What to do?
07-14-2005, 11:07 PM
#11
500 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 668
Ok first of all lets get eveything in the open, I dont mind. I am the distributor in question here. Now i was contacted by Rob about the situation yesterday at first I did not know what had gone on but I looked into it and had found out that my brother had used my screen name and answered some of my pm's and this customer had pm'd me about purchasing product, so my brother looked at where this person is located and knew that we did not have a dealer near his area and gave him a price for the product (which I have alredy admitted to Rob was very wrong, the price was not a lowball price by anymeans but it was lower the what Rob quoted this customer, however if i had replyed to this pm Rob would have not been the shop that I would have directed him as Rob is in B.C and the customer is in Ontario) now I have alpologised to Rob personally on the phone and in email and I will apologise on here also. I would have also offerd Rob the product at a discounted price so that he would make his profit. I will still honour this if you want Rob.
With all that said I will take total blame for this and willn monitor my incoming mail closer as so this will NEVER happen again. Once again I apologise for the lost sale.
Christopher Cecco
With all that said I will take total blame for this and willn monitor my incoming mail closer as so this will NEVER happen again. Once again I apologise for the lost sale.
Christopher Cecco
07-14-2005, 11:46 PM
#12
Chris, thank you for responding. That was the proper thing to do and I was waiting and hoping that you would.
First, a dealer in the area for a retailer is somewhere within a geographic area or time. As I understand it this customer is well within a geographic area and time of a retailer. So as such you should have (or whoever responded) directed the customer to the local dealer. A distributor should never ever take a end user as a customer of their own. This is a hard pill to swallow but it is also a lesson in business that you will learn the hard way this time around.
Second, if your brother is going to be using the forum, he should have his own user name, this would make it better for all parties, especially important for a distributor. The potential customer then always knows who they are dealing with. Imagine if one of my employees had made deals on line that I did not know about and started to sell things below cost. I would have to honour that. Please get this rectified. If your brother is a part of your business, he needs his own identity.
Pricing, as a distributor you have a price advantage over the retailer. As such a good margin for you is a tigher margin for me. Maintain your margins to the dealer base and we can maintain the profitability in the line. This is the second deal that I am aware of at this time that has come direct from your company in the last 2 weeks. This is not an isolated incident. I will dig further into the second allegation for documented proof on this.
I am not here to humiliate you and most certainly do not need a public apology, but the other dealers in the area that you have been undercutting most certainly do.
As I pointed out, this customer is totally gunshy of you and your company at this time. I can swing this customer any way I want to, this is the flexibility that I as a retailer have that you as a distributor do not. A distributor's destiny is controlled by their customers, dealers like me. My destiny is controlled by the end user. I have the flexibility to change on a dime, you unfortunately do not.
The RE line and the other lines you rep are most certainly respected lines in this industry. Dealers like me work hard to build these lines for distributors like you. It is nice to see that you have shouldered the issue and taken responsability, as you should. I am the captain of this ship and I must take responsability every single day that I am here for all of my employees and my actions.
Now I am not going to sit around and wait for people to come in my door. The net has become a new way of doing business. I must now compete with many a competitor on the online market. Does the FS website care where a customer is, nope, not at all. Nor do I when it comes to a online deal. If a customer is directed to another local dealer by the distributor, no biggie, I can deal with that as I lose deals all the time to competition. But to have the carpet pulled out from under my feet by a distributor is disgraceful. This kind of stigmatism can follow you for years dude. Left unchecked it can kill a career now or in the future.
So a deal is nice and does aid in smoothing things over, no doubt. I am not a greedy person, so I do not expect it unless this customer I can sway to the RE line again. That will be the easy part actually, he is more pissed at you and how the line was misrepresented. Can I do it, yes I can. Again though, business is earned and not bought.
Thanks for the reply once again. I am sure that this can be resolved.
First, a dealer in the area for a retailer is somewhere within a geographic area or time. As I understand it this customer is well within a geographic area and time of a retailer. So as such you should have (or whoever responded) directed the customer to the local dealer. A distributor should never ever take a end user as a customer of their own. This is a hard pill to swallow but it is also a lesson in business that you will learn the hard way this time around.
Second, if your brother is going to be using the forum, he should have his own user name, this would make it better for all parties, especially important for a distributor. The potential customer then always knows who they are dealing with. Imagine if one of my employees had made deals on line that I did not know about and started to sell things below cost. I would have to honour that. Please get this rectified. If your brother is a part of your business, he needs his own identity.
Pricing, as a distributor you have a price advantage over the retailer. As such a good margin for you is a tigher margin for me. Maintain your margins to the dealer base and we can maintain the profitability in the line. This is the second deal that I am aware of at this time that has come direct from your company in the last 2 weeks. This is not an isolated incident. I will dig further into the second allegation for documented proof on this.
