I do not have a problem with the internet when it comes to education. What I have a problem with is when you get a guy who buys a remote and sells it for a dollar or two above cost on the net. Or the guy who surfs the net and come to my store and want me to match his internet pricing. Guy like these make it hard to do business. This is why we have had to change the way we do business.

Every time we did a line by line estimate we would be shopped. On our estatmates we describe the products that they will get (no model numbers and no pricing) and a total. When they pay they will get model numbers and a total.

We do have a web site but we do not place pricing on it. We only give info about our company and product info. Most of the products we carry have rules about selling on the internet. But for some reason there are people out there who feel it is ok to break these rules, and for some reason there are companies that make these rules, brag about their strict rules, but fail to inforce their rules.

Lee Kropp

That's the great thing about B&W/Rotel. Any trans-shipping and the company is cut. Doesn't matter if they are the biggest resaler or smallest, they're gone.

We just went to a new proposal system, no line item pricing. Like Lee said, it's the only way to go. People get hung up on pricing of items, and forget to look at the whole picture. The less they get to think about the better.

As a consumer, I would never knowingly deal with a business that deliberately lies to me.

You can argue all you want about why you (think you) have to lie, but I consider it unethical. Just like in a court, if you lie about one thing, anything else you say is suspect.

Well said!

Craig

Damon,
After programming my own personal MX-3000 I have a great deal of respect for you and the services that you offer, as well as your pricing. More than a fair fee I think. Especially since I learned allot from your posts here on the forums.

I can say that after over 30 hours programming my own and I loved almost every minute of it. If I had not been off work recovering from an operation I would still be tweaking and programming my remote that I got for X-mas LOL. The initial quotes I was given locally were $50 per device and $35 to $50 per macro. custom graphics were hourly at $50 per hour. I knew nothing about templates so I never got a quote on one. But as you can see you are literally half the price and you also spent time to help people here. Great guy in my book! URC should find a way to reward their good dealers. I think one way to accomplish this is to showcase individual dealers and their work on the URC site. Possibly offer them short term special pricing. Like a URC dealer of the quarter award. Just a thought.

Ken

I am bailing on them as well. 150+ remotes a year. They dont care

I can see both sides of the argument. As a customer, though, I have to defend the right of consumers to get the most for their money. Gone are the days when distribution avenues were limited to whatever you could find locally. In a global economy when any Joe can get online and find alternate sources, price comparison is a reality. Now, warranty issues are certainly valid and customers must take that into consideration when they want to source through unauthorized channels. There is room for compromise and I think it's in a dealer's best interest to negotiate. There's little sense in trying to deal with a customer who wants everything at rock bottom prices as they will probably be more of a headache in the long run anyways.

Installers have the right to refuse installation of materials they themselves have not provided. I'd say that's a better stance to take that really isn't any tougher than not providing a line item quote. I say that because, like others here have mentioned, I would never do business with a dealer who refused to give me one. I want to know where the money's going before I give the ok on a job. I'm willing to pay the full cost for labor install rates, but I'm going to at least want to haggle about equipment pricing. I don't expect eBay prices, but I'm not paying MSRP either. There's a middle ground that can be found with reasonable customers.

Manufacturers certainly bear a lot of the burden as well. As noted here, they often don't protect their dealers. From a customer standpoint, I've also seen the opposite where they go too far in protecting dealers. This seems to be the general rule with high end HT. Only a certain number of authorized dealers, usually very limited, and no out of area "internet" sales. Now, I understand the basis of the policy. High end sales usually requires a lot of customer handholding, education, etc. You don't want a local guy putting in all kinds of time with a customer and then have him go online and buy it somewhere else for a lot less. But when there's no or very little competition, the customer is at a severe disadvantage.

Then you have situations where customers know what they want and are just looking for a dealer to buy it from. That describes just about every HT purchase I make. If there's only one dealer in my area and that dealer doesn't sell below MSRP (you wouldn't believe how many guys like that I've come across over the years), according to the manufacturer I'm stuck unless I want to physically travel to see someone else (since they sure as heck can't stop you from doing just that). It's stupid. Thankfully, there's usually another dealer out there who's willing to do business on the sly, but it's seems silly to have to be secretive about stuff like that.

