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Do you care if your suppliers become your competitors?

Z SIGNS

Z SIGNS

Active Member
Don't worry about the competition.

Hone your craft,be unique,find your niche and offer a high level of service
that no one around you can compete with and you will have no worries.

I don't care about newbies,hacks or
the kind of customers that don't understand the difference.

The threat of competition is only a problem if your are no
different than than the guy around the corner who has the same machines.
 
phototec

phototec

New Member
Z SIGNS said:
Don't worry about the competition.

Hone your craft,be unique,find your niche and offer a high level of service
that no one around you can compete with and you will have no worries.

I don't care about newbies,hacks or
the kind of customers that don't understand the difference.

The threat of competition is only a problem if your are no
different than than the guy around the corner who has the same machines.
Click to expand...

I think you missed the point, being your supplier who sells supplies to you, is NOW competing against you and they have an advantage of purchasing the same materials for wholesale, so right off the bat they have an unfair advantage in cost of goods.

So, I say DON'T use them any longer, regardless if they are good or bad, and you are different, don't feed the COMPETITION!


:omg:
 
visual800

visual800

Active Member
I think it is unethical and selfish. If you say your going to sell to sign professionals do just that.

Gemini has been selling to contractors and architects for years, that is what pi$$es me off, when I am bidding on a large job and the contractor and architect can order their own lettering, that sucks and has happened on more than 1 occasion. The advatange I have over that is the architects and contractors are ignorant as to what will and what will not work and look good. They usually put brown letters on brown bruck and the latest fiasco was a contractor that placed 1/4" flat cut metal, black with studs about 3" from the wall....do you know how this looks when the sun hits it and it casts a shadow? yep you cant read it.

Fellers and Grimco and all those type suppliers dont bother me as much. We do specialty stuff so I dont think they would be hurting me The Gemini thing sucks
 
Marlene

Marlene

New Member
yes I care. we try to buy as local as we can and had an in state vendor for 3M vinyl. they also did wide format printing to the trade. then they started selling to the public. good luck bidding against the people who are your suppliers as they always will get the bid due to the cost. dumped them as a supplier
 
SignManiac

SignManiac

New Member
As long as you're selling a commodity, anyone can come along and find a way to sell what you sell. Even if they have access to cheaper material than you can buy it for. If anyone wants job security then they have to make and sell something that others can't produce. Ethical or not, America is built on capitalism and everybody wants to make money. Even your suppliers. There are no laws that say they can't sell to whomever they want to. If you and thousands of others don't like it, stop buying material from these suppliers. That would put their supply side out of business. And if their sign making side isn't up to par with others, that side of their business will soon go under too.
 
Joe Diaz

Joe Diaz

New Member
I'm not too worried about it if they do. I doubt they would run us out of business. That being said, I'm not going to continue doing business with them if they decide to compete.
 
F

FS-Keith

New Member
My thought on this matter is. Unless you have multiple routers and you have them for the extra work that comes along with wholesale routing then that's fine with being pissed about it. If you have only one machine and are mad that a supplier is simply offering another service for his customers, and in turn it doesn't allow you to keep your 1 machine busy then the problem is with you not selling enough of your own signs to keep that machine running.
 
CES020

CES020

New Member
FS-Keith said:
My thought on this matter is. Unless you have multiple routers and you have them for the extra work that comes along with wholesale routing then that's fine with being pissed about it. If you have only one machine and are mad that a supplier is simply offering another service for his customers, and in turn it doesn't allow you to keep your 1 machine busy then the problem is with you not selling enough of your own signs to keep that machine running.
Click to expand...

Has nothing to do with that at all, it's about principle and people crossing a line I think should exist and that's the ability to not have your suppliers undercut you because they have the advantage of having material costs substantially lower than you do, since they sell you the materials.

We just chose not to buy materials from them any longer on principle.
 
WYLDGFI

WYLDGFI

Merchant Member
CES020 said:
Has nothing to do with that at all, it's about principle and people crossing a line I think should exist and that's the ability to not have your suppliers undercut you because they have the advantage of having material costs substantially lower than you do, since they sell you the materials.

We just chose not to buy materials from them any longer on principle.
Click to expand...

What about the "wholesale" companies that provide crazy low cost pricing....with less than ethical standards of selling directly to the general public as well....how would you handle that? Ethics are lacking out there is an understatement. Whether they sell material or someone sells prints...there should be some principle to the biz.

My printing costs are lower than the general sign shop with a 60in printer plotter combo...and I can do more volume to boot. If we put up a stupid website "Wholesale to the Public" how would that make everyone feel? Peeved as heck im sure.
 
2B

2B

Active Member
WYLDGFI said:
What about the "wholesale" companies that provide crazy low cost pricing....with less than ethical standards of selling directly to the general public as well....how would you handle that? Ethics are lacking out there is an understatement. Whether they sell material or someone sells prints...there should be some principle to the biz.

My printing costs are lower than the general sign shop with a 60in printer plotter combo...and I can do more volume to boot. If we put up a stupid website "Wholesale to the Public" how would that make everyone feel? Peeved as heck im sure.
Click to expand...

Exactly!

perfect example http://www.b2sign.com/ (no connection to them) is also http://www.flags-banner.com/
Their wholesale only price is a $29 dollar difference for a feather banner with stake. with their retail price DRASTICALLY undercutting the MM here who also offer feather banners.
 
binki

binki

New Member
We avoid wholesale/retail places unless we cannot get what we want from a trade only location or the vendor is far enough away from us to not be competition. We do take care not to reveal customer information though which is tough sometimes as their name, email, phone and website are on their prints....
 
Typestries

Typestries

New Member
WYLDGFI said:
What about the "wholesale" companies that provide crazy low cost pricing....with less than ethical standards of selling directly to the general public as well....how would you handle that? Ethics are lacking out there is an understatement. Whether they sell material or someone sells prints...there should be some principle to the biz.

My printing costs are lower than the general sign shop with a 60in printer plotter combo...and I can do more volume to boot. If we put up a stupid website "Wholesale to the Public" how would that make everyone feel? Peeved as heck im sure.
Click to expand...

2B said:
Exactly!

perfect example http://www.b2sign.com/ (no connection to them) is also http://www.flags-banner.com/
Their wholesale only price is a $29 dollar difference for a feather banner with stake. with their retail price DRASTICALLY undercutting the MM here who also offer feather banners.
Click to expand...

You are both so correct. To be completely honest, we have a retail component to our business. Its less than 20% of our total sales, and is hyper-local. We exist so well synergistically that there are three other shops in town that we print wholesale for, on a regular basis.

That being said, we don't :
• Post our trade prices on the web or elsewhere for the public to see
• have dual websites attempting to sell wholesale and retail on a national level at very similar prices
• sell to our VERY small retail base at wholesale prices. In fact, our small retail sales volume is sold at prices higher than most of our resellers.

My goal is for us to be your partner in production, sharing our knowledge and experience so that we can both make a nice living.
 
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