I am not here to humiliate you and most certainly do not need a public apology, but the other dealers in the area that you have been undercutting most certainly do.
As I pointed out, this customer is totally gunshy of you and your company at this time. I can swing this customer any way I want to, this is the flexibility that I as a retailer have that you as a distributor do not. A distributor's destiny is controlled by their customers, dealers like me. My destiny is controlled by the end user. I have the flexibility to change on a dime, you unfortunately do not.
The RE line and the other lines you rep are most certainly respected lines in this industry. Dealers like me work hard to build these lines for distributors like you. It is nice to see that you have shouldered the issue and taken responsability, as you should. I am the captain of this ship and I must take responsability every single day that I am here for all of my employees and my actions.
Now I am not going to sit around and wait for people to come in my door. The net has become a new way of doing business. I must now compete with many a competitor on the online market. Does the FS website care where a customer is, nope, not at all. Nor do I when it comes to a online deal. If a customer is directed to another local dealer by the distributor, no biggie, I can deal with that as I lose deals all the time to competition. But to have the carpet pulled out from under my feet by a distributor is disgraceful. This kind of stigmatism can follow you for years dude. Left unchecked it can kill a career now or in the future.
So a deal is nice and does aid in smoothing things over, no doubt. I am not a greedy person, so I do not expect it unless this customer I can sway to the RE line again. That will be the easy part actually, he is more pissed at you and how the line was misrepresented. Can I do it, yes I can. Again though, business is earned and not bought.
Thanks for the reply once again. I am sure that this can be resolved.
07-15-2005, 03:03 PM
#16
Had the customer been directed to a local shop that is a totally different story. A customer may choose to deal with whomever they prefer. Maybe this customer is a customer of mine from 15 years ago.....
Another side to the story that we dealers must consider as well, is the fact that business and the way it is conducted is changing. FS for example and their stores....from what I understand throught the grapevine.... their biggest store is their on-line store. Does the on-line store care where the customer is located or who's territory it is in? No it does not. Will I continue to lose sales to their online store, yes I will. Can I be pro-active in the way I find new business, yes I can. Any business owner with his money on the line, chances are they will see things the same way.
Another side to the story that we dealers must consider as well, is the fact that business and the way it is conducted is changing. FS for example and their stores....from what I understand throught the grapevine.... their biggest store is their on-line store. Does the on-line store care where the customer is located or who's territory it is in? No it does not. Will I continue to lose sales to their online store, yes I will. Can I be pro-active in the way I find new business, yes I can. Any business owner with his money on the line, chances are they will see things the same way.
07-15-2005, 06:43 PM
#17
Guest
Posts: n/a
^ From what I have seen, the online store does not touch any of their B&Ms but maybe I have been looking at the wrong info.
And thanks for the clarification - I thought you were against e-tailing and other online sales but I see you're into it now.
How do your manufacturers feel about cross territory sales?
And thanks for the clarification - I thought you were against e-tailing and other online sales but I see you're into it now.
How do your manufacturers feel about cross territory sales?
07-15-2005, 07:11 PM
#18
If a nation wide company that has stores in every major and most minor cities (and then some), how can it's online store not affect even it's own B&M stores? [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img] Even though the $ end up in the same place, it is taking business away from not only the local stores, but all of the other dealers as well. They are being pro-active in finding business, time for others to do the same and then more.
Paul, here is one of your quotes "People are going to shop online. It is no different than the kid from your town that will drive to Victoria or come to Van for gear - some people just like to work that way". Is this not indeed what I was doing with the customer that led to this thread?
Here again is my stance on e-tailing in general as taken from my own quote "I am against the un-authorized etailer and a US based e-tailer, not a authorized Canadian e-tailer. We do not need to have people here in Canada recommending to others to take their business across the line. For some who have no vested interest in the business they are employed at, it is a general "who cares". For every person that has invested heavily into something that they are proud to call their own, this is a far different story.
The e-tailer is here to stay, no doubt and business will continue to be done this way, do we need to support it though, only if we can support ourselves here the exact same way. As long as we all play by the same rules is what is going to be best for all."
Now what does the manufacturer think about about cross territory sales..... they crossed that line the second they allowed on-line sales as the authorized e-tailer is blind to where the customer is. So if a manufacturer is allowing a authorized e-tailer to do this, I am now covered under the same blanket.
You can bet your $ that I will be starting a authorized online store in the future, it is the start of a new way of retailing.
No offence intended to your comments either Paul, I value your and others input into how business is done in Canada and within this industry.
Paul, here is one of your quotes "People are going to shop online. It is no different than the kid from your town that will drive to Victoria or come to Van for gear - some people just like to work that way". Is this not indeed what I was doing with the customer that led to this thread?
