I had a situation quite a while back that I haven't yet made up my mind as to how I truly feel about it. Well, I know I am annoyed - just not sure if I am annoyed enough as to discontinue business with a company.
As one of the companies I purchase equipment from often has personnel who read this board, let me make clear that it was not your company. It was a different sort of product than you deal in.
I got on line and was researching a particular product that I was thinking about upgrading. I read reviews and specs, checked on pricing and options on the product. As with most purchases I make, I was as informed on the product as the sales people would be. I then spoke with a local dealer I use for this type of product about a quote on purchasing.
They e-mailed me a quote for the product that had a bottom line that was equal to the advertised manufacturer's pricing from the manufacturer's website. Exactly what I was expecting to see as the price. The manufacturer was running a special price at the time. However, the dealer had bumped the new item's price up then deducted a trade of the model I am currently using in order to get to the advertised special of the manufacturer. That would make for a difference of about $1000 - $1500 (or about 19% of the new product pricing).
So I double checked to make sure that the manufacturer advertised price was not contingent on a trade and found that it was not. I also found that I could get that pricing basically anywhere and receive free shipping.
Essentially, this is like buying a car at MSRP and trading in your old car for no gain.
As I have given away many times the difference in price in equipment as I upgraded, the dollar value is not what bothers me. I just do not like what I perceive as some 'slight of hand' to gain a few extra bucks.
It is definitely not the way I would do business with people.
Opinions?
I would not do business with a company that tried to pull that. But just to make them squirm a little, I would have asked them to send me an estimate without the trade in, just to see if they still came in at the advertised price ... and if not, inquired why.
return email...
"Sirs:
Thanks for the quote.
I have found that I can purchase the widget from several other vendors for $xxx.xx with no tradein.
Will you match that price?
Thanks, Jon"
Then go and buy from someone you trust...
I do not expect to get the "very best price" on the first shot, but I do expect to get a competitive price.
It is possible that they have no clue of the market, and it is also possible that they just don't care.
Give them the benefit of the doubt, you may be surprised.
Beware of the lowballers. Just because something costs less does not mean you are getting better value for your money. This goes for surveys as well as equipment. Consider warranties, service, maintenance, etc. But yes, I would probably ask for a better deal since you do have a trade.
"I just do not like what I perceive as some 'slight of hand' to gain a few extra bucks."
If you perceive the charletans tools in use, they are not very good charletans. All charletans use sleight of hand. Up front dealers are a much smaller percentage of the the vast majority of sales vendors, who have no issues at all doing whatever is necessary to make the sale, whether equipment or just pure Snake Oyl. Don't expect facts from them. Claims and testamonials only are the "proof" they offer.
The assumption must be, the salesman is a charletan unless and until proven otherwise.
This is another great example proving why we need to always be smarter than the average guy. This type of foolishness goes on every day in so many differents ways.
An example from earlier this week. A friend has a son who is a senior in high school. He is taking two college classes from the community college in the same town. Because he has a high school GPA above 3.60 he does not have to pay tuition for those classes. That is policy set by the community college. Nevertheless, his parents have received repeated notices demanding they pay the tuition. Finally, the mother went straight to the top at the college. He was horribly embarrassed to learn what was happening and promised to rectify that situation and to make sure that other students eligible for that free tuition were being handled appropriately. They have this policy to attract the smart kids to stay with them instead of leaving home to a four-year college somewhere else upon high school graduation.
About 20 years ago I received notice that the property taxes on one of my farms was going to increase by about 30 percent from the previous year. It is bare pasture ground with no improvements, thus requiring the State-determined assessment of so many dollars per acre of each soil type to have increased by an average of the same amount. A quick check with the County Appraiser's Office told me that the highest increase in any one soil type that year had been 12 percent. We eventually determined that one of their employees had accidentally picked up the soil map from the next township to the west and laid it over four sections, one of which included my farm. My rocky ridge was now prime creek bottom soil, thus the exorbitant change in value. No one else in those four sections had realized the huge mistake made.
dump those crooked b*stards.
