Autococker Propaganda

[Daniel Morse]

My strong belief is that paintball stores use propaganda and false statements in order to get customers to buy Autocockers. The reason being is that Autococker customers are repeat and constant purchasers. They make the store more money than any other gun on the market. Although the initial purchase of a cocker may not be more than an Angel, EMag or other electro's, in the long run with all "modifications" and "upgrades" made to a Cocker, they cost way more than any other gun. Why would a store push you to buy a gun by AGD when after the purchase you do not need any other upgrades. The store does not make any more money off you. Especially now that Intelliframes come on the gun already you no longer need to buy it seperately. This cuts down on the amount of money a store will make off you. So ofcourse a store will push you to buy a Cocker because your spending is never done. Just remember that any upgrade to an AGD gun not made by AGD is in actuality a downgrade.
If you do happen to find a store that pushes any AGD marker they should be held in high regard because they are honest and not thinking only of the money you will spend with them, but more of your satisfaction. In NY the biggest store is Cousins Paintball. They just about hide any AGD marker in the corner. They might as well put a 'Please Don't Buy' sign on them. Meanwhile Cockers and all there "upgrades" are smack center in the middle of the store.
So to all Cocker owners, please keep buying all the "upgrades" you want, because you keep our stores in business.

[Miscue]

Thus is the goal of marketing.

[Daniel Morse]

You got that right

No doubt about it. I just want it to be known.

[rhetor22]

WHOA whoa whoa wait a minute!! did you say the intellifeeds come on the gun now?!?!!? When can i get one of them bad boys? and how much?! SWEET!

[FooTemps]

Originally posted by rhetor22
WHOA whoa whoa wait a minute!! did you say the intellifeeds come on the gun now?!?!!? When can i get one of them bad boys? and how much?! SWEET!

They come on rt pros...

[rhetor22]

awww... not enough money. Maybe i'll get an intellifeed for x-mas... Hmmmm... Intellifeed and a retrovalve would be awesome!

By the way, has anyone done any testing to see the feed rate of intellifeed? Since it doesn't have any delay it should be better than an "unintelligent" revvy, right?

[tooslow]

I can't speak for other dealers, but I sell cockers because people WANT cockers. What you don't mention is all the extra time that my sales and service staff have to spend on cocker customers, AT NO EXTRA COST TO THE CUSTOMER. Do you really think the couple of bucks that we make on upgrade parts also covers the extra time we spend with cocker customers? I think most paintball dealers (at least the shop owners) would rather sell the customer a Tippmann 98 than see the same customer over and over with the same problems. Contrary to what you may think, at the end of the year, cocker customers actually cost me more money than I get from them...

But again, I'm sure I don't speak for all dealers. I know Internet only stores will have a much different perspective. I try to move people into mags whenever I can, but I still sell more cockers than mags. Not because I want to, though. It's very hard to change people's minds... Just look at the sheer volume of hype on the web and in magazines about cockers... That's hard to compete with. So yeah, cockers are featured prominently in my displays.

[Mild 7]

I agree that most of the paintball sports I've been to carries more cockers than mags. I think demand and varieties have a lot to do with it.

Here's a interesting story that happened a few weeks ago. I was at this paintball store to get my nitro refilled then I saw this father & son walking into the store. The man was like around 50 years old and his boy was no more than 13. They came in with a fancy looking bag. Since the store was quiet, I couldn't help eardroping about their conversation. The father asked his son to take out the marker, and off the boy went. The boy reached into the bag and took out a Black Magic and a STO cocker. And I'm sure all of you knows that these guns are anything but cheap. The father told the store owner that they've been having lots of problem with the gun. The sad thing is, the bought the gun from this store and it was only 2 weeks old.

The store owner took the gun to the back and informed the father that it will take at least a week. In the mean time, the father glanced over to my RT, pointed and asked, WHAT'S THAT THING? I told him this is an automag RT. He looked at it with curiousity and told me what's this gun good for. I turned my air on and told him to squeeze the trigger. He took a few snap shots and also experienced the run-away mode on my gun (which isn't suppose to be there) and the looks on the father & son's face was just impressed. They were like, damn, this thing is faster than the cocker. Well, I said to them that cocker can be just as fast. But this gun is truly good for reliablility. Meanwhile, I noticed the store owner looked nervously at our conversation, as I noticed both father & son is actually questioning their purchase after trying out the RT.

I agree that the store carries mostly cockers, but I think its because the wide variety of cocker models. There were only 3 kind of mags on display, .68 Automag, RT Pro, & E Mag. The cocker may price around the same initially as a RT Pro...but after upgrades and an airsystem, I think it goes well over 1000. It was just funny to see the looks on the owner's face during our conversation.

PS: The father promised the boy an RT Pro for X-mas, I was the witness.

[AGD]

Great story Mild7! Yes it is true that stores make more money off accesories than guns so naturally Cockers make sense. Things are changing now with the economy and people are a little more hesitant to spend money on something that will cost more in the future. We will see which way the pendulum swings.

AGD

[MagDog68]

People buy hype...why do you think so many PT Cruisers have been sold? ewwwwwwwwww.....

~Fred