I don't understand what point you keep trying to make in regards to the location of his building or business? He's obviously made a sizeable investment into his operation. I've operated an e-commerce business out of my home since 2011. I have about 1000 sq ft of basement that houses the entire operation. Do you realize how much less it costs having the business at the same location as your home? Obviously you do not. I'm already paying for the space, utilities, taxes and everything else that goes with owning/renting a structure. I'm already paying to heat and cool it too. If I tried to go into "town" and rent/buy a place it would never work. You are making a LOT of assumptions about this business and how it is actually operated when in reality you don't have a clue.
CallMeGrey stated " Actually, Minelab has a REPAIR center here in the US. It is all they do, so I'm sure they don't hate doing repairs."
Thats not true, didn't think it was based upon my import export experience, and I did research and proved I was right.
I know XP ( I don't think its was this location) really ground their teeth just to send me a replacement bolt out for my XP. The dealer said they are also sticky on requiring proof of purchase when they honor the warranty ( to me thats just another sign of a company looking to wiggle out of warranties)
Location? out in the country like that, you can run into logistics problems. If he's getting containers of products, it can make it hard to get there, especially in the winter. But my main point was, it's not "JUST a repair center". It's a combo house/fort Bedford metal detectors/detector center, and who knows what other businesses he's running from his farm.
Do you want 3 employee in your basement? Do you want customers showing up at your house at 3am? Do you want the UPS driver, or trucker coming into your house to use your toilet?
Apparently the owner thought it's important to make people think it's a big separate company, when I asked him about it, it was obvious he wanted to keep the façade up. He did not even want to admit it was his company, or on the same property at first.
There is nothing wrong with running a business like that if you want to accept some of the things that go alway with it. My whole thing is, a one man operation like this is juggling many different things at once, and the main ball he's probably keeping an eye on is SALES. I support that theory with the fact he answers his Sales line almost all the time, but the repair center 98 percent of the time is. "Leave a message'. He's clearing( snow) the driveway for pickups, deliveries, going to town to get supplies, handling sales, managing the receiving/packaging/shipping and damages of repairs coming to him.
I've made multi millions out of my house/house business. I prioritized what made me the most $ also. Answering the phone for some broke person who wants to waste my time to buy a .50 cent fuse is not the way to make $. I was busy on the phone with the company I made $1,500 off of a product, and made sure his product was getting out the door, and he was happy.
I was simply giving my theory and solution, from years of importing / exporting.
now that we know all about this SERVICE CENTER and trained staff, what about the other companies?