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I work for a distributor. We mainly handle whole goods and parts for small engines, but we also handle various other smaller product lines and some aftermarket stuff as well.
Our position in the market is pretty simple: Company A wants to sell Product B in Country C where they do not have a presence of their own. Rather than spend boatloads of time and money to set up manufacturing plants and distribution centers and build dealer networks themselves, it is much faster and more cost effective to use an existing distributor who already has a large and well established customer base to sell to. That's where we come in. Company A sells their products to us, we sell their products to dealers, and the dealers in turn sell those products to the customer. We are the middle man, and as much as people like to gripe about our existence inflating the costs of things, our link in the chain of product custody does provide an essential step for companies to quickly get their stuff around the globe without having to lay out tons of money to do so.
As such, our clientèle are almost exclusively dealers -- the stores you'd buy stuff from. We do get calls from end users looking to get parts, but we instead refer them to a dealer. Most people are perfectly fine with this -- in fact, they usually prefer it for being much more convenient to go to a dealer in their own city instead of having to deal with us, where we may be a considerable distance from the customer. We have a map program within which we have set up the locations and information of every dealer we have across the country, so we can find the closest one to the customer very quickly just by entering their city or postal code.
There are some, however, who are not fine with it. They just can't accept that we can't sell to them. Some even go so far as to assert that I'm lying to them when I say that we can't sell to the public. Technically, I can sell to the public at my discretion, such as when a customer is located in some ridiculously remote area where there isn't a dealer that sells what they want for hundreds of miles in any direction. We're okay with that because then we're not really taking business away from any dealers because there aren't any dealers within a reasonable enough distance to take business away from. But for all other cases, as a matter of policy, we do not sell to the public because, after all, if we sold to every customer that asked, dealers would have no reason to buy from us because we can sell to customers cheaper than they can. This is not a very good business model.
As you've probably guessed from the mere fact that I'm posting this here, I got one of these latter-type SCs today. The conversation went like this:
Me: "Mindfield speaking, how can I help you?"
Him: "Yeah, I need a shortblock for my <brand> engine model <model #>."
M: "Okay, I can certainly locate a dealer close to you."
H: "I want to pick it up from you."
M: "I'm sorry, but we can't do that. We don't sell to the public."
H: "Well why not?"
M: "Because we are a distributor. We only sell to dealers."
H: "Well that's a hell of a way to run a business."
M: "That's the way all distributors work."
H: "No it's not."
M: <smacking forehead> "Actually, yes it is. Distributors sell to dealers, and dealers sell to customers like you."
H: "You can just sell directly to me."
M: "Um, no, we can't. We would be selling out from under our dealers. If our dealers knew that they wouldn't buy from us."
H: "You don't have to advertise it to them."
M: "It's company policy. We work on an account holder basis only. You must have a dealer account with us to buy from us."
H: "Fine. Bye."
Obviously I'm just the idiot answering the phone, which I've been doing for over two years, so what the hell would I know about how this place works?
I am lucky in that, because end users aren't our customers (not directly, anyway) we don't have to be nice and agree to everything they say or request. I can't be outright rude or tell them off, but neither do I have no put up with asshattery. It's not like we would lose business anyway; the customer needs what the customer needs, and they have to get it from a dealer, who has to get it from us, so we get the sale either way.
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Bonus Snerk
Not an SC by any means, just an amusing, poorly-phrased question in which a woman calls up and asks, "Hi, I'm looking for parts for my husband." I responded, "Um, I think you may have called the wrong sort of parts place." A good chuckle was had.
Our position in the market is pretty simple: Company A wants to sell Product B in Country C where they do not have a presence of their own. Rather than spend boatloads of time and money to set up manufacturing plants and distribution centers and build dealer networks themselves, it is much faster and more cost effective to use an existing distributor who already has a large and well established customer base to sell to. That's where we come in. Company A sells their products to us, we sell their products to dealers, and the dealers in turn sell those products to the customer. We are the middle man, and as much as people like to gripe about our existence inflating the costs of things, our link in the chain of product custody does provide an essential step for companies to quickly get their stuff around the globe without having to lay out tons of money to do so.
As such, our clientèle are almost exclusively dealers -- the stores you'd buy stuff from. We do get calls from end users looking to get parts, but we instead refer them to a dealer. Most people are perfectly fine with this -- in fact, they usually prefer it for being much more convenient to go to a dealer in their own city instead of having to deal with us, where we may be a considerable distance from the customer. We have a map program within which we have set up the locations and information of every dealer we have across the country, so we can find the closest one to the customer very quickly just by entering their city or postal code.
There are some, however, who are not fine with it. They just can't accept that we can't sell to them. Some even go so far as to assert that I'm lying to them when I say that we can't sell to the public. Technically, I can sell to the public at my discretion, such as when a customer is located in some ridiculously remote area where there isn't a dealer that sells what they want for hundreds of miles in any direction. We're okay with that because then we're not really taking business away from any dealers because there aren't any dealers within a reasonable enough distance to take business away from. But for all other cases, as a matter of policy, we do not sell to the public because, after all, if we sold to every customer that asked, dealers would have no reason to buy from us because we can sell to customers cheaper than they can. This is not a very good business model.
As you've probably guessed from the mere fact that I'm posting this here, I got one of these latter-type SCs today. The conversation went like this:
Me: "Mindfield speaking, how can I help you?"
Him: "Yeah, I need a shortblock for my <brand> engine model <model #>."
M: "Okay, I can certainly locate a dealer close to you."
H: "I want to pick it up from you."
M: "I'm sorry, but we can't do that. We don't sell to the public."
H: "Well why not?"
M: "Because we are a distributor. We only sell to dealers."
H: "Well that's a hell of a way to run a business."
M: "That's the way all distributors work."
H: "No it's not."
M: <smacking forehead> "Actually, yes it is. Distributors sell to dealers, and dealers sell to customers like you."
H: "You can just sell directly to me."
M: "Um, no, we can't. We would be selling out from under our dealers. If our dealers knew that they wouldn't buy from us."
H: "You don't have to advertise it to them."
M: "It's company policy. We work on an account holder basis only. You must have a dealer account with us to buy from us."
H: "Fine. Bye."
Obviously I'm just the idiot answering the phone, which I've been doing for over two years, so what the hell would I know about how this place works?
I am lucky in that, because end users aren't our customers (not directly, anyway) we don't have to be nice and agree to everything they say or request. I can't be outright rude or tell them off, but neither do I have no put up with asshattery. It's not like we would lose business anyway; the customer needs what the customer needs, and they have to get it from a dealer, who has to get it from us, so we get the sale either way.
----
Bonus Snerk
Not an SC by any means, just an amusing, poorly-phrased question in which a woman calls up and asks, "Hi, I'm looking for parts for my husband." I responded, "Um, I think you may have called the wrong sort of parts place." A good chuckle was had.
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