Not to piss on everyones opinion but as you stated, you are not a fortress dealer. Even though you talked to them and will be getting the dealer paperwork, Fortress probably has the opinion that you are going to make one order and no more. I think this is where the entire problem is arising from. If you were in Fortress' position, would you like to make one sale with a question mark on future sales or honor the dealer that has made many sales in the past already? Everyone gets mad when a mfg rep signs up every dealer in an area for an electronics line because then it comes down to who is willing to discount the most. Nobody wins but the client over the inevitable price war. Why is it different for furniture?

We are a Fortress dealer and on many occasions when we have bid out chairs for theaters, the ID on the project will call fortress trying to become a dealer for that one job because the owner loves fortress but the ID cannot get them. The ID usually has no intention of consistent repeat business. Because everything is made to order at Fortress, if two quote requests come in for the same configuration from the same geographic area it's probably not a coincidence. Fortress will call us to let us know what is happening, not once though have they ever given us a discount to pass on to the client to get the sale. I think the "manufacturer discount" is BS and the competitor is discounting it himself to gain the sale.

Everyone is always complaining about how manufacturers whore out the lines and create situations where nobody makes margin but Fortress from what little information we have in this situation has done just the opposite.

Flame on.