Dropping a line

    We, at electronics depot have decided to drop a line.  It almost feels like breaking up with someone or ending a long friendship. I have been in car audio for 20 plus years and I have me a kicker dealer the whole time so this is a little hard.  We have a few thousand dollars of inventory and that will last us a while, heck if things pick up we may even consider buying back in to the line, but we decided against the 5 thousand dollar buy in for 2014.
    With the line being in Walmart, and other dealers selling it cheap its not easy to sell.  They have done a lot for price protection in the last few years but its just too little too late.  I hope they turn the reputation of the company around in the US (they are doing very well overseas now).
    Kicker (Stillwater Desings), still has great product, and they still do an ok job with marketing, but they like many other company's have stopped promoting the industry of car audio. Promoting the industry (or lifestyle if you prefer) you will shrink the market share.  The issue is no one really wants to spend time and money promoting the industry because it does not have a direct return for that company, in fact it allows others to sponge off you what you do.  Countless company's took advantage of this in the early 90's with overseas manufacturing, and inferior product, little to no advertising or customer support. I am not sure the best way
to handle this from a manufactures perspective but it is a problem for sure.
    This lack of industry promotion is evident from the shrink size and amount of car audio shows. Some car audio shops like Ultimate Auto and electronics depot attempted to pick up the slack, and tried to "Go big" at shows but that can only last for so long, the drain on resources (physical, mental, and monetary) is too large for the little guy.
    I can recall, doing many shows with Bart Deal (now in international sales at kicker) at spring break nationals. We would work all day at a shop, then drive to the show, work untill 4 am, then work 12 to 14 hours at the show the next day, go out to dinner with the reps or the boss then work the show all day get all the show stuff broken down and packed up often getting to bed around 3 or 4 am, and then going back to work the next day at 7 am.  Did I mention we (ultimate audio employees) would not get paid to do this. Again, I don't know what the solution is to this but as an industry its gotta be fixed.