What the heck is Canadian Tire doing now?

[Dukemeister]

Speaking of the firearms display in Perth
Does anyone know what a "Retay" is. Apparently made in Turkey.
I noticed this absolute monstrosity of a springer sitting in the cabinet and had to ask

Aye, there are 3 "major" Turkish airgun manufacturers: Hatsan, Retay, and Kral.
The latter 2 we don't see much of on this side of the world... they are popular in Europe and NZ, at least I have read alot about them on the various overseas forums.
I believe Sniper Dan had a Retay for sale a while back... probably a one-of.

[AirGunEric]

A little birdy told me a couple months back that a Canadian Tire buyer was calling up airgun manufacturers and asking "what have you got" in a rather vague and unfocused statement- leaving people with the impression "what the heck do these guys want?".

Looking at it now, perhaps this was one of those "throw sh!t at the wall and see what sticks" sort of things, and in this case, Retay sent them a line-card and was one of the few, or only, respondents to the question.

That being said, there was an independent "salesman" in the industry who has been playing about on the fringes of the airgun world for years and about a year ago he had a hard-on to sell things to Canadian Tire and really seemed to want to push Turkish PAL-rated products (not necessarily the two together, both were ideas he had and could have been mutually exclusive)- so perhaps he had some success with this- although I doubt a single PAL-rated model from a Turkish manufacturer with no sort of support in/for Canada is going to go very far at the end of the day.

[Bartman]

On the side of the 'salesrep', you have to understand the thinking. You can go to CTC's head office in the GTA and meet with one person and with over 800 stores, get a PO for a large number. Same thing with Home Hardware in St Jacobs. Over 1000 associate stores. If you get an order for one only per store, that is 1000 units. And, that is only based on one per store. They usually do way more. Or call on 1000 individuals at one each, or 500 at 2 each, or 250 at 4 each, etc. It is easier for a 'rep' to get one purchase order and deal with one person anymore than the good old fashion days of one on one. It is sad, but that is the thinking of many reps with the growing number of 'big box' stores. You can get a 'no name' item to be a 'household name' in no time. I still remember when WD-40 was introduced and the reps called on nothing but individual outlets and garages. That was the early '70s. And they had to demo the product to make you believe in it. Now look. Who doesn't have a can of that somewhere? Now, I don't even think they have any 'road reps'. The 'personable' side of doing business seems to be taking a back seat, and more communication is being done via email or heavens, even fax still, and less even on the telephone. That is why I still prefer to deal with the smaller guys, because the big guys just don't give a s**t. My $.02 worth.

Bartman

[SureShot]

When we were just kids we'd buy our first airgun at the local Cdn Tire, personally I remember buying a Crosman 38C.

I often find that if there's another firearm/airgun supplier in town the local Cdn Tire or Home Hardware don't carry anything.
And yes, their stuff is madly over priced. The Benjamin Trail All Weather sells for $399 at Cdn Tire, available from D&L for only $250.

[AirGunEric]

When we were just kids we'd buy our first airgun at the local Cdn Tire, personally I remember buying a Crosman 38C.

I often find that if there's another firearm/airgun supplier in town the local Cdn Tire or Home Hardware don't carry anything.
And yes, their stuff is madly over priced. The Benjamin Trail All Weather sells for $399 at Cdn Tire, available from ... for only $250.

Available where for $250? How about everywhere?

http://scopesandammo.com/storefront/...al495fps-p-360