Jeff

Consider this.......

Work for a few weeks(or years) with NO paycheck!

I don't have a problem with DIYer's.

The software being public doesn't really bother me.

If your an avid enthusiest and want to take on the programing, go for it!

Personally, I enjoy it.

If you get the same satisfaction as me, I don't want to stop you!

My problem is that in order to stay in business, you have to make this nasty thing called profit!

'Online shoppers' want everything below a dealers cost.

I can't say I blame you!

Just don't ask me for advice!

The Home Theater Master line started out as an 'installer' line.

We helped work the bugs out(at our own cost in wasted labor!)
Made the product what it is with our ability's, and suddenly got a huge knife in the back!

I wonder why we would be upset!?

As far as I'm concerned, this dead dog isn't worth beating anymore.

If you need help programing, I'm sure it will be on late night tv soon!
Right after the guy that couldn't make any money buying and selling realestate, so he decided to sell you a 'package' that will sureley make you a millionaire!

I have no problem with your making a resonable profit on sales. However, it appears as tho the markup on URC products is close to 100%, which exceeds a "reasonable profit" in my estimation. Perhaps you should sell the remotes at some markup over your cost and then charge separately for the programming. I would be willing to buy such a remote from you and pay a reasonable amount to get the warranty, but the current reality is that dealer warrantied remotes are there for 50% of MSRP. As somewon said in another related discussion - the URC warranty on an MX-850 isn't worth $250.

The MSRP assumes some programming support. I view this as a hobby and enjoy learning how to program the remote myself. Tweeter sells for MSRP and then charges for programming on top of that - I can't see how they will sell many. Why should I have to pay for a service I neither want nor need?

Perhaps you would have URC follow the Totem Speaker approach. Single dealers with limited territories, no out of territory sales or you will lose the franchise, dealers prohibited from ordering replacement parts, etc. To me this smacks of "restraint of trade" which, in many cases, has been ruled illegal.

Seems to me that what you are really selling is your expertise in designing and setting up HT systems. You can also expect to make a reasonable profit on selling the equipment, particularly if you have to stock it - but the restrictive marketing practices of the past probably don't work very well in today's global market. Protect your sales by refusing to install customer-supplied equipment, and be honest with your customers about why you will not make such installations. At the same time, you will lose some sales to those of us who feel that MSRP is often very inflated - but then we are on our own, which is just how we would like it.

Just my $.02 worth.

Craig

The people we are talking about are the one who want all of our info on how to do a home theater right. What products to buy, where the speaker go, what type of screen to use for my projector.

I had a guy come in and tell me he was in the market for a projector that I had on display. After 5 minutes he tell me the reason he wants this projector is he can get it on ebay. He then asks me if he is getting a good deal and asking about will Sim2 warranty the projector, can he just paint the wall, can he take the projector out side for pool parties. So after wasting my time I tell him it's a great deal, warranties not an issue, hell glossy white is great (Why would you pay $2000.00 for a Steward screen when a 10 gallon can of white paint work) And yes I have customer that take their $10,000 Sim2 HT300 out to their pool all for the time, just make sure it's someone sober (Sim2 warranty won't cover water damage.

So tell me is it any more ethical to come into a place of business and pump me for info and waste my time, while you know full well your not going to buy from me. Why should I give you all of my years of knowledge and my time so you can buy from a hack. So do I care if this guy get screwed? The answer is no.

If you are going to buy on the internet educate your self on the internet. I just bought a GPS system for my trucks laptop on the internet, but I did not go to ebay, or waste my local compute guys time. I did my own research and went direct to TOM TOM.

that my two cent rant, on to happier thing.

