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#1
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Jepp no longer in the GA business...?
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? John |
#2
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"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. |
#3
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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. How do you know all this inside thinking by the folks at Jeppesen? |
#4
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wrote in message ... How do you know all this inside thinking by the folks at Jeppesen? I don't, of course. But that does not mean that I can't make an educated guess as to what is going on. I will bet that my points are pretty close to what Jeppesen was thinking -- far closer than the assumed "what were they thinking" random business decision.... |
#5
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Just because companies have thought about things doesn't
mean they got it right (and I really DO know from experience!). My local pilot shop was selling 200 packs of CA charts per month at $35 (or so) each. There were never any left at the end of the month so I guess that wasn't an issue. How many of those people will buy a subscription? Not many is my guess, they'll just buy NOS instead. Across the whole country that looks like significant revenue to me. So I still think this was a dumb decision, even given your list of possible reasons why they may have made it. John "C J Campbell" wrote in message ... wrote in message ... How do you know all this inside thinking by the folks at Jeppesen? I don't, of course. But that does not mean that I can't make an educated guess as to what is going on. I will bet that my points are pretty close to what Jeppesen was thinking -- far closer than the assumed "what were they thinking" random business decision.... |
#6
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"John Harper" wrote in
news:1086982699.64889@sj-nntpcache-3: Just because companies have thought about things doesn't mean they got it right (and I really DO know from experience!). My local pilot shop was selling 200 packs of CA charts per month at $35 (or so) each. There were never any left at the end of the month so I guess that wasn't an issue. How many of those people will buy a subscription? Not many is my guess, they'll just buy NOS instead. Across the whole country that looks like significant revenue to me. So I still think this was a dumb decision, even given your list of possible reasons why they may have made it. John "C J Campbell" wrote in message ... wrote in message ... How do you know all this inside thinking by the folks at Jeppesen? I don't, of course. But that does not mean that I can't make an educated guess as to what is going on. I will bet that my points are pretty close to what Jeppesen was thinking -- far closer than the assumed "what were they thinking" random business decision.... My local pilot shop told me yesterday that Jeppesen is going to start supplying the Airway Express packs again. There has been a big increase in subscription prices. I just got my renewal form from Jeppesen and the increase is over 25%. Prior to this year, the highest annual increase was 6% and most years it was between 3 to 5%. Jeppesen has cheapened the Airway Express subscription. One of the things I liked about it was that it was a complete replacement of the old pack. Now, they've divided it into two parts. Part I is all the informational pages AND the enroute charts. These are replaced only as needed via specific page update. The approach plates are in part II which is completely replaced every 8 weeks. -- Marty Shapiro Silicon Rallye Inc. (remove SPAMNOT to email me) |
#7
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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. |
#8
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John Harper wrote: 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. If your instrument flying is limited to the U.S. why not forget Jeppesen and, instead, use the new NACO vector-graphics charts, which are free. There used to be a real issue of print quality of the bitmap NACO charts offered by AOPA and others. Not so now that NACO has provided the charts in vector graphics and, unlike Jeppesen, in a very convenient stand-alone Acrobat file format. And, when you print out the NACO chart on a good printer it is full page without any license BS cluttering the top of the chart. If you fly internationally, then you're stuck with Jepps. In that case, money usually isn't a big deal so you shower Jeppesen with lots of long green for extensive international coverage. |
#9
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