Yep. Economies of scale and all that. That's one of the main reasons companies expand over time.
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I can't believe the life of this thread! It was just a simple FYI. Anyway I agree with Hromberg on this one but I will pull one trick when I go to defenders sale. Instead of paying the extortionary sales tax in Connecticut I will simply buy the unit right there from my phone, online. For 5000 spent the tax would be 350, the sales tax free shipping expense will be 60! That's easy math and I can delay my gratification for a few days. Lol. A lot of different philosophies presented in this thread and its a beautiful thing that we live in a country where we (for now) have the ability to have these choices and opportunities. The founding fathers where truely great men.
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This is very true however no one beats the leader exclusively imitating the original business model. All successful upstart companies have a new and different angle that resonates with the buying public. Hatteras is a great example of this. Slane came along and built a better boat. But it was more than that. It was a different animal altogether. Henry ford....different than what anyone else was doing, google....different and far superior to what anyone else had. Wm doesn't have an eternal lock on the boating market. They will get knocked off eventually. What the challenger will offer I don't know but someone out there someplace is thinking about it right now. I am a small general contractor and I work in some pretty expensive places for some quite well heeled clients. I have competition that has far more guys, can get the job done much faster and maybe cheaper. But, what they can't deliver is the one on one interaction with the customer that I can. They can't offer the intense ability to produce exactly what the customer is dreaming of...on the micro scale. This is what sets me apart and has kept me busy all the time. I don't want to try to compete with those other companies head on because that is what is called the 'rat race'. I have some thing no one else has and that's money in the bank for me. So when that company has a better plan than west marine, then things will change.