Oil companies have been doing it for ever, I don’t see their price fixing and gouging being prosecuted. A good attorney can explain his way around anything.

I too only buy from a couple of warehouses, I only return to a warehouse what I bought from them and I verify that with a purchase date of the item, if they dispute it, I send them a copy of their invoice. Never had a problem with either one of them other than they are really slow at getting me my credit.

I pay cash when I order, if I held my payments as long as they hold my credits, do you think that would speed my credits up at all? Just asking

As for the WD’s warrantying anything and everything, wouldn’t it be easier to have a return policy of, “buy it here, return it here”? Why should every indy tool dealer driving up and down the road pay the consequence for what a handfull of dealers are abusing? This isn’t the military, punish the offenders, not the masses.

Well welcome to the mobile tool industry. I deal with that day in and day out. But, unlike your assumption, I deal with a few suppliers as possible. I will only buy from 2 WD’s. Most from 1 and if they don’t have it I go to the other. It’s too much of a hassle foraging through invoices from multiple suppliers. I have to spend my time on the road combatting the discount sales tactics of the online (no service) sellers. I don’t have time to be calling 10 different WD’s pricing items.
I buy my hardline direct from the mfr and deal direct for warranty. Though I rarely have to warranty any of their product. For other brands I deal with the WD that supplies the bulk of my third party product. The one I have built a relationship with. Just like my customer do.

Jeff’s association idea resembles price fixing. In the United States, price fixing can be prosecuted as a criminal felony offense under section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. I don’t think they will go there. Minimum advertised pricing is something that they can control which IS legal. Or how about also forcing the online discounters to do their own warranty work. That should put a wad in their shorts.

I have no “respect” for a WD that caresses me with one hand and slaps me with the other. A few months ago I stopped calling a WD who I dealt with continually for almost 10 years and started with another. My old salesman did not once pick up the phone and ask me why I had not called him. $100,000+ a year disappeared and not a word. Must have made it up in direct to the end user sales. As a customer I feel like I deserve better service than that. I know that if one of my customers stopped coming on the truck I would be asking him why.

Maybe I can make it up in online sales. Hmmm.

Mobile Jobbers, and parts stores routinely buy from many different WD suppliers. When needing to return an item, or a defective, they frequently make the return to a different - usually more convenient - WD than the one from which the product was purchased.

Competition is very tight at the WD level as well. The WD is then forced into the same dilemma as you describe - make good on the warranty, or possibly lose some, or all of the Jobber’s business.

The result is that the smaller to mid-size WD’s are squeezed on both ends. They have to compete with larger warehouses that can buy better, while also taking care of the problematic issues, such as warranty, and in-depth customer service like product knowledge, special ordering parts and accessories and so forth. The latter of which is time consuming and thus labor sensitive. In other words - expensive.

We have drifted from the main subject, however all of this is interrelated. WD’s do indeed have overhead, and they also need to find ways to survive in this new business climate. Margins are compressing, and expenses are rising for them as well. The unfortunate by product is that you will begin to see fewer WD’s and that means that customer service will suffer greatly.

In the old days, especially before the internet, there were specific territories that WD’s served, very much like Jobbers have, and still do service. No longer. WD’s are under siege every day from national competition. They deserve some love here too.

There are other problems beside the internet. Big box chains, and membership clubs are also cutting in to WD, AND Jobber business.

The solution is not to point fingers at other levels of the supply channel, but to have respect for each other and work together to enhance the industry. WD’s want, and need for their Jobber customers to be successful. The reverse is also true.

In the end a free market largely takes care of it’s own problems. Companies at any level will not be around long if they can’t make a decent profit. I’m not sure that more regulation is needed, but I am sure that some good old fashioned common sense is a great foundation to rely on. Not every warranty needs to be given a blanket replacement, and not every discount price needs to be met to make a sale.

Thanks

The issue we are talking about here is WD’s selling the exact same tools that they sell me to my customers for a reduced price through a website or catologs or whatever. They are biting the hand that feeds them. Then expecting me to do the warranty when I didn’t get the initial sale. I have to build the cost of warranty into each sale, a warehouse doesn’t. If I tell the customer “no take it back to where he bought it”, then I’m the bad guy and that customer may never buy another tool from me again. But these suspect warehouses don’t care because they got the sale and never have to deal with warranty or ever have to face these customers face-to-face. They sell the tools cheap because they know their is no risk involved going in. The warehouse owner got his new boat, the Indy dealer goes out of business, that’s reality.

It’s the same with the parts stores too, they deliver the tool with little or no overhead tied up in it, but look out when it’s broken because that customer is going to head for the nearest Indy tool truck and demand they take care of it.

I really believe the solution to this starts with the manufacturers. It would take a lot of courage for them to stop selling tools to these vigilanty warehouses, or at least charging them more for the product to force them to keep their prices up. Most of them have shareholders to answer to, so I don’t think it would ever happen. The internet has created a whole new way of business and these warehouses are taking full advantage. What they disregard is what else it has created, that is communication. So now as the Indy tool dealers join forces in the industry, we become a powerhouse bigger than even the biggest warehouse out there. We can choose to boycott the warehouses with questionable sales practices, how long do you think those warehouses are going to last then? All it would take is one warehouse closing and the message will be sent that we will not tolerate it anymore, the others would quickly fall in line for fear that they would be next.

Maybe the manufacturers could learn something from the Indys, start their own association for the sole purpose of protecting their product. Stand united against these warehouses and don’t let them “cheapen your product”. If they violate, give them the boot. These manufacturers need a full chain of healthy distribution. When one link of that chain gets skipped over, that being the mobile dealer, the whole chain is junk. The manufacturers have the power to control that, and if they stand as a united front, they can satisfy their shareholders and control the long term health of their products without being the bad guy”. I’m guessing the kind of leverage a group like that would have would also help keep the margins up when selling to the big four also. Thus making the manufacturers even stronger in the long term.