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Re: The Problem with suppliers
Author: The Lark
Date: 01-04-2014 - 00:58
I'm afraid the first part of your reply is perfect validation for everything I wrote.
Hobby stores already receive a substantial discount. If your normal discount is 40% why do you feel entitled to an additional discount just because we run a limited 10-20% off sale to our own retail/website customers? Giving you a 50-60% discount would have pushed us into bankruptcy. This is the kind of problem I battled for years. I wish hobby stores would wise up and realize their entitlement mentality is badly misplaced.
I realize hobby stores have rent, labor costs, insurance, and other expenses and I wish for them to survive. However, when you sell a $50 item and get to keep $20 of that to pay for store expenses, you make more than enough as it is. That's not even a fair tradeoff for the manufacturer considering how little the hobby store does in comparison.
As to your second point, I totally agree with you. That's unacceptable.
Skip391 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a former retailer I find Lark's comments a
> little one sided. I have seen when wholesalers
> reduced the advertised price but not their price
> to dealers. It is nice to say volume will make
> dealer more money but then you keep your markup
> the same so you make far more yourself. We found
> discounters that were getting better wholesale
> prices then we were. Then to make things worse
> the same discounters were telling customers to
> come to our shop for service and to try the
> products and then go back to them to purchase at a
> lower price. They saved lots of money by having
> us be there unpaid customer service. We could not
> compete. The wholesalers encourage this because
> they got more volume and many old and well run
> shops went under.
Hobby stores already receive a substantial discount. If your normal discount is 40% why do you feel entitled to an additional discount just because we run a limited 10-20% off sale to our own retail/website customers? Giving you a 50-60% discount would have pushed us into bankruptcy. This is the kind of problem I battled for years. I wish hobby stores would wise up and realize their entitlement mentality is badly misplaced.
I realize hobby stores have rent, labor costs, insurance, and other expenses and I wish for them to survive. However, when you sell a $50 item and get to keep $20 of that to pay for store expenses, you make more than enough as it is. That's not even a fair tradeoff for the manufacturer considering how little the hobby store does in comparison.
As to your second point, I totally agree with you. That's unacceptable.
Skip391 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a former retailer I find Lark's comments a
> little one sided. I have seen when wholesalers
> reduced the advertised price but not their price
> to dealers. It is nice to say volume will make
> dealer more money but then you keep your markup
> the same so you make far more yourself. We found
> discounters that were getting better wholesale
> prices then we were. Then to make things worse
> the same discounters were telling customers to
> come to our shop for service and to try the
> products and then go back to them to purchase at a
> lower price. They saved lots of money by having
> us be there unpaid customer service. We could not
> compete. The wholesalers encourage this because
> they got more volume and many old and well run
> shops went under.
