Keeping Festool Prices Stable

[Ned]

I'd like to see the ability to change one's vote.

I think that offering that option is standard practice on FOG--as least I can't recall another poll where the option wasn't present.

Ned

 

[Fred West]

Woodentop, I agree with Ned. I understand your rational and like it as well but at this point it would be very interesting to see the difference. Maybe you could show us a before and after poll?? Fred

 

[The Woodentop]

A few more in favour of being able to change and we'll do it.

Larry

 

[stvrowe]

This has been an interesting read.  My current philosophy is to only purchase tools, machinery, or tooling when I need them.  Another driver in the equation is for tools that I have been contemplating, is it on sale or is the price about to increase substantially?  That might drive me to purchase sooner rather than later (I really hate the month of March).  Sometimes, this has led to a limited amount of 'poor' decisions on my part.  Because of this, I like the idea of loyalty points that can be used at any time.  As far as pricing goes, it is clear that Festool commands a premium.  Whether or not it is worth the premium depends on either its real or, perceived value to the purchaser. 

Regardless, the most expensive tool regardless of make or price is one that is either (1) un-used or, (2) incapable of performing the function it was intended to do.  None of the Festools I have fall into the second category.  Sadly, my ATF-55 currently falls pretty close to the 1st category.  It is not because it isn't a great saw but, I use a slider and since nearly all of my work is done in the shop, the ATF-55 usually sits in its Systainer.

Steve

 

[Forrest Anderson]

I have received a request from one of our esteemed posters to open up the voting so that people who have already voted on this topic can change their minds. Following the example of Matthew I am asking for opinions on this before I instigate any changes (move the goal posts).

For what it's worth, I would quite like to leave it the way it is as it shows a snap shot of people's first reactions. Against this, I admit that people who have voted later on may have been influenced by the foregoing argument.

Please let me have your views. It's your FOG.

I'd also like to see members being able to change their vote, partly because you added a 6th option "I would like loyalty points leading to discounts" 14 hours after voting started. Some of the people who only had five options to choose from, might well want to go for this new sixth option.

Forrest

 

[James Watriss]

I remember a few years ago, at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Greece, where the pillar holding the flame actually bent down, so the guy holding the torch could stick it in, and light the fire. I remember feeling really disappointed about that. I don't think Olympus should have to bow down to make the Human's life easier. I think the flame, the olympics, and greatness are all something to aspire to.

I feel the same way about Festool, though I don't think they're nearly as grandiose or inspiring as the Olympics.

With Festool, there's no BS. The price is the price is the price, and you know what the tool is worth... both in terms of what you have to pay to get it, and what the tool will be able to do for you. I'm so tired of seeing corporations, tool companies, and even the good ol US of A cheapen and demean themselves.

I got into woodworking to be inspired. I don't think I'm competing with the CNC guys because you know what? Soon everyone will have cookie cutter CNC crap. I build things the way the client wants them built. You can't go into stores, and say "I want a shelf that will be exactly like this, like that, and will just fit under here." You want custom built, you buy custom built, and you pay more, because there's a thinking human being doing a god job for you, building what you want, to a high standard, and in the end, the client gets what they pay for.

DeWalt used to be a reputable brand. Now they're less so. I even hear about models in the big home improvement stores being made with plastic gears and such, to meet the price point of the big discount store. It's ridiculous.

The housing market took a great big crap here in the states because of all the speculative buying, and building. Poorly made homes built with substandard materials and unskilled imported labor that had nothing going for them but the fact that they were new. No wonder the bubble burst. Someone figured out that the homes weren't worth anything.

The banks decided that it was more important to make loans to F@#$ing anyone. No credit, no money, no job, no future, no hope... NO PROBLEM! We'll make a loan that's cheap up front, that will screw you later, and we can all watch the global economy crumble as a result.

Wal Mart is cheap, but there's a high cost to pay for low prices. The little guy got screwed out of a decent job in a local economy while the manufacturing gets outsourced, and the money that represents his time and hard work gets exported to another economy.

Whatever happened to Hubris? To hard work, to seeing a difficult goal and realizing that it might cost a little more to get there? Life isn't always easy, and I don't think it should have to cut you a break. Up here, it snows in the wintertime. Sometimes the sun comes out. But if you want warmer climes, you have to move. And having lived in a few different areas of the country, I think it's safe to say that there's a certain lack of oomph when people aren't as worried about freezing to death.