Lee Kropp

The reason retailer pick certain product lines is because of high profit margins. Who are you as a consumer to tell me what I should make in profit. Most consumer and employees don't realize what it takes to run a business. They don't think about rent, utilities, insurance, payrole, gasoline, phone bill, advertizing, web site hosting etc, etc. I personally have over $300,000 in display of my own money for my customers to see, touch, and hear. My customers and employees all seem to think that all of this just magicly appeared one day. So as a retailer I do get upset when a customer tell me what I should make in profit. That is why we retailers look for protected lines, and then get upset when some hack or a salesman who buys on salesmen accomadition, sell on the internet.

So if URC is doing their job, you as a customer should not know my cost or my profit margin. Last time I checked (just now) all my price books read CONFIDENTIAL PRODUCT AND PRICING GUUIDE. If URC wishes to do business like this leave the retailer out and sell factory direct.

Craig

There is a price that is designed to cover the cost of doing business and make a reasonable profit. It's called Manufacturers suggested resale price. They have done a lot of study and understand what margins a legitimate business needs to make on average on every product they sell. Some companies work on lower margins on some products( promos, closeouts) but they make it back on other high profit items(cables, warranties) and volume. Even Sams and Costco have a(not so) hidden cost of membership to bring profit margins up. People that don't follow standard pricing practices will eventually go out of business selling at or close to cost .
The biggest downside to this practice is that the best dealers like Mike and Damon will be driven away from the product and the best feedback will go away and the product will die.
I've seen it happen to so many companies ...it's just sad.

I am a custom installer.

If someone wants to go on the internet and buy a remote I can't blame them. The average consumer does not realize that their remote is much more complicated than their toothbrush. Chances are they are going to need support eventually and when they realize that they come to us - custom installers. The way I handle that is to give them all the support they want but at a higher rate then if they had bought the remote from me.

I had a customer buy a whole truck load of equipment off of the web. He made up for his bargain shopping by paying me a higher rate to install it for him. And that's fine with me because the profit margin on labor is good, plus, if he needs additional support down the road for his products he will pay me extra because I didn't sell them to him.

I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't be frustrated with URC about this. I understand that. But we live in America - the land of consumerism. We have to accept that there is a demand for online bargains and as long as people are willing to shop that way, someone is going to find a way to sell them what they want. Or maybe it's the other way around? Either way, we can take the high road on this. I have helped out customers that I knew were not going to buy from me. Some of those customers came to realize the value of buying from someone who could provide them with unbeatable support and they are now faithful customers. Others took my advice and went straight to CC.

So there are my ramblings.

Sean P.

I can hold out some more, but it is frustrating. I've got the same problem with Yamaha.

I recall several years ago the day myself and 4000 other dealers were axxed as DirecTV dealers. They even stole our monthly residuals. The CI's built that company and gave it credibility. Now they masquerade as a legitimate business. Now the only guys that install for them show up smelling like last night's beer leaving gaping holes in the walls, leaking roofs and destroying our systems.

There are definately more differences than similarities with their business models but the end results are both undesireable. I'm hoping things will work out. There are some good people at URC I've been able to count on when I've needed support.

Steve, funny you mention that about DirecTV, about a week and a half ago I had a sales guy/Installer from Directv stop by the house and drop off a sales flyer..usually do this a few times a year in our neighborhood..I answered the door and he started his pitch..I cut him short as there is no way I would ever lry this guy in my house let alone work on my stuff...Guy was dressed poor and smelled bad..long hair, hat and sunglasses...was dark and raining that day

Any how I said I was a Custom electronics dealer and could buy my own stuff as well as install it, he started his pitch again on how it was free and he could hide the wires from street view, i explained my house was prewired for sat already just needed equipment...guy was persistant....but eventually left...only to return a few minutes later asking to borrow somw tools to get his truck running...mid 80's beatup chevy truck...ask what he needed and his reply was a cresent wrench and a hammer....I asked him since he was an installeer why he didnt have his own hammer...his reply was him and his buddy shared a tool bag and his buddy has the tools today while he did sales calls

I know this was off topic but kinda shows where your company can go if you dont keep an eye on it and keep the reigns a little taught