Wow. That isn’t very promising!!!
I to would move on!
I would have to think you a rare case or they wouldn’t be in business let alone growing each year.
Who knows if it will hold up, but I just got a gen 1 razor 85 and it’s better then the my swaro ats 65 was. The ats was a huge let down for the price!
Thanks for the feedback
Like I said in one of my posts, they have the single most successful Marketing Platform in the outdoors industry, perhaps any industry, in the world. They market themselves using social media, photos of broken/burned up binoculars that they've replaced, and by sponsoring every "long range" competition out there.
They are successful because they sponsor all the popular T.V./Youtube personalities and give them free gear so that they push it. Then, the new hunters/outdoorsmen and young people who watch these videos eat it all up and buy it as fast as they can. Whenever your stuff goes back for warranty work, they make sure to send you a hat and a T-Shirt and a Yeti mug and a pile of stickers and they ask you to post something on Instagram using #vortexnation so that everyone likes it and makes you feel good for buying vortex stuff.
They are popular because they give guys like me who work part time at Sportsman's Warehouse an incentive to sell their products. Every piece of glass I sell at Sportsman's earns me a certain amount of "vortex bucks" that I can then redeem for free optics. So every time you walk up to the optics counter at a big box store and say you need a scope or binoculars or a spotter, the first place I take you is the Vortex case, because I want my free stuff. Guys like me don't sell them to you because they're the best of the best, we sell them because we get their stuff for free! (For the record, I think I'm the only one at the gun counter at my local sportsman's who ever even shows people Leupold, Sig Sauer, Zeiss, or anything else besides Vortex, so YMMV).
Think about what comes to mind when you hear the names of the big optics companies:
Swarovski: Best Glass on the Market
Maven: Direct to Consumer
Leupold: Made in the USA Scopes
Nightforce: Tough as Nails
Vortex: Warranty
Their quality or their glass doesn't pop into your head when you think of Vortex, because they're pushing their warranty on you. All you hear about is when your buddy's scope busted and Vortex rolled out the red carpet for him and took care of him. But what if your Nightforce broke on a hunt? Wouldn't they be absolutely destroyed on forums and otherwise? Why isn't Vortex held to the same durability standard as Nightforce, or the same clarity standard as Maven or Swaro? Because that's not what they sell.
For the record, I do think Vortex has its place in the industry. They offer a functional product at a reasonable price for someone who is just getting started. They have more ads and more sponsors and more exposure than other people because they sink their money into it, so new guys are more likely to have heard of Vortex and have likely never even heard of some of the other brands. Their seemingly great price points hook lots of new guys every year who would never even dream of spending what some of us have spent on our optics, yet they help get them converted to the hunting community at a price they can stomach. They're smart for doing it, because as you said, they're successful and growing every year! But I stand by the fact that there are very few guides that I know who use Vortex stuff exclusively.
