Just thought you all should be aware. I was shocked to find a new cable product with a extremely low price. WOW I thought I was finally going to make some margin on pre-wire against the electrician. Come to find out that the ProConnect Cable was owned 60% by AVAD. I Charge 35 cents a foot for CAT 6 and 15 cents a foot for CAT5e and now I could charge 15 cents for CAT6 and 7 cents a foot for CAT5e. I called my goto cable company and they said there cost just went up on all copper. How the hell are all the other companies having to pay more. Well then I found out it was a AVAD owned company and I relized that they were trying to by the market. Not a bad plan from a business standpoint.
Here is the problem I see. They will sell to any one with a business licence, so that means that the electrical contractor will find out the new brand and start selling it with 5 points and now not only wont you make money on the cable that seemed like the answer to all your profit issues, but it has now eroded the entire f---ing industry. They dont understand that the builder is looking for the best price on a production plat and does not have too much loalty if he can save a buck.
To sum up my feeling on AVAD. I believe that they are interested in total profit for themselves and dont care what we need to stay in business and provide our clients with top notch service. They want you to sell there cable because you can make so much more profit (UNTIL THE ELECTRICIAN STARTS SELLING IT AT 5 PERCENT), they want you to support 7 lines that are whored out on the internet and anyone can get thru distribution, SO TOU CAN MAKE 5% ON THE PRODUCTS. LAST BUT NOT LEAST, THEY WANT YOU TO PAY 2500.00 DOWN AND ONLY 1000.00 A YEAR TO COMPETE AGAINST YOURSELF. I HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR 16 YEARS AND HAVE NEVER FELT THIS STRONGLY ABOUT ANY OTHER ISSUE. UNDERSTAND THIS IS NOT MY MAIN TYPE OF CLIENT. BUT MARK MY WORDS THAT IF YOU START SUPPORTING THIS TYPE OF S--T IT WILL AFFECT EVEN THE CUSTOM BUILDER MARKET. Look at the plasma display that were once profitable.

uhh ohhh....here we go again

AND JUSTIFIABLY SO!

I do know however that the AVAD in our area is at least somewhat selective...they only let MOST people with a resellers license purchase...

since I can buy 90% of AVAD products from other suppliers at 30% less, on average, I do!

AVAD's attempt to take over the distribution market has met with marginal success...and will ultimately cause their demise.

Case and point...Philips pronto proNG is $150 less from other suppliers

avdude

or a pulse!

Avdud, if you don't mind me asking you, who has them for that much less?

Lonny

I ran into a client that called for a control system to control all the plasmas and other gear he bought direct from AVAD. This is an end user! If you have a pulse and enough cash you can get anything from anybody. Just a fact of life in the USA.

I used to be somewhat dependent upon AVAD for my A/V material. But, for the past 3 months I've sought-out other distributors who carry the same products I was using. In some cases, I went direct with the mfg. The majority of the time, my costs went up slightly. But, I'm OK with that, as long as I'm not giving AVAD the biz. AVAD's customer suppport was horrible, internal communication sucked, and the elitist attitude was just too much.

Hey avdude,

I've got the same question as Lonny.

Where are you getting your pronto's????
e-mail me [email protected]

Hey guys,

Lonny, I hope that was a slip of the fingers (avdud)

No need for secret e-mails!

Call CineLight, in Washington State. 1-800-790-9205

My rep used to be Aaron, now it's Brian.

3000's are $31.00 cheaper
6000's (what's left of em) $101 cheaper
7000's are $126 cheaper
I-Pronto are $163 cheaper


avdude

Thanks for the info "AVDUDE"
As far as the spelling from last night "Avdud", i guess it was just the belvider.

LOnny

Post broken into several parts as Remote Central will never accept a large post from me:

"Buy the market". Sorry, but GIVE ME A BREAK. AVAD is a spec of sand on the beach as far as the wire & cable market goes. Ever hear of Anixter? Or one of any other number of cable & wire distributors that could buy AVAD 100 times over?

I’ve been reading these types of whining rants here it seems almost daily and I usually don’t respond, as it’s obvious I’m the odd man out. But since I can see this is going to turn into yet another whine fest, gloves are off.

We are in business to compete. Deal with it. Try to find a business, ANY business where there isn’t someone willing to undercut your prices. Electricians deal with it every day. Builders deal with it. Car dealers deal with it. Huge billion dollar companies deal with it. It’s the damn nature of capitalism. GET OVER IT! Quit whining and complaining about it and spend all your time figuring out how to overcome it and how to kick your competitors ass. And it’s even possible you can’t (kick your competitors ass). For instance, if you are focusing on builder pre-wires, there may very well come a day where you can’t compete with the electrician. In which case, you kick your competitors’ ass by figuring out what IS profitable and changing your business model and focusing on what you can make money on. This is why I have never had the slightest interest in doing pre-wires for builders. Most builders are counting pennies and it’s a complete waste of time to work with them if you want to charge a decent wage.

This message was edited by QQQ on 02/28/04 16:23.

Take the case of plasma displays. How long did you think they would remain specialized items selling for 25K? Anyone with an iota of business sense could see that one day the gravy train was going to end and they would become commodities like everything else.

AVAD has NEVER had low prices on wire & cables. If AVAD caused you to drop your prices on cable by half, it only indicates how poorly you have done your research. I also found this statement interesting:

Why would you cut your price in half just because you got a lower price? I assume you either like to give money away OR are doing exactly what you are complaining about, which is dropping your prices to better compete. Except when someone else does it against you, it obviously makes you angry.
Then this statement jumped out at me:

If you think that you’re are going to find a magic specially priced cable that is going to be the answer to your profit issue, you are sorely deluding yourself.

You guys can think I’m an asshole but all I can tell you is that when I started focusing all my efforts on *what I could do* to IMPROVE my business, instead of focusing negative energy on the fact that there is some hack around every corner willing to undercut me, I was able to use my energy much more effectively.