On the matter of these large high profile retail chains and groups.......they have no interest in a reduction the the retail price of tackle.
The higher the retail price, the higher their cut on the sale of those items.
And you can bet your last pilchard that they will be getting a pretty good deal from the distributers....so their normal price will hold much higher margin than it would for a smaller concern.
Remember all the large retailers ( in whatever industry sector) are high margin operations, they very rarely sacrifice margin.
They are not in the business of discounting, regardless of what their advertising might say.
Any large high margin retailer, if there is a cheap item...they will not be sacrificing margin to make the sale...that item will be suppiled to them at a price that allows them to sell at that price and maintain full retail margin.
Remember......walk into any of the large retail tackle stores......the vast majority, of what any one of them sells will come from no more than 3 suppliers......and both sides of the wholesale transaction know it, and both sides are very keen to keep the deal sweeet.
Discounting...ahh well, that is the last thing any high marging retailer or distributer wants, so they will do anything they can to prevent it.
as a small shop, if you get into a bidding/price war, with any of these large concerns you will get squashed like a bug......they will make a point of it.......they mostly have price matching polocies, but price matched sales will be an insignificant portion of overall sales.......they know that and make sure of it.
If a big retailer has difficulty with a small up start under cutting them.....the distributer will back the large concern against the smaller party that also buys off them.
And it does not have to be too many sales before the big retailer starts bleating in the ear of the reps over being undercut.
Now think about this price match thing.
Advertised price match polocies may have a role in improving sales......but it is also deliberately done so large retailers know when they are being under cut and by whom
SO
If you do get a much better price on something from a small independent......serioulsy think if pushing for a price match from a major chain is a clever thing.........by getting the price match from a major player, you are denying the minor player a sale AND you are giving the major player the information they need to run the discounter out of business.
Some of the prices may go down in the short term, but once the competition is removed they will go up because there is no competition.
Look what has happened with bunnings.....we used to have 4 thriving retail hardwares close by, all providing a different overlapping ranges of stuff at competitive prices.
Now we have 1 bunnings, who do not stock certan brands, do not stock certain items and all those other things people complain about.
serioulsy tink about it.
cheers