I'm tired of the never-ending parade of people demanding that everything cost less, that it should be easy... and that it's ok if the end result is that this thing of value is demeaned in the process. I'm tired of people thinking that work is for stupid people, and that acting dumb is trendy.

A good tool should be deserving of a high price. Festool's employees and engineers have earned it. Their hard working middle men have earned it, too. I'd rather see a good dealer who knows his stuff make a tidy profit for knowing his product and doing a great job. Sure Festool is dropping the price over here, but they're also dropping the standard for salesmanship to crack the market open, to justify the lower prices. Hello Rockler.

At least Festool's prices are clear and honest. There's no BS, no sales, no sales pitch discounts to get the things off the shelves, and they're not doing silly crap like add lasers and levels to hand drills. It's a solid, good tool, at a solid, reliable price. No screwing around. I think that the tradespeople in here have made it clear that they understand this concept. The price is the price. And a quality, lasting tool will maintain it's usefulness and keep its value.

I think the idea of points is an interesting one, but I think I'd rather see it go to things like accessories, or to give us the option of buying something that not everyone else can get, or can't get yet. Redeem your box tops for a special accessory fence for the MFT, or interesting gizmos that make the Kapex even more versatile. I could see offering a discount on a sys port once you have enough systainers to actually need one, or on the overhead arm once you have the system up and running. Maybe like a bigger package deal, with the option to buy things within a given time window. If you buy the CTxx, and the MFT, MFS, and a saw, and a router, within a --- week or month period, we'll throw in the boom arm, because we think it's cool, and we know that you would otherwise just dangle a rope from the ceiling. Otherwise, for the riff-raff the buy-in on this piece of bent, painted conduit pipe that could be cranked out by a competent electrician will be $300.

 

[Michael Kellough]

DeWalt used to be a reputable brand. Now they're less so. I even hear about models in the big home improvement stores being made with plastic gears and such, to meet the price point of the big discount store. It's ridiculous.

There are John Deeres and there are John Deeres. Actually B&D peeled the Dewalt name off of the venerable line of radial arm saws because they had spoiled their own name by selling so much low cost stuff. The Black & Decker Professional line of tools could stand up to anyone's but to the buyer the most obvious difference between the cheap stuff and the good stuff was the price. If you bought the cheap stuff for all day work you were disappointed and decided B&D wasn't good. Buying Elu and changing the name of their good stuff to Dewalt was smart but they are approaching that slippery slope of decline again.

Festool is different, and based on Bob's report of the big meeting at the USA headquarters it sounds like they won't be making the kind of compromises the American companies have made.

Festool did (does?) have a point system in Europe.

 

[greg mann]

In past threads I have written about a circumstance with two retailers near me, a Rockler store and another brick and mortar store that caters to the professional tradesman. When I go into Rockler I always pass by the Festool display to see what they are stocking and how they present the product. The tools are all there, but zip-tied to the shelf such that they can be moved about two inches (50mm) at most. No one ever asks if I have any questions or need any help, ever, which is something they WILL do if I am looking at just about anything else.

In contrast, I asked the owner of the other store, less than two miles down the road, if he was going to keep a Kapex on hand for demos. The first words out of his mouth were, "Yes, would you like to borrow it?" You can guess which guy gets my business.

The point here is that I would never want a volume retailer like Rockler to be able to undercut the truly service oriented seller. If they were allowed to leave the tool glued to the shelf but drop the price the other guy would be doing all the sales work only to watch his potential customer walk out the door to take advantage of the discount down the street. What would Rockler have to do to realize their thinner margin? Cut the damn zip-tie. Fast forward to the point in time when the service oriented seller is no longer around. You not only lose his Festool expertise but you lose everything else he supports that is higher end.

Even this scenario had required a bit of soul searching on my part. My original ISA was Chris Smith (Accurate Systems). While I never required much from him in terms of service he was certainly good to work with and he called me on occasion to see if I needed any help or had any questions. In the end, I did something I almost never do and switched to the brick and mortar store. They had been my goto place for other products for years and had serviced many of the tools we used at my place of work. When they picked up the Festool line they committed to it in a big way. I was driving past the store to and from work every day, regularly stopped in for other products, and decided it just did not make sense to not buy Festool from them. I made the switch and Chris was really very understanding. (At the time, I thought I was pretty much done with major purchases, anyway.  : :). The point is, it wasn't about price or even bad service.

 

[Ned]

Good rant, James.  And I agree with you.

I'm confused by the word hubris.  You speak of pride in your work (a good thing), while hubris is the sin of excessive pride or arrogance, I think.

