There is no such thing as free money. Ever. someone is losing

That is a simple adage and in the simplest circumstances it is true. In fact, though, it isn't necessarily true.

A customer might receive "free money," money for which they do not have to deliver anything in return. A vendor could choose to offer that with no strings. Though the vendor might have a hope of making money on that act, there need not be any conditions for the customer to receive the money. Free money.

But this would very likely be the result of a choice on the part of the vendor to promote their products by giving discounts (which would be the part that might be called a loss) in hopes and expectation of a future increase in business. Even if the vendor does not get new or more sales as a result of this act, it is not a loss if the vendor chose to do it. It IS indeed a cost, but because it's voluntary, it's not a loss. And it would not be accurate to call this a loss unless you're ready to say all business costs are losses.

I posted and now just waiting for Josh to chime in.

I was going to leave this alone and not complain, because for the most part I'm fine with the new policies. But I've been trying to get a proposal done this morning, and the glitches, timeouts, object not referenced, and just slow as molasses response from the website is killing me. I'm on a deadline, here, and Portal is moving at speeds that my 82 year old grandmother would laugh at.

Thanks for your patience as I finally got some time to respond.

Before I provide finer details, let me begin by letting everyone know that you will not be losing your rewards. You will be paid, so don’t worry about that! It's true we are a couple months behind, which we regret. Here’s what’s going on...

First, let me recap for you a brief history on our unique rewards program. Portal is comprised of mostly ex-dealers, so we are all familiar with the typical rebate and incentive programs that have existed for years in our industry. Two years ago, when we decided to launch an incentive program to drive web ordering, we had an opportunity to start from scratch and do things differently. We asked dealers what they liked and didn’t like about existing industry programs. A big complaint we got was that rebate checks came to their office and got sucked up into their business account. We thought it would be pretty great if we could carve off a small piece of the incentive programs and reward individuals rather than just the company. In other words, a rewards program that let dealers use their rewards any way they chose.

We also wanted the cash to be top-of-mind and easily accessible, in dealers pockets (rather than in the form of a company check or account credit) so we figured out how to put it all on personalized reloadable Visa cards. Great idea, right? Now, who’s going to pay for it? We figured the suppliers would pay for it, since they are getting the orders and they fund rebate programs now. And why would they want to pay for it? Because they want to be easier to do business with on the web, and we believed they’d be willing to carve out a small percentage for that rebate on each transaction. Suppliers thought the concept was interesting, but they weren’t sure how dealers would react to it. Before they’d support it, they wanted us to come back when we proved that it works. So with the support of our investors, we decided to raise the funds to pay for the program ourselves and prove it out. We believed strongly that dealers would want to be paid this way, and it turns out we were right. Over the past year, we accomplished what we set out to prove, and we now have suppliers committed to funding the program across almost every product category.

The challenge has been getting everyone aligned to make the cutover from portal funding to industry funded. We've spent several million dollars of our funding to cover the rebate thus far. The transition period has dragged on a few months longer than we had expected, and we ran over budget. The good news is that we are back on track now, and will resume payouts (starting with June) next week. We hate this delay more than you do but are proud to have fought hard to bring this rebate program to the industry and gain the support to sustain it for years to come.

Hey Josh,

A couple of things while I have you here.

Please tell me how I/we are supposed to get Portal dollars and free proposals if your ordering system doesn't work? Yesterday, I put in a $2000+ Control4 order. I followed all the directions, created a csv file and it would not upload into the Control4 cart. Control4 confirms that there is a problem. So, in the end, I had to order directly on the Control4 website. Does this mean I have lost over $2000 in Portal points, or will you honor this amount?

In addition, when are you going to increase the font and photo sizes in proposals?

Did multiple Control 4 orders yesterday. Worked fine.

So I am 3 out of 3.

1. Control4 - can't load my csv file.

2. Houselogix - a division of SnapAV will not work with Portal.

3. ADI - Interlogix shows available on Portal. Not available through ADI.

Portal continues to disappoint.

Hey, Dawn, someone on our Dealer Happiness team is going to reach out to you directly. I'm not sure these questions provide value to the other folks in this thread. Also, if you need to message me directly you can email me: josh [at] portal [dot] io. That goes for anyone here.

Sorry to hear you had trouble with Control4's import tool. They built the import tool on their site to match our flat file format. I've heard other dealers who it works fine for. You'll get credit for the order as long as it's built in Portal, too, which it sounds like you already did. You should still submit it from Portal. We're working with Control4 to make the import easier, but it's not quite ready.

Still waiting to hear from someone Josh.

Maybe a Dealer Unhappiness Team Member could help at this point.

Sorry, Dawn. I passed this along to the DH team. You'll get a call today.

Oh man....... I'm so on edge waiting to see if it actually happens!!

I'm sure it will, man. The people are at Portal have been nothing but great, imo. Like most companies, they have some opportunities but customer service is not one of those.

I agree - they have always been extremely responsive and helpful with any issues or questions I have. Their chat support has been first rate as well.