I notice in the BCF catalogues a lot of the gear is now very cheap and looks like 4x4 supacentre stuff...
Race to the bottom.... the desire for cheap stuff is going to be the problem.
There is some stuff that is just about identical - the XTM 9" driving lights are one example, and are priced to compete quite closely.
Macpac has been very ordinary for the last 10 years, really since they started selling directly rather than via proper stores; in Australia that gap has been filled to an extent by One Planet, but Macpac really traded on their name for a long time and used the standard Australian pricing model of charge like a wounded bull 3 out of 4 weeks in the month, and put everything on a "special" for 1 week which is when it was a sensible price.
I actually have an old Macpac Pursuit pack back in the UK that's 20 years old; it's a great pack for how I used it, which was for everything from travelling around working to 3 day walking expeditions.
I managed to get an old Summit Gear pack recently for $10 here, and that's now become my everyday pack instead of the Blackwolf pack I got when a Rays Outdoors was closing on the Central Coast a few years ago. Much better canvas - like my old Macpac - and hardly any fancy things; in fact it had a broken buckle so they got replaced with metal OnePlanet clips instead. Should be good for a few more years yet....
