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I don't follow ebay much but several of my friends live on it and they say you can get a pretty good indication of which rods are going to be discontinued by watching the prices and volume of certain rods being sold on ebay. I know a lot of people on the forum keep a close eye on ebay and wonder what your thoughts are on this concept.
If we're talking about authorized dealers, dumping product ahead of an official announcement. That would be a no-no with most of the big guys. But in this economy, I wouldn't bet against a few jumping the gun.
However sometimes shops decide to end relations with a given mfg or visa versa and often in that case, all bets are off.
I don't think any of this will come as news to anybody..
Won't confirm or refute the practices of other shop management. However, I would often spend my early morning coffee time perusing the fly fishing forums ( for many reasons ) where almost inevitably, somebody connected to a manufacturer, or a "well connected" shop owner or employee would jump the gun with the news of a line being discontinued.
Or they might come forward with an early announcement of a new product launch that would be an obvious replacement at a given price point and performance package. By themselves, those indicators aren't always worth acting on, but if the product line in question is getting long in the tooth. Then some market refreshment might be on the horizon, especially if the mfg. in question has a track record of roughly X number of years per product run.
Now I'm not saying that you should believe every rumor you read in these forums, but things do get posted by insiders that sometimes indicate an approaching change, well in advance of an official announcement.
Sometimes separating the bull from the bullion takes a trained eye, but the information is usually out there if you know where to look.
Best, Dave
From a U K perspective I do not see this happening, Have seen plenty of low end rods offered but you will always get that.
Have never seen any high end manufacturers flogging on E Bay well not in the UK at least. Individual sales for whatever reason will always be the case after that was what E Bay was originally intended for though now it is just one big market place for everybody & anybody. Still nothing is written in stone so you never know.
Tight Lines
DeepCreek,
Ebay by itself, then no.
As Dave noted, there can be lots of 'indicators' of discontinuation. Of them all, Ebay is probable the least reliable.
Most of the top end rod manufacturers try to control the price point their rods are sold at. Many fly shops are struggling. One way for a shop to get necesssary cash flow is to post a rod on Ebay and sell it for less than the manufactuer's required price. For this to be effective, the shop needs to do it with the rod(s) that are currently in the most demand. Usually that means the newest and best rods, not the ones that are up for discontinuation by the maker. This trend distorts the view if you only look at Ebay.
A more certain indicator is closeout or markdowns IN the shop or on a shops website. Since that's connected directly, they wouldn't do that with lines not being discontinued.
Good Luck!
Buddy