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Got an email yesterday.
It was pretty normal. Someone asked about our product and wondered if we had resellers in South Africa. We are on the east coast of North America.
I said that we do and gave him the name of the two resellers that buy the most from us and also provide good customer service. Told them where each was located and gave links to their web sites.
Then the guy asked me if the resellers were exclusive or if we sold direct to the public.
I said that we do sell directly and provide support to the public but I recommend he use either reseller as they can provide service/support in the local time zone and in languages other than English. We'll provide support to any legal regardless of where it was purchased but resellers generally only support licenses they've sold.
He wanted a quote anyway so I quoted the full retail price. That's standard procedure. We won't undercut our resellers by quoting less that our suggested retail price.
That's when he mentioned he planned to resell the license and asked what his margin was going to be.
Shit. I checked his emails again to see if I missed something. Nope. He never mentioned reselling it. He posed as an end user looking for a reseller to find out who his competition was when he was planning to resell it himself. Or maybe he was an end user hoping to find out how much our resellers pay.
Nevertheless he was now acting as if he *was* a reseller and was entitled to the reseller discount.
Was he thick? Did he somehow think I'd overlook the fact that he hadn't actually ASKED about becoming a reseller? Or filled out an application?
Or was he slick? Perhaps he thought that he'd tricked his way into becoming a reseller by asking the right questions in the right order? Or perhaps he was an end user and thought he'd be able to trick me into revealing the margin we give our resellers?
No way to tell, but I decided to play a little thick myself. I gave him the quote again and innocently
provided a link to our public price list so he could stumble upon the fact that the price I'd given him was the retail price.
I hoped he'd put two and two together and realize the jig was up.
It didn't quite work out.
I got this email back:
"Excuse me. The price you gave US$xxx is what's on your WEB SITE! I asked for MY price so I can know what my margin is."
Oh, dear. Thick and Slick didn't work so he was going for Prick. I just wrote apologizing that I didn't realize he wanted to apply to become a reseller. Unfortunately we weren't accepting applications for more resellers in South Africa at this time.
I even tried to sound regretful.
Haven't heard back from him.
Huh.
It was pretty normal. Someone asked about our product and wondered if we had resellers in South Africa. We are on the east coast of North America.
I said that we do and gave him the name of the two resellers that buy the most from us and also provide good customer service. Told them where each was located and gave links to their web sites.
Then the guy asked me if the resellers were exclusive or if we sold direct to the public.
I said that we do sell directly and provide support to the public but I recommend he use either reseller as they can provide service/support in the local time zone and in languages other than English. We'll provide support to any legal regardless of where it was purchased but resellers generally only support licenses they've sold.
He wanted a quote anyway so I quoted the full retail price. That's standard procedure. We won't undercut our resellers by quoting less that our suggested retail price.
That's when he mentioned he planned to resell the license and asked what his margin was going to be.
Shit. I checked his emails again to see if I missed something. Nope. He never mentioned reselling it. He posed as an end user looking for a reseller to find out who his competition was when he was planning to resell it himself. Or maybe he was an end user hoping to find out how much our resellers pay.
Nevertheless he was now acting as if he *was* a reseller and was entitled to the reseller discount.
Was he thick? Did he somehow think I'd overlook the fact that he hadn't actually ASKED about becoming a reseller? Or filled out an application?
Or was he slick? Perhaps he thought that he'd tricked his way into becoming a reseller by asking the right questions in the right order? Or perhaps he was an end user and thought he'd be able to trick me into revealing the margin we give our resellers?
No way to tell, but I decided to play a little thick myself. I gave him the quote again and innocently
provided a link to our public price list so he could stumble upon the fact that the price I'd given him was the retail price.I hoped he'd put two and two together and realize the jig was up.
It didn't quite work out.
I got this email back:
"Excuse me. The price you gave US$xxx is what's on your WEB SITE! I asked for MY price so I can know what my margin is."
Oh, dear. Thick and Slick didn't work so he was going for Prick. I just wrote apologizing that I didn't realize he wanted to apply to become a reseller. Unfortunately we weren't accepting applications for more resellers in South Africa at this time.
I even tried to sound regretful.
Haven't heard back from him.
Huh.
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