Ned

 

[nickao]

In past threads I have written about a circumstance with two retailers near me, a Rockler store and another brick and mortar store that caters to the professional tradesman. When I go into Rockler I always pass by the Festool display to see what they are stocking and how they present the product. The tools are all there, but zip-tied to the shelf such that they can be moved about two inches (50mm) at most. No one ever asks if I have any questions or need any help, ever, which is something they WILL do if I am looking at just about anything else.

In contrast, I asked the owner of the other store, less than two miles down the road, if he was going to keep a Kapex on hand for demos. The first words out of his mouth were, "Yes, would you like to borrow it?" You can guess which guy gets my business.

The point here is that I would never want a volume retailer like Rockler to be able to undercut the truly service oriented seller. If they were allowed to leave the tool glued to the shelf but drop the price the other guy would be doing all the sales work only to watch his potential customer walk out the door to take advantage of the discount down the street. What would Rockler have to do to realize their thinner margin? Cut the damn zip-tie. Fast forward to the point in time when the service oriented seller is no longer around. You not only lose his Festool expertise but you lose everything else he supports that is higher end.

Even this scenario had required a bit of soul searching on my part. My original ISA was Chris Smith (Accurate Systems). While I never required much from him in terms of service he was certainly good to work with and he called me on occasion to see if I needed any help or had any questions. In the end, I did something I almost never do and switched to the brick and mortar store. They had been my goto place for other products for years and had serviced many of the tools we used at my place of work. When they picked up the Festool line they committed to it in a big way. I was driving past the store to and from work every day, regularly stopped in for other products, and decided it just did not make sense to not buy Festool from them. I made the switch and Chris was really very understanding. (At the time, I thought I was pretty much done with major purchases, anyway.  : :). The point is, it wasn't about price or even bad service.

Greg, I had an experience at a Rockler. I brought in a piece of wood to run through their functional, on display, Performax drum sander. They would not do it for me! That really mad me mad as I have spent loads of money at Rockler and drove an hour to get there. Of course I called first and was told no problem on the phone.

I spent the 1500.00 somewhere else and have never ever considered purchasing a Festool from them.

Festool, keep letting anyone sell these tools and it will effect you down the line.

Nickao

 

[James Watriss]

You're right Ned, Hubris is defined by may cultures as a sin. The typical stories are ones that basically illustrate a man's reach exceeding his grasp. Always wanting, or reaching, for more. And inevitably there's a fall.

I think that there are some very good illustrations from the corporate world these days that demonstrate conclusively to many people that Hubris is a bad thing... executives pillaging the company, and whatnot. But I think that in those cases, it's more a question of greed, and a lack of scruples.

Blame it on my Nordic viking heritage. I think that excessive hubris is probably a bad thing. But pride, mixed with a bit of arrogance, is only bad when combined with bad judgment... which is only apparent after the fact, so who really knows. But as a species, we started out with rocks and fire. Now, we're reaching for the stars, making the world a smaller place, and continually trying to go further and do more. It's an existence punctuated by massive fires and failure... and staggering achievements. 

I think there's a certain amount of pride and arrogance that goes with our trade. I think to be a builder, especially a successful and innovative builder, you really have to be willing to reach for those goals that are sometimes out of reach, or just beyond your grasp. There's a trying moment, where some folks sack up, and have to work their ass off, and they sometimes pay a small price in money or time, but they  achieve the goal. And sometimes it is costly, to the point where the hero is unable to get back up again... which is where the stories come from.

But I've also talked to people who have done other things, climb mountains, start companies, go on an adventure... and even when they lose, and even after the final cost is tabulated, it's very clear that there's really no other way for them. There was no other place to be, and no other option that made sense. And they failed with the knowledge that they tried, and came close... in some cases, closer than anyone else to date. And along the way, they learned.

I've found that setting up a furniture business has been that way for me. It's been a costly affair. I started at the North Bennet Street School in Boston, while working at Rockler for a year, and for 2 years at Woodcraft. I spent a lot of time, and money, on school, and on tools. And last July I signed the lease, and started setting up shop. New equipment... good equipment. I probably spent a little more than I had to, but I knew that there was a point to which I had to just spend the money on the tools and supplies I needed, and count the cost when I had the time. Sometimes, that's the only path forward. To build a shop, you need the tools, and you need all of them. My accountant called me yesterday and said that it was really going to cost me, since the money was coming out of an investment fund (inherited part of a dead uncle's IRA.) and they hadn't been withholding. Tax season is painful.