Here again is my stance on e-tailing in general as taken from my own quote "I am against the un-authorized etailer and a US based e-tailer, not a authorized Canadian e-tailer. We do not need to have people here in Canada recommending to others to take their business across the line. For some who have no vested interest in the business they are employed at, it is a general "who cares". For every person that has invested heavily into something that they are proud to call their own, this is a far different story.
The e-tailer is here to stay, no doubt and business will continue to be done this way, do we need to support it though, only if we can support ourselves here the exact same way. As long as we all play by the same rules is what is going to be best for all."
Now what does the manufacturer think about about cross territory sales..... they crossed that line the second they allowed on-line sales as the authorized e-tailer is blind to where the customer is. So if a manufacturer is allowing a authorized e-tailer to do this, I am now covered under the same blanket.
You can bet your $ that I will be starting a authorized online store in the future, it is the start of a new way of retailing.
No offence intended to your comments either Paul, I value your and others input into how business is done in Canada and within this industry.
07-16-2005, 08:38 AM
#19
Guest
Posts: n/a
Do not be confused - I was not admonishing your actions but merely looking for some details - hey, I'm nosey..
I know etailing is here to stay and personally I would rather have an etailer out there with potentially lower pricing than me than a B&M store open up right across the street slugging it out at full retail.
I was more curious about your vendors atittudes as from what I know, for many of them, even though they may deal with an authorized etailer (like, say FS) they may not support their regular dealer base promoting online or trans-territory sales.
What are your thoughts about a distributor/manufaturer that offers direct sales, at retail prices, but not into territories covered by an authorized retailer?
I know etailing is here to stay and personally I would rather have an etailer out there with potentially lower pricing than me than a B&M store open up right across the street slugging it out at full retail.
I was more curious about your vendors atittudes as from what I know, for many of them, even though they may deal with an authorized etailer (like, say FS) they may not support their regular dealer base promoting online or trans-territory sales.
What are your thoughts about a distributor/manufaturer that offers direct sales, at retail prices, but not into territories covered by an authorized retailer?
07-16-2005, 11:15 AM
#20
The name Distributor is just that. We dealers are there to build there business. They are not there to take that business away from us after we have built the line for them. A distributor has no business being in retail and as such has no business selling direct to any customer regardless of territory.
Here is a great example for me due to my location on the Island. I am in a semi major center. Port Hardy though is 3 hours away (if you haul butt). There are no retail car audio stores there or within a 2 hour drive. So they are most certainly not within a "geographic" dealer area or time, however due to their remote location, most people shop down island anyhow. The only advertising I do, is in the yellow pages for Campbell River (20 minutes away) and the balance of the North Island. I get quite a bit of business from that region, over $30,000.00 in the last month alone.
What would happen if say Special K (sorry Charlie - just someone to pick on as an example) were to sell Driftwood direct to a customer in Port Hardy as there are no dealers there. A&B would raise a crapstorm as they advertise to that area and as such have a legal right to that customer, same with our regional chain, Madman Mckays. It is up to the integrity of the company selling the product and there are very very few distributors (maybe some reps though) that will ever take a chance at something like this with the hopes of not getting caught. My question to you Paul, if you were a distributor, would you do something like this and risk your dealer base and personal integrity all for the sake of a sale to move some stock that you might be sitting on? A large company like Kenmore, Pioneer etc. of course will not do this ever, but the smaller distributors it seems (not all of them) operate under a differing set of principles.
Again though, once the distributor has allowed one company to advertise online, all other authorized dealers are now able to do the same thing.
[ July 16, 2005, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: MR2NR ]
Here is a great example for me due to my location on the Island. I am in a semi major center. Port Hardy though is 3 hours away (if you haul butt). There are no retail car audio stores there or within a 2 hour drive. So they are most certainly not within a "geographic" dealer area or time, however due to their remote location, most people shop down island anyhow. The only advertising I do, is in the yellow pages for Campbell River (20 minutes away) and the balance of the North Island. I get quite a bit of business from that region, over $30,000.00 in the last month alone.
What would happen if say Special K (sorry Charlie - just someone to pick on as an example) were to sell Driftwood direct to a customer in Port Hardy as there are no dealers there. A&B would raise a crapstorm as they advertise to that area and as such have a legal right to that customer, same with our regional chain, Madman Mckays. It is up to the integrity of the company selling the product and there are very very few distributors (maybe some reps though) that will ever take a chance at something like this with the hopes of not getting caught. My question to you Paul, if you were a distributor, would you do something like this and risk your dealer base and personal integrity all for the sake of a sale to move some stock that you might be sitting on? A large company like Kenmore, Pioneer etc. of course will not do this ever, but the smaller distributors it seems (not all of them) operate under a differing set of principles.
Again though, once the distributor has allowed one company to advertise online, all other authorized dealers are now able to do the same thing.
[ July 16, 2005, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: MR2NR ]
