Do you know these points to be facts, or are these simply your
opinions of likely reasons?

Most of your points make a lot of sense and I could understand why
Jepp wouldn't want to deal with the hassle of retail sales, especially
since mail order and on-line sales work so easily.

Is GA liabiliy really an issue? I would imagine that most GA pilots
who use Jepp products do not buy them retail.

By the way, I've found Jepp to be very flexible and helpful. I've had
them replace charts and plates free of charge even when their getting
"lost in the mail" was my fault.



"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
"John Harper" wrote in message
news:1086932410.221952@sj-nntpcache-5...
I went to get my new IFR charts today and my local pilot shop told me they
will no longer be carrying Jepp products. I know that some places have
already stopped, but at PAO/RHV they thought up until a few days ago that
they would be able to carry on.

Seems someone at Jepp has had the brilliant idea to stop retail sales of
their chart products to force people to subscribe. I don't like being
blackmailed at any time, and the NOS charts are fine - I prefer Jepp but
not
THAT much - so that's the end of Jepp as far as I'm concerned.

Some quick math suggests that Jepp have just kissed goodbye to $10-20M of
business/year. What are they thinking?

They were thinking that the business they would lose by doing this would be
far less than the cost of buying back all those unused retail kits every
month, a condition demanded by more and more retailers. They were thinking
that they could reduce an enormous GA liability problem, seeing that
airplanes piloted by professional pilots have a much better safety record
than airplanes piloted by, well, unprofessional pilots. They were thinking
that most pilot shops refused to carry their products anyway. They were
thinking that their electronic chart business is expanding at the expense of
their paper chart business. They were thinking that by making people
subscribe they are reducing the chance of an accident caused by cheapskates
who don't keep their charts current. They were thinking that they could
actually reduce overall distribution costs. They were thinking that they
could cut out the middleman in an already low margin business.