Browning vs Beretta

I believe the problem with FAIR is that the firm has not been given a proper chance to establish it's roots in Canada.

Why?

Look at the situation:

The importer appears to be obsessed with selling purple and other weird potatoes.

Essentially, the BPI and Euro shotgun sales are run out of the back of a friggin barn.

I know us Albertans are sort of trustworthy to our neighbors but Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware).

Who is actually to blame for the success of this potato farm? Me included.

And yes Jimmy, you do get what you pay for. That includes Dodge Trucks.

FA
 
FAIR has struggled to find a niche with importers in the US, not just a Canadian gun show vendor.
The Canadian market is minuscule. Browning and Beretta are well established. Try to find a Caesar Guerini in Canada lately.
 
saskbooknut said:
FAIR has struggled to find a niche with importers in the US, not just a Canadian gun show vendor.
The Canadian market is minuscule. Browning and Beretta are well established. Try to find a Caesar Guerini in Canada lately.
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Yes the Canadian market is small, but when people avoid the brand because they don't want to deal with the distributor, it remains even smaller.
 
saskbooknut said:
FAIR has struggled to find a niche with importers in the US, not just a Canadian gun show vendor.
The Canadian market is minuscule. Browning and Beretta are well established. Try to find a Caesar Guerini in Canada lately.
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What does FAIR offer that others don't?

I just realized FAIR is Rizzini.
 
Rob! said:
I wonder if that distributor has an exclusive - or if others are just avoiding the controversy.
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Perhaps with FAIR, but Prophet River sells Grulla, and I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't buy their Grulla from Prophet River. Prophet River also sells Rizzini, which competes with FAIR.
 
Actually FAIR has always pretty much aimed at an entry level price point, B. Rizzini a rung higher, and Grulla is a rich man's option.
 
stubblejumper said:
Perhaps with FAIR, but Prophet River sells Grulla, and I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't buy their Grulla from Prophet River. Prophet River also sells Rizzini, which competes with FAIR.
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FAIR was trying to find a place under the price of Rizzini and well under the price of the Grulla. They were more a value offering although our Canadian importer may have missed that memo. In the USA they price much more reasonably than from our importer even considering the dollar.

Sorry, already stated. I type with all thumbs.
 
An under-capitalized importer will always struggle and sometimes fail to meet consumer expectations.
Small importers have had short lives and inglorious careers in the US too.
 
MK2750 said:
They were more a value offering although our Canadian importer may have missed that memo. In the USA they price much more reasonably than from our importer even considering the dollar.
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You are assuming the Canadian importer gets them at the same price as the US.
 
saskbooknut said:
An under-capitalized importer will always struggle and sometimes fail to meet consumer expectations.
Small importers have had short lives and inglorious careers in the US too.
Click to expand...

The Canadian inventory is an absolute joke and the customer service is non existent. He lists a Vintage, 3 Prestige model Iside, 4 Prestige O/U, a Sporting and a Goose model. The entry level Standard or first tier EM would sell like hot cakes IMO, especially if they were priced fairly in the low to mid teens. I had to have an Iside when they first came out and in spite of still having a foul taste from my first encounter, I sent our distributor several emails and left a couple of messages. He still hasn't returned a message. Fortunately I found one used but it still bothers me that at one time he did have his greasy paws on it.
 
mebiuspower said:
You are assuming the Canadian importer gets them at the same price as the US.
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The Rizzini in the USA are three times + the price of the FAIR and the Rizzini offers much higher grades. They are much closer here but you may be right about what our distributor pays. One could bring in FAIR from the USA, pay $1000 shipping/import and still be cheaper than here.
 
Just to be fair, no pun, currency alone bumps up $Can price by 1/3, to say nothing of higher cost of doing business in Canada.
 
Something a lot of people don't realize is that FAIR is not new on the market. They were formed in 1971 and imported to the US by New England Firearms until the late nineties and sold under a number of different names such as Savage, Cortona and Verona among others. They earned a good reputation before they started selling under the FAIR name and I remember shooting Verona rental guns at the old Oasis sporting club in Mesquite, they had a whole locker full and were very happy with them.
I've read that they're now the second largest shotgun make in Italy next to Beretta so it really is a shame that they aren't being marketed properly here.
 
And both Cortona and Verona guns were sold off at a fraction of their original pricing when their importers failed.
The first incarnation of a FAIR importer in the US failed and many guns were sold off, some to the Canadian importer mentioned before.
FAIR has had a very rough time in the N. American marketplace.
 
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