I'm wrapping up my first commission now... a small one, for a couple of tables. I have a few small run projects in mind, and I'm putting together a portfolio of work to shop around and do what I can to shake out more work.

The whole thing has been fueled, in part, by hubris. I've had a bunch of other short lived careers, some of them very interesting. But I always have my own opinions, my own ideas, and a stubborn streak that always gets me in trouble when I think I have a better idea about how to run things. So it was high time to strike out on my own. I've had to learn to organize my work, to plan my projects, and I've had to learn a lot about these things from professional sources that deal with topics that I never had to worry about as a soldier, a technician, or a liberal arts college student. Supply issues, problems with vendors... it's a huge hassle. And there are times when I really wonder how the hell I'm going to pull this off. I've had to watch my pile of money contract. And there's no place I'd rather be, nothing I'd rather be doing.

There are times when I'm really hoping that this doesn't become another one of those cautionary tales. I think I'll be ok, I think I've made the right choices, or at least some of them have been right.

But then there are the other times when there's no way in hell that I'd rather be doing anything else. It's my ballgame, played by my rules, and set up the way I want it to be set up. And if I fail, it'll be on my terms, and knowing that if I lose, I'll go down swinging, and learning, and the next time will go a little better.

Pride goeth before the fall. This is true.

From failure, we learn. Success, not so much.

I think it's important sometimes to bite off more than you can chew, and reach for something higher. I don't see me/us as existing in competition with the CNC button pushers, the hack jobs, and the alcoholic handyman. I think that real builders are able to make the best use of every tool we have at our disposal. Sometimes that means subbing out a sign to some guy with a CNC machine and a functional index finger.

Are Festool purchases cheap or easy?

No.

Are they worthwhile investments?

Only if you step up to the plate and use them to do something good.

I know a lot of this sounds like a raving, egotistical rant. And to a point, it probably is. In person, I'm a pretty mellow guy, and I'm not prone to raving lunacy or outbursts. But I've worked for too many hack jobs and dumbed down professionals to care. I'm tired of settling. I'm tired of being told to settle down. I have to believe there's something better.

If nothing else, I have to believe, for myself, that I did something to ease my own frustrations and discontents. Someone else can settle for a cubicle and drudgery, and TPS reports, and subservient subsistence.

Back to the thread at hand... yes, these are expensive tools. They're also some of the best I've ever seen, and they're more capable than their competitors. The hand that reaches for such an instrument does not normally belong to someone who's that concerned about the money. They're concerned about the work, and reaching to do something better. They'll find a way to make it pay, so that they can continue to do something better than someone else. I'm not saying I don't feel the cost. But I do know where the cost goes.

Of course, there's the other category of person, too. People who bite off more than they can chew, without thought, and they fail without learning, blaming someone or something or anything else. They don't sack up, they don't reach up, and they don't aspire.

And they're not really my kind of people.

 

[Ned]

James--

This is one of the very best "introducing me" posts I've read, and we've got some good ones here.

I know a lot of this sounds like a raving, egotistical rant.

No, only to people who've been taught not to talk about themselves--and then it's kind of hard to describe yourself.

I'm not prone to raving lunacy or outbursts.

Sorry to hear that.  And I thought we had so much in common...

Ned

 

[greg mann]

James--

This is one of the very best "introducing me" posts I've read, and we've got some good ones here.
Ned

I agree wholeheartedly. Finding your passion in life has rewards of its own. As far as the money goes? You never have enough until you learn to quit worrying about it.

 

[The Woodentop]

We happily pay premium prices for our premium tools. Matthew happily 'runs' the premium FOG currently at no cost. It's time to pay him something for that so that we don't lose this valuable resource.

See my thread:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=3122.msg36253;topicseen#msg36253

And have a go in the poll?

Larry

 

[Fred West]

James, I truly could not agree with you more. The love of true workmanship whether it is in the tools you use, the work you make or the mind that concieves it all seems to be vanishing before us in a flood of Walmarts, McDonalds, Home Depots, etc. In addition we are and have been conditioned that to excel is bad. Look at our public schools, our corporations, etc. the kids/people that work hard and do well are chastised, denigrated and told to toe the line. This road of mediocrity is dangerous and very disgusting. Why do we want to be the same? Look at the best of us, admire them and strive to meet or exceed their accomplishments. Fred

 

[The Woodentop]

I wish I'd had these points in mind when I bought my wife her Renault Clio!

Talk about mediocrity? It's a bag of do-do! And the gearbox just broke 120 miles from home. Looks good but PLEASE don't buy one.

Something you could never say about a Festool.