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I have a half-baked theory on why brands fail like this. In theory, there's nothing wrong with a mass-market brand providing offerings for as much of the market as possible. I think the problem is that you have to commit to a certain minimum standard of quality for something you're willing to put your name on. For example, Specialized is one of the most respected bike brands in the US, and their line ranges from the Sirrus 1.0, a hybrid/commuter bike retailing at $699 to performance road bikes with carbon everything topping out at over $12,000. They are, along with Trek and Giant, one of the Big Three American bike companies, yet their actual market share is vanishingly small. Add up sales of the Big Three, plus close peers like Scott and Cannondale, plus boutique brands like Ibis, Pivot, and Revel, plus direct to consumer brands like Canyon and YT, plus imported brands, plus every other brand that I could possibly recommend that anyone buy, and it all totals up to about 30% of the total market. The remaining 70% are being sold at department stores like Wal-Mart and mass-market sporting goods stores like Dick's, and are being purchased by a non-discriminating public who doesn't want a lecture from a bike snob about why they need to spend $700 at minimum for what they essentially see as a children's toy.
In other words, while the reputable brands try to appeal to as many market segments as possible, they don't make junk. A Sirrus 1.0 isn't going to have the best components on it, but it's going to be reliable and will be worth maintaining. The department store bike is going to be built with extreme cost-cutting measures and is likely to malfunction relatively quickly, at which point the unsuspecting customer is faced with a repair bill that amounts to a significant percentage of the bikes cost and a warning from the mechanic that it's likely to fail again in short order. Yet the market for this stuff is huge, as most bikes (and guitars too, I imagine) are bought as part of a temporary enthusiasm that may or may not stick. A good bike is useless to someone who never rides it, much as a good guitar is useless to someone who doesn't know how to play it. It would be really easy for a reputable bike brand to stretch the bottom of their line to include junk that's sold at sporting goods stores and purchased by an ill-informed public who believes they're getting a better value than some no-name brand because they "heard Trek was good".
The reason why they don't do this is because when you get into extreme cost cutting territory, the profit margins become razor thin. This isn't a problem if the business model of the entire brand revolves around thin margins, but the bike companies are currently structured to be able to make money on well-heeled enthusiasts dropping several thousand dollars on higher margin items. If this customer base stops trusting the brand because they see it when they go grocery shopping, it turns into a race to the bottom where low-end sales become increasingly central to their business. This is basically what happened with GT and Diamondback, two reputable brands that got sold and the new owners tried to stretch into the low end. Those in the know knew that they still made good bikes, but new riders who instinctively knew that department store brands were junk didn't even consider them when looking to make their first serious purchase, and the retailers who carried the low-end models didn't carry the high-end ones, making them hard to find. I found this out myself when I was considering a GT that got good reviews. GT was sold at Dick's, but of course not that one, but they couldn't even order one for me, because big box stores don't operate like bike shops. I'd have to go to a GT authorized dealer to buy one, but of course there weren't any around me, because what independent bike shop owner in their right mind would try to compete with Dick's?
I think whether a brand is susceptible to this depends on which end of the market existed first. Prior to the 1970s, bikes were considered children's toys in the United States, and there wasn't much call for domestic companies to produce high-end models. When this market emerged in the 1970s, companies like Trek and Specialized filled the gap in the high end of the market, and while they would eventually grow to a wide range of models at different price points, they knew they never had a chance of competing with the Schwinns and Huffys of the world so they didn't try. Electric guitars were in the opposite situation; musical instruments were always known for being expensive, and in the early 1950s the few manufacturers making electric guitars were making them for the higher end of the market and thus able to charge prices commensurate with their quality. When rock took off in the 1960s and every kid wanted a guitar under the Christmas tree, CBS had to deal with the reality that most parents would balk at the cost of an instrument the kid would get frustrated with in a couple months, and their parents would choose some budget brand. It's easy to say in retrospect that they shouldn't have cut corners, but it's hard to make that decision in 1967 when sales are exploding and the bean counters at headquarters tell you you'll sell 10,000 more units next year f you can knock $20 off the price tag. And then 20 years later the older, good versions of your product have become iconic and the product practically markets itself, except you aren't going to sell that many models similar to the one Hendrix had if they all cost $3,000.
By the same token, they don't want to completely deprecate the brand, so they allowed the situation to become ridiculous. By all rights, Fender should offer their flagship Stratocaster and similar iconic models like the Telecaster in one mid- or high-range base model with 4 or 5 upgraded price points. Say the Stratocaster 100, which retails for $1800, up to the 400, which retails for $2400, or something along those lines. Or better yet, just sell one Srat for $2400 and be done with it. If they want to sell less expensive models then come up with model names and use those, with similar price points. And don't sell any junk; you aren't competing with the guitars Estaban sells on TV, so don't try. Instead they offer 94 models (literally) of Stratocaster ranging in price from a $250 Squier up to a $3500 Jeff Beck 1965 Signature Edition or whatever, and you can't tell which Stratocasters are good and which ones are bad based on the sub-models alone unless you really know guitars, and then they make things even more confusing by changing specs year by year so that you need to also look at the spec sheets to know that this year's version is selling at the same price as last year's but has inferior electronics, or something along those lines. It's just an example of doing things that make sense in the short term but metastasize into something unmanageable when compounded over several decades.
The weird thing is they had this figured out in the 2000s. You could get an American Strat, a Mexican/Japanese Strat, or a Squier if you were ultra cheap. And the second tier Strats weren't crappy! I have a Mexican Strat from 2003, which cost $500 at the time (so more like $900 today), so it was pretty reasonable in price, and is honestly a nice guitar. It might not be as nice as the American models were, but it's still a good instrument that can last you a long time (I mean, it's going strong for me 23 years later).
Then you look today, and I honestly have no idea what kind of guitar I would get from Fender if I was in the mood to upgrade. There was no need to add more models until a casual purchaser has no hope of figuring out what the product line is all about. They had a pretty good system, and then trashed it for... no reason that I can tell.
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