There are only a few drummers that are seriously seeking high end gear.
There are thousands of drummers seeking the lower end gear.
The stores simply cater to their customers.
Sales flow dictates what they stock and sell.
Department managers review national sales flow data and they stock their store accordingly.
They will stock a few high end products just to have some in the store.
They have a budget that limits the inventory that they can carry and also sales goals to meet.
The overhead of operating a store is very high.
The stores have no choice.
Bottom Line,
If the stores were swamped with people wanting to buy all kinds of expensive drum gear and all sorts of things like tension rods and hoops, etc. They would stock them.
Supply and Demand, Thats the first rule of economics.
The demand isn't there, so the supply isn't there.
unfortunately you don't live anywhere near me. the demand IS here and it's not being fulfilled. we have 2 dedicated drum shops, thats all, they sell nothing more. one is so far away from any major metropolitan area it's not really an option for many people. we're talking an 8 hour drive from where the vast majority of people live in this state, it's actually closer to being in another state then this one. the other one has such a bad reputation that most musicians won't set foot in the door. we are left with 5 mom & pop shops that barely carry anything and only lower end stuff cuz they can't compete with gc and thats all they can afford to carry. 5 gc's in 30 minute drive from me, none carry a drum kit worth a crap. we're talking the lowest of the low here. i live 5 minutes from the biggest gc in the state, their drum department consists of 3 drum kits, a horizon, a forum and an accent, a mass of nick nacks scattered around the floor against the walls, a cymbal room that only has b8's, zht's and one little rack of used cymbals and mostly used b8's and zht's. your lucky to have a small selection of heads, last time i went to get heads for my snare i had to visit 3 different stores to get a genera dry and a 2 mil hazy, not cuz i had to have those 2 exact heads but becuase those were the only snare heads in all 3 stores.
you want anything higher then that you order it, period. i'm not saying we need a store to carry only top end stuff, lower end intermediate stuff would sell like crazy becuase nobody else here even stocks it. you had a stock of heads to where somebody could actually pick from 2 or 3 styles and enough sizes to outfit a standard 5 piece kit, maybe carry mid range cymbals, an xs20 or 2, maybe even an avedis here and there, a couple floor models of single pedals of various mid range pedals, hell i had to special order an iron cobra cuz "they don't stock higher end pedals". if the customers were treated decently and the prices were somewhat comptetitive to online stores i can garentee you would have more business then you could ever want.
gc is where preteen school kids go to get instruments they don't really want for school, then later can't sell on craigslist cuz it's too flooded with every other 8th grader trying to unload their crap. it is not where people who actually play for whatever reason go to shop for anything other then sticks and picks. we don't have a store that really caters to an actual musician and we desperetly need one.
some of you guys on here live next to amazing stores even if it is a few hours away. people ask for opinions and almost everybody says get your hands on them and play them before deciding, then i look around at the options i've been given to actually test drive any piece of equipment and laugh. where an i suppossed to test drive an axis pedal? iron cobras are too high end for here. where am i suppossed to go bang on bosphorus cymbals? i have a hard time even finding a b8 china. i guess i could swing by that one store to try out that new meridian birch jazz, oh wait thats too high end, they only carry the starter kits. god forbid i want a new half stack for my guitar, guess i could stack a few crate 2x12's on top of each other and pretend.
moral of the story, supply and demand is not the be all end all of the economic world. some companies choose to carry less and only the most "affordable" cuz they can turn stock quicker and their not out a ton of money of it doesn't sell, on to the next latest and greatest. it's a combination of many factors that play into a companies business model, economy, supply and demand, funding, profit, product turn around, shelf space, location, demographics, management, compatition, target cutomers, projected sales, past sales and the list goes on.
so yeah for my location and the people around here, yes that is the answer. give us a place to buy a pruduct we want at a decent price and we will infact.. buy.