12-25-2020, 10:33 PM
Wow, 30 comments and if I try real hard I see one that kind of back-handed is positive. At least locally, this may be the biggest blunder in the world of business relations.
As an employee of SW, I can tell you we are almost to a person concerned. We have not officially been told anymore than you guys know. Unofficially, I was told that nothing would change for now. I wonder if Cabelas or Ranger Bass Boats was told that too?
As for increasing SW shelf supplies, many of my customers tell me the Riverdale store was better than Cabelas, and we stunk....but, that is do to available supplies world wide, not to anything Cabelas or SW or ..... could have done. Our buyers could not buy what is not available, and when we get it in it flies out the doors so fast this year we hardly even need to remove it from the carts to the shelves before it is sold.
The small shops that I have visited either have high prices, which keeps sales down and supplies up, or are as empty as SW, or even more so. Go figure.
I am telling my employees that we should wait and see, do our best job to help people, make sure we keep stock out of the back rooms and on the shelves for customers. After all, there are differences between this "merger" and other buy-outs made by the same shell company. It is thought that Cabelas was near bankruptcy when they were purchased, and that Forest L. Woods, owner of Ranger Bass Boats, had no willing error and just needed to get out due to age. SW is in good financial shape right now and has been buying stores out ourselves around the country.
My Son is a "bean counter" and has told me many times that publicly traded companies, like SW, are subject to take-overs anytime someone with lots of money offers to make existing stockholders a lot of quick money. It is the bird in the hand verses two in the tree syndrome. Do you keep the plump bird (fast profit) or release it in favor of potentially twice the plump birds (future profits). Our stock market jumps one day and falls the next day due to that very real and common question. The more doubt one has about the future, the more likely you are to take the quick profit, and with COVID-19, the Election Results, the division in the country right now, I can understand the concerns about the future of business, even the business SW is in.
Personally, I chose to try to consider this a positive Merger. Perhaps, like Walmart, if we are big enough we can demand more influence in obtaining product on the world market. If I am wrong, well it will not be the first, nor the last time, that I have made a mistake. If I am right, we could be staged to have a more stable supply chain.
I work for SW, but have not always done so, and have shopped at BPS stores in other states, and have shopped at Cabelas in other States as well as Utah. I have shopped at SW for many years as well. All of these stores have had specific things that have made them stand out, and things I personally would have changed. I can, and do, hope that this time it will allow the strengths of all of the organizations to come forward and the weaknesses to be overcome.
Let's hope, even if hope seems improbable, that this "merger" will be a better thing in the future. As for other concerns, regulators have not given final approval to my knowledge, and I believe Stockholders must sill vote on this. It is likely to be a done deal, but it is not a sure deal at this time.
Now, ask me in 6 months if I was a fool, or a genius. Both are possible, and only time will tell.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a better year next year.
As an employee of SW, I can tell you we are almost to a person concerned. We have not officially been told anymore than you guys know. Unofficially, I was told that nothing would change for now. I wonder if Cabelas or Ranger Bass Boats was told that too?
As for increasing SW shelf supplies, many of my customers tell me the Riverdale store was better than Cabelas, and we stunk....but, that is do to available supplies world wide, not to anything Cabelas or SW or ..... could have done. Our buyers could not buy what is not available, and when we get it in it flies out the doors so fast this year we hardly even need to remove it from the carts to the shelves before it is sold.
The small shops that I have visited either have high prices, which keeps sales down and supplies up, or are as empty as SW, or even more so. Go figure.
I am telling my employees that we should wait and see, do our best job to help people, make sure we keep stock out of the back rooms and on the shelves for customers. After all, there are differences between this "merger" and other buy-outs made by the same shell company. It is thought that Cabelas was near bankruptcy when they were purchased, and that Forest L. Woods, owner of Ranger Bass Boats, had no willing error and just needed to get out due to age. SW is in good financial shape right now and has been buying stores out ourselves around the country.
My Son is a "bean counter" and has told me many times that publicly traded companies, like SW, are subject to take-overs anytime someone with lots of money offers to make existing stockholders a lot of quick money. It is the bird in the hand verses two in the tree syndrome. Do you keep the plump bird (fast profit) or release it in favor of potentially twice the plump birds (future profits). Our stock market jumps one day and falls the next day due to that very real and common question. The more doubt one has about the future, the more likely you are to take the quick profit, and with COVID-19, the Election Results, the division in the country right now, I can understand the concerns about the future of business, even the business SW is in.
Personally, I chose to try to consider this a positive Merger. Perhaps, like Walmart, if we are big enough we can demand more influence in obtaining product on the world market. If I am wrong, well it will not be the first, nor the last time, that I have made a mistake. If I am right, we could be staged to have a more stable supply chain.
I work for SW, but have not always done so, and have shopped at BPS stores in other states, and have shopped at Cabelas in other States as well as Utah. I have shopped at SW for many years as well. All of these stores have had specific things that have made them stand out, and things I personally would have changed. I can, and do, hope that this time it will allow the strengths of all of the organizations to come forward and the weaknesses to be overcome.
Let's hope, even if hope seems improbable, that this "merger" will be a better thing in the future. As for other concerns, regulators have not given final approval to my knowledge, and I believe Stockholders must sill vote on this. It is likely to be a done deal, but it is not a sure deal at this time.
Now, ask me in 6 months if I was a fool, or a genius. Both are possible, and only time will tell.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a better year next year.