I think Stern are doing themselves a disfavour with their pricing and even at a talk by Gary about 2 years ago in Sydney he stated that Australia was 25% of their valued business. They better look at their prices and consider some changes if they want to maintain those sales.
I have worked for a few big factories and during those busy times when we started to run out of room and potential sales growth we had to relocate to new and bigger premises after much evaluation. We definitely did not increase our product prices to cover the move, we moved because there was potential sales growth not just because we wanted more room to spread crap around but to pump more sales. No point in more room with more potential with then a decline in sales due to large price increases. They should be putting the pinch on the contract work like the MMr's not on their base line of Pro's especially if they are becoming cheaper to manufacturer. I understand a small increase due to the dollar but there has been increases in a pro's over the last 4 years from $5500 to $7850 which is almost a 43% increase in 4 years.
I also reckon they are lifting prices as I believe when JJP first came out they had a higher price point and then the boutique and new manufacturers came in above Stern. Stern have watched lots of sales and probably thinking, shit we could be earning more, which they probably could be, but still reckon with higher prices means less sales. Gary has been banging on about getting pinball out there, if he stayed $2k under all the other competitors and they would do better. Also reckon it is a strategy to bump some other companies off producing pins.
I haven't bought a NIB stern so can't comment about the service AMD provide but they should be smarter and start importing other machines even just to help themselves.
For someone with a bit of cash, now is probably a good time to start bringing a container once or twice a year of NIB Sterns and other brands, then AMD may start to be a little more competitive or is Bruce on the wind down.
