I think one of the biggest missed opportunities by the scope companies is to offer a true Custom Service Center where you could have a scope built 'ala carte....choose the options that you want from an existing platform. Premier Reticle came the closest to that model.
Good shootin' -Al
Those on the outside very often think a buisness should lose money to satisfy a very small subset of customers.
Leupold did run a custom shop for many years but it was always a net loss. Every scope Leupold can produce is sold before it's made and the same is true for most other actual manufacturers.
It's not viable to cater to a niche very small customer base that wants one off custom products at production prices.
A year or two before Leupold closed their "Custom Shop," they raised their Custom Shop prices, and still seemed to have heavy demand, so they could operate their Custom Shop profitably if they were motivated to. The reality is
the potential level of revenue and profit compared to their production lines means they just aren't interested in offering the service. They could set the Custom Shop prices at a level guaranteed to produce a profit utilizing their repair staff.
Come to think about it, perhaps the real reason is their repair staff is too overworked making repairs after their quality slid thar they don't have the capacity to offer reticle changes and elevation knobs.
Another issue is it appeared they were intentionally driving business to their Custom Shop because they weren't offering the finish (matte) and reticles (their venerable duplex and heavy duplex) people wanted in their production models. Their wide duplex should have been the custom offering with their standard duplex as the standard production reticle.