Neil
Great point. Oh, the irony to hear surveyors complain about low ballers and then turn around and look for the low baller supplier. Nervermind service or keeping it local.
"...one of my farms..."
You are one adept cow!
That's for sure.
Don
Yes the irony of it all. But there is a percentage of us surveyors who are not low "bidders", but get the jobs anyway just by talking to the people and selling ourselves as professionals.
But yet we shop for goods & services with an economic mindset, and usually go with the low guy. Usually I say, as I know I've often times paid a bit more from a local guy that I could have gotten online for 10% or so cheaper.
Another ironic story about local prices. All our city/county vehicles (big county with 3 main cities) have a bumper sticker that reads "SHOP LOCAL!!" Kind of a push from the local Chambers of Commerces. Well, my city needed some new police cars and even though we have every manufacturer dealership available local, the low bidder was from Phoenix (200 miles away), for a savings of about 3% on those 4 cars.
Same thing on many construction projects, including the most recently awarded $6 million project for a new county public works department building going to a Mesa firm, where #2 bidder is a highly respected local general contractor with many employees (many are also currently laid off). Funny part is if he would have got the job, I'd be doing the staking. Now some lowballer surveyor from Phoenix will.
Shop local bumper stickers on publicly funded vehicles.... what a joke. Kinda like Mr Cow's story about the assessor moron with the wrong township overlay map. I wonder what they pay for taxes? And what kind of training did the GIS Dept provide said moron.
The irony of it all.
Sorry, off topic. Just ranting No hijack intended.....;-)
First time I ever saw a manufacturer's MSLRP called a "lowball" price? If the manufaturer is having a sale, that is what the VAR is supposed to pass on to the customers. Then, from that total, they should simply subtract the trade-in value of the used equipment. Seems that is not what happened here. I see gouging, not lowballing. Perhaps I missed something?
I would buy elsewhere, this is a sign of problems to come if you purchase from them.
As to consideration of service; if this is mainly a commodity purchase then one should look for the lowest price for the equivalent product. In the case of surveying equipment, this would mean in your case you would have about 4k of this purchase related to service before it would make sense to consider it a service contract. If that were the case I would not buy the equipment at all. Not to say that local and service don't count with commodities, just should not be the driving factor. If prices are similar, service and local may tip the scales toward a higher price option.
Surveying services always include judgment calls based on special knowledge. Therefore, "lowballing" is either bad business or an admission of inferior knowledge of the subject matter. Both showing bad judgment and should be avoided by the educated consumer. Anytime you get a service proposal much lower than other proposals you should be wary. But you can't compare service contracts with commodity contracts.
Service counts!!! I knew a professor/surveyor at a private college who
had a HP9815 with the surveying pacs. I thought they only taught civil
engineering. The professor sent the HP9815 in for service. They returned
it a couple weeks later, he got a bill for $1500. Their CE department
had been getting an HP1000 minicomputer and all of the peripherals to issue
a purchase order. The professor had his payable's department make a check
for $1500 and he mailed it with the quotation of $100K for the HP1000. On
the quotation, he marked "Cancel".
Two days later, he got a call from Packard himself from Cupertino saying, "Hey, forget that $1500 bill. That was a mistake." The professor said, "Well, OK. Send me a new quotstion."
In this here case, an inconvenience has been created. Relationship has taken a hit and trust is broken.
Regardless of your final decision - to buy from them or somewhere else - do not be surprised if the level of service that you receive after the sale is less.
Those things have to do with purchasing rules or the public contracting laws. The purchasing agency may not have discretion in cases like that.
For some purchases you can go local if there are enough local businesses so that you can get the minimum number of quotes or the local City could implement a local business preference (where a stated percentage is deducted from the local quote for purposes of comparison). A preference allows the use of a local business although their quote isn't the lowest.
Believe me we would rather not use the lowest responsible bidder on construction jobs in many cases but we don't have discretion to do otherwise.
