added to the list of other GBS accessories, other colored kettles ...
Weber prefers to brand itself here as a seller of ubiquitous black grills, instead of much of anything else.
I dunno, ADS, having never been out of the good ole USA, maybe they have stronger competition in the other markets. They certainly do us for granted.
BD
I'm not of the opinion that any for-profit company takes things for granted, especially when they already produce other products for other markets.
Our grills are relatively cheap here, and there are more of them. Differentiation does cost money. The Netflix "Barbecue" documentary revealed that in at least one prosperous European country, tiny, miserable, disposable grills are popular. Basically, a tin foil pan with sterno fuel or whatever.
It's a culture thing, too. Did you know that in Europe, women also cook outdoors? Here, they'd have to be "camping" before leaving the kitchen. The Weber dealer images I've seen from elsewhere make a fresh Williams Sonoma store look like a Wal-Mart in the wrong part of town with half the lights out. It takes more dedication to buy a foreign product at a higher price, yeah?
In some ways, we are the ones taking Weber for granted when we lament Chinese made parts or the cost of new grills "when an old one nearly impossible to find is just as good/better."
It's my guess that the higher-priced iterations of Performer and Genesis allow a few other colors to be offered. It's my guess that they sell so many Q1200's that they'll offer colors on them. To a few retailers.
Every time another Nexgrill gasser or "Aussie" charcoal grill gets sold at a big box retailer, that's got to reduce the chances of Weber bothering with anything adventurous here.
Does that mean that you think the possibility that there's MORE competition, at least in the Big Boxes, is the reason that Weber offers us less to choose from?
May be, in the Big Boxes.
I also wonder how we (at least the "we" who frequent this forum) are taking Weber for granted. I bought my WSM, two in fact. I bought my Kettles, a 22 & a 26er. I bought a side table for the 22, then modified it to fit the 26er. I even bought that cool WSM backward ash shovel, a couple of the small chimneys (one for home, one for competitions) and even an extra WSM grate to add second cooking level to my 26er. But, frankly, since I do 99% of my cooking on the 26er, there's little else that Weber has developed, or seems interested in developing, to keep me interested in shopping there.
But, I can accept that Weber does not take full advantage (IMHO) by making things that I particularly think would be marketable, primarily a 26er version of the Gourmet System, even though they also make one for three different gas grills. I understand that it would take some 10 minutes of design work and probably half a day to set up a jig, and stock materials that they already have in their manufacturing plant. But I can accept that it's just too risky, on their part because I might the only owner of a 26er that wants one.
What I don't understand, and I'm sure it's just because I'm just too dense, is why Weber would voluntarily choose to sell fewer SS Gourmet Grates - something they are already making - just to keep them out of the US market. I mean, I don't know much about web development, but it must be prohibitively expensive to add a picture and a link to the accessories page already on the Weber site.
BD
Topic: Why can't we get this stuff in the USA? (Read 2145 times)