Hi everyone!
I spent a good deal of time since Friday on the phone to various people distributing kit in the US and wanted to speak directly to people such as Roger Yazbeck of Picasso America.
Firstly, here is a portion of the message Cliff is refering to:
Quote:
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For the past days we've been holding meetings and conferences in order to deal with the situation and very shortly, we'll be coming up with a formula that will eliminate the problem in North America as well as internationally.
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I was made aware of this from one of the major US distributors on Friday and it seems that it is very real. Several of the US Freediving (and Scuba) Distributors have been holding urgent meetings to try and put pressure on their European Manufacturers to stop supplying DiveInn. It seems though, that whilst we have acted as a catalyst to this process, many of this Distributors already were wondering what to do about DiveInn.
I am in talks with DiveInn to make sure supplies are protected, but this is now at a level much higher than we at DB can control. The US market is very large and the Manufacturers are smart so know that if they lose sales in the US, they will gain them locally via the DB Shop or DiveInn directly. However, because the US market is so large (we're not just talking Freediving kit now) the distributors may be able to exert a large enough amount of pressure to see brands being removed from DiveInn's stock. This is a direct result of US Distributors trying to protect their business as well as not truly understanding how globalisation works.
This whole argument went round the book industry when Amazon.com launched. Bookstores worried that they would be driven out of business by Amazon.com but in reality is turned out there is enough space in marketplace for everyone - in fact Amazon.com helped drive book sales up.
The next month or so will be critical as it will show whether the US Distributors have been able to exert enough pressure on the European Manufacturers to cause us, and more specifically the Freediving Consumers, problems. We will keep you abreast of what goes on.
