The McClure Distributive Economic Philosophy
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Time to read 3 min
McClure Tables started as a brick-and-mortar retail store that sold billiards, shuffleboard tables, and other recreational games for 25 years. McClure Tables' former name was Game Room Designs. In 1991, Todd McClure started the business in Austin, Texas. Todd has been working on Billiard tables since he was 19. With his 59th birthday upon us, that is 40 years of experience in the industry! Game Room Designs was started with the home team pride of selling pool tables made in America. Over the years, most of the brands Game Room Designs sold did not have large factories, and the ones that did produced only a small portion of their products there.
They carried companies like Gandy, of Macon, Georgia, Peter Vitalie of North Carolina, and C.L. Bailey of Missouri. Todd and Judy McClure first started doing business with Charlie, of C.L. Bailey, when he owned Playmaster. Playmaster was later sold to AMF. Charlie, 5 years to the day of his non-compete clause ending with AMF, started C.L. Bailey and sold it again a few years later. Game Room designs even won many awards with these companies: see the photo to the right
. What McClure’s found as a retail dealer of top game room brands is that they all have great marketing departments and a history to create a rich story upon which they can build their name. The problem here is that, beyond the marketing pitch for a genuine, authentic, or even handcrafted product, the brands are only making money and creating marketing materials. Causing these companies to have a supply chain of vendors, merchants, carriers, and contract manufacturers that distribute the product, but do they stand for the same philosophy that the company was built on? Therefore, McClure Tables has created its direct distributive business model. In this business model, they believe in supplying directly to consumers to control all aspects of the consumer experience.
McClure Tables’ Economic Philosophy. After 25 years in the retail trenches, McClure’s has found that most vendors and suppliers are mostly interested in selling more product. If they cannot make enough money selling this brand, then they will switch to another brand. If they cannot make enough money running their factory in America, then they shut down and use contract manufacturing. The word distributive can be scary, it sounds like I am going to start talking about social justice and how you need to share more of your things with others, when it is simply the way McClure Tables does business, the quote to the right describes this business model.
By shopping at McClure Tables, you will receive a genuine, authentic, handcrafted product from start to finish. It is a way of removing the middleman whose interests do not always align with the common goals. You, as a consumer, simply want the best shuffleboard table; we, as a company, want to build the best. If we depend on others for our needs in their distributive process, we have no control over their motivations.
The economic well-being of a country is not measured exclusively by the quantity of goods it produces, but also by taking into account the manner in which they are produced. The level of equity in the distribution of income."The McClure Shuffleboard Tables philosophy is like shopping at the local farmers' market. Where you can know who grew the food, even shake their hand and know your neighbor put their love, care, and pride into their craft. You just can't walk into a retail store anymore and find craftsmen like that. In fact, you will pay the same price or more for a factory-produced shuffleboard table than the craftsmen at McClure Tables charge for one made by hand.
Why, because this brand developed out of years of frustration as a retailer of brands that just wanted to sell product. They did not care about making a better widget or about how they could distribute it in a way that would benefit all parties along the supply chain. We pay craftsmen more, use better materials, and sell directly to the end user. So, no profit or margin was factored into the design or distribution of the product for a merchant or vendor primarily interested in making money. We want to build the best shuffleboards, so we have to cut out the middlemen who only want to make money.
