Now and again we are asked about pricing for not only ourselves but for other dealers. Here is an example of a question:
Are you as a dealer willing to negotiate on price? Making that clear will keep your customers working with you vs going open box or used. Some dealers are opaque on pricing and sticker shock is real.
And now, my response:
That's a very broad question. Some products have, frankly, very little margin. Sometimes its about 10%. There's no place to go and the manufacturer actually expects us to make up the difference in consultation, installation, or other service fees. We have 4 product lines like that at our store for the moment.
Over 40 years, we have had work with customers who take an enormous amount of time and energy. It bothers me that some believe that a product isn't worth the asking price which translates into our time is worth nothing. Rather hard to work for someone for free, don't you think?
The other aspect, in a broader form, is how many people that I talk to who lament that they no longer have a local dealer to help them or service their products. I'd say there is about 5 left of the dealers I knew still in existence 40 years later, likely even less. So, when I see mail order houses with young employees, sometimes with pictures of cute girls (like the old days where they would use models to sell cars), I can only wonder how much do they really know.
As for sticker shock, you know, I have had that experience too particularly with what has happened over the last 4 years. Between the massive inflation from 2021 to 2024 coupled with significantly higher labor costs and speculation on raw materials, yeah, the shock is real. Very disconcerting but, they didn't choose it either. Sometimes national policies can have a significant impact on prices and, contrary to popular belief, we are not making more but rather less. These high labor costs, quite frankly, are the tinder needed to sell AI systems to eliminate those labor costs. But, I digress.
The mail order /open box world has also forced us to limit our service support to those products which we have actually sold, with a few exceptions. Why? Because manufacturers do not pay us to fix their products under warranty and, often times, we have to pay for both the freight cost of getting the repair part AND returning the defective one. Knowledgeable people doing service are not cheap.
Frankly, what I have seen over the years is the more wealth the potential customer has the more demanding they are of special treatment. I've had a few that would call or text my employees at 5 in the morning demanding that they come to their house to, essentially, turn the TV set back on. I personally had one threaten to sue me because his TV stopped working only to find out that his gardener rototilled his cable feed. Once fixed, he tested the system by going to his porn channel. Oh, he threatened my service manager with extensive profanity to the point that within a week he quit. That really helped us.
So, for me to say I'm Crazy Eddie offering crazy deals (he' out of business too) is not something that is really possible. I am disinclined to join in the race to 0. You get your choice of Price, Quality, and Service. But, you only get to choose 2 of the three. Anyone offering all three is typically on their way out the door. I have chosen quality and service. From that point forward, pricing is very dependent upon what we are looking at and a whole bunch of factors. I do not blame some dealers for being vague as the nature of the question really ignores many realities by the one posing the question.
When we can, we offer specials and promotions. If you look at our website right now, you will see them and they vary from time to time. That's pretty much it.
Sorry for the long answer but I wanted to help you to see how the question is, in itself, incomplete to someone who has been in the trade all these years.
