light to compete with whatever i'm carrying i'll switch just like that. sf is getting to big for their britches and snide.
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Originally posted by ToddM:
....Check out some of those Wolf Eye lights, I'm not saying they can compete performance wise with surefire because I haven't handled one and there have not been enough test reports from them. However if the quality is there, they are priced way under the surefire's similar offerings and in some cases the surefire's can't compete with their offerings (135 lumen main beam, 4 LED secondary beam, 80 minutes runtime, rechargeable, for less than $140). If they can come even close to surefire's quality and durability they have a huge price advantage. They could rocket to popularity very very fast. Same with Strategos, the new pelican light and some others. The door is open to take a shot at surefire, someone just has to step into the game with a serious offering lineup....
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Agreed, though unless WolfEyes develops a non-rechargeable line they probably couldn't challenge Surefire in the military/Special Forces area.

Brightnorm
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Originally posted by brightnorm:
...though unless WolfEyes develops a non-rechargeable line they probably couldn't challenge Surefire in the military/Special Forces area.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Wolf-Eyes sells versions of their lights for using primary CR123A batteries.
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Another take on this could be that SureFire is changing their company emphasis. By raising their prices they can get their dealers to sell more (at a good discount from MSRP). The dealers can take care of the consumer (i.e. deal with the public) and SureFire only has to provide customer support.

Another item is the military contract. That contract could be worth more than all of their retail sales combined. If it were my company in the current shrinking economy, I would concentrate on the high volume sales and make adjustments to the low volume sales.

Tom
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

I really hope that some of these new products that are coming out will be as good as or even close to Surefire's products. But until they are out and are proven products Surefire still has no equal. So I guess what I am saying is I don't think we can say Surefire is cutting there throat b/c they are raising there prices when there is more competition. We are baising this competition on claims not actual products.
smile.gif
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

Originally posted by James Van Artsdalen:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by brightnorm:
...though unless WolfEyes develops a non-rechargeable line they probably couldn't challenge Surefire in the military/Special Forces area.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Wolf-Eyes sells versions of their lights for using primary CR123A batteries.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Didn't know that James

Thanks,
BN
 
Re: Has Surefire slit it\'s own throat.

I have one Surefire, an E1, great little light but at 40$ from a dealer I was pushing the limit for a light with only 1 hour run time on expensive batteries. Like most others I have been looking at alternatives, my finance allocation deparment (my wife), is a little harder to convince that it is a necessity that I have a flashlight over $50.00.

I agree that we should still be able to get decent prices from dealers.

RevBNC
 
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