By Bob Hart – www.AvionixHelp.com

Whether shopping for a stereo system for your car or a GPS or nav-com for your airplane, most everyone wants a “deal.” Unlike the General Aviation industry, shopping for a car stereo means finding the closest mega electronics store or going online and finding the best deal for you. You can buy these electronics over-the-counter or online and even have your brother-in-law do the install. By and large, automobile electronics retailers are free to advertise their car stereos at whatever price they wish. Sales, shipping, and installation are generally without restriction.

Avionics shopping, on the other hand, is different in many ways. Sales of the newest and greatest products from the best avionics manufacturers are frequently restricted and instal­lation by an authorized factory dealer is required. Garmin, as you can expect, has a policy like this and you’ll find a similar policy at Avidyne, Aspen, PS Engineering, STEC/Cobham, L3, and so on. This severely limits your options for purchasing top-end avionics products online or, in this case, at a show.

Avionics Manufacturers’ “No Ship/Install Only” Policies

While some avionics manufacturers don’t restrict the over-the-counter sale of their products, the best ones do. I tried to find the specifics of Garmin’s Dealer Policy so I could quote it accurately, but I found it to be elusive. However, as a Garmin dealer for 16 years, I understand the gist of it. Garmin desig­nates some of their current products as “over-the-counter.” This, of course, includes the portables and, sometimes, a few panel-mount units they consider “VFR” or prone to the do-it-yourself­er (with legal support).

This policy applies to certified aircraft only. Homebuilders can purchase most Garmin products over-the-counter, but Gar­min requires these units be pre-wired by the dealer before ship­ment. You pay the additional charge for the harness. All other Garmin products are restricted to dealer installation only. In short, ignore this policy and the dealer risks their dealership and you risk your warranty.

Manufacturers do this for two reasons:

• First, to “protect” their dealer network, especially from the bigger avionics retailers who, if allowed to ship with­out restriction, would have a very negative effect on the smaller dealers.
• Second, manufacturers want to maintain some handle on the quality of installations and minimize installation problems and warranty claims.

 

Pilots, especially those on a budget, don’t like these policies and would love to be able to buy a nav-com or GPS for their airplane just like they buy a car stereo. Sure, you can dig deep and possibly find a dealer who might take the risk and ship a restricted item to you. My advice, DON’T!

You can do your avionics shopping “homework” online but know that even the pricing you see from the many avionics websites are controlled by the manufacturer. Most avionics manufacturers have a minimum advertised price (MAP) poli­cy, which is why you see the same price on the same product on many websites. Dealers cannot advertise a lower price than the MAP without risk of retaliation by the manufacturer. MAP has been a common policy in the avionics industry for many years. Some manufacturers, like Garmin (with others catching on), now also have a minimum resale price (MRP) policy. MRP dictates the minimum price dealers must charge for over-the-counter items—like portable GPSs. Many headset manufactur­ers are now using MRP as well. This policy resulted from big dealers undercutting other dealers at shows. Today, when you go to a show like Oshkosh or Sun ’n Fun, you’ll likely pay the same price as everyone else for over-the-counter avionics from the bigger manufacturers.

This is not to say you won’t find “deals” on avionics at the big aviation shows, but the reality is that pricing is usually driven by the manufacturers and not so much by the individual ven­dors. Now, follow me as I point out the pros and cons of avionics shopping at shows.

Shopping the Shows

First, let’s take a look at the retail avionics industry. You’ll find there are really two types of avionics retailers: the small, “mom & pop” dealers and the large, high-volume dealers.

“Mom and Pop” avionics dealers probably represent the largest percentage of dealers. They are primarily a direct retailer serving their local market and focus on installations, repairs and certifications. They have all the important product lines, but their market is mostly local. The smaller avionics shop may have a website, primarily as an information source, but they don’t maintain a significant inventory of used equipment (where no shipping restrictions apply) nor are they typically geared up for internet sales or shipping to end-users.

Big, high-volume avionics dealers serve their local market too, but they also maintain a significant presence on the internet and are geared up to do significant volumes of business in used equipment, portables and, for some, pilot supplies. Plus, they have a significant installation business; and, because of their marketing, pilots frequently travel greater distances to have in­stallations done by these dealers. For example, Eastern Avionics, where I was sales manager, drew installation customers from as far away as New York but more realistically their market was the southeast U.S. If you search the internet, you’ll typically find these dealers.

Who’s represented at the shows?

Here’s a simple question: Which one of these avionics re­tailers do you generally see marketing themselves at shows like Sun ’n Fun, AirVenture, and the like? The answer, of course, is the big dealers. Fact is, the little shops compete against other local shops in their area and yes, they also to try to compete against the big guys. The big shops primarily end up competing against the other big guys and they price their equipment and installations accordingly. I was senior sales consultant at Eastern Avionics from 1997 to 2013 and sales manager from 1999 to 2003. It cost Eastern Avionics $20,000 (in 2003) to transport our equipment from Florida to market at Oshkosh, then feed, house, and otherwise “mo­tivate” the crew! These are limiting factors for an avionics shop, which is why few small shops are represented at the big shows.

Eastern Avionics was the first avionics company on the world wide web in 1995 and was one of the first big avionics retailers in the country. As a result, I worked 12 Oshkosh’s and 13 Sun ’n Fun’s during that time. We did well at the shows back then but the selling environment at shows with MAP and MRP policies has removed some of the pricing ad­vantages previously held by the bigger avionics retailers.

So, where are the deals?

With a few exceptions, as I mentioned earlier, the show specials everyone looks for are generally created by the man­ufacturers and are primarily on over-the-counter products. Here are some examples:

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