I've never understood why we don't do this

Even on ebay you can get a discount for higher quantity lol just need to ask.

Elcan said:

but I had though that it was just a fairy tale.

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Nope its real... I also give a discount for my customers and why not? if they come back and you both share the business its a win win

damica1 said:

I tried to do that on this forum once and got "Beat up" bad, because on this forum if you recommend an item/manufacture then this forum thinks you must work for them and you are just promoting your product.

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It would be nice to have a separate part of the site for reviews only and after the review was wrote it would be locked... its one review and one experience not all positive or negative, we come out with aftermarket products all the time and I would love to hear from my customers on how they worked.

I think one issue would be 99% of the people only l tell/talk about a bad experience and dont talk about the positive, I think its just human nature, I send one email to every customer after every purchase asking for feedback but get less than 1% reply.

NetNathan said:

