Thisis a good thread with some good experience, good stuff about dealers too. I think well of the way some dealers did in the past. I could go in and point to it and know he would price it right, back in the day there were not the options, there were local business with large orders that went out of town but the local Linc dealer was a hands on vendor, he ran a pretty tidy ship, I wasnt always a pooster child of a customer but once I got going I bought a quite a bit of stuff, had companies I worked for shop with him. He was good on gas prices and grinding wheels, actually sold a huge amount of stuff that most people never saw to industry and the pricing structure followed over at the store for the most part.
When this business sold it was gobbled up, you got to price every item, this is from guys that worked here back in the day still there. I can tell when people are doddering off, I love to get an older salesman that asks me more than,,, is that it, can figure out I need to browes a minute, I make it a point to work with them when they are not screaming busy but I went to outfit a while back, I was passing thru at the end of the day 4 or so swing in with my full service truck and salesman, was the head outside account dude is doddering off shooting the bs, he was stupid for not stopping what t F he was doing and made effort to say hi, nice truck, heavy duty. If I didnt want to be bothered ok, but I would have had a cup of coffee for the man flat out, my job is to sell etcha.
That salesman wasted all his plants effort and the counter man didnt help, I could have bought at Lowes a few minutes later easier and cheaper. Some dealers do not deal with walk in customers so well, they miss it. They need to get enough stock and list the pricing instead of tier sales games, I will agree ther is not room in margins on machine sales.
A company that should be in welding sales is Tractor Supply. It should have a division like JC Penny is doing, the store idea is a great niche but its not personel but their manegement *****. Their execution *****. Its pitiful, their niche saves them by the short hairs.
Maybe I could be wrong, maybe someone figured out it is really easier to let things flow along and do ok vs getting real involved and take a chance on messing something up? There is something to be said for things are going ok and we got it pretty easy but other farm stores open bu8t one of them should spring right up with a welding division with Hobart as a feature right on the front of the store in the space next to the TSC sign. On the other side should say Carhart. There is a lot of money in the other stuff but the infrastructure is in placeto make welding a real draw at fairly low cost compared to opening a welding store on its own. They need a trained staff specialist, video kiosk etc. I see some stores stocked with the preference to some part timers "favorite" rod.
The list is long there ha. I love how Lowes and HD work, no game, price is right there and on line, beautiful for treated lumber shopping, always specials, bought some I had to cut off cheaper ha. For the home types not worth the effort to sourcemuch of anything elsewhere, buy a breaker or 10, not have to go to each dealer, shopping used to be painful, pitiful, local business gouged lot of stuff. Paid some outragous price for a laundry tub back in the day, had to order it, now 15 dollars, they got a whole stack.
No one is getting screwed on a Kobalt wrench, there is some marginal differences in product pricing between the big 3 but not at extreme margins on "commodity" items, even big electric contractors buy lots of wire from Home Depot, dont have to stock, ship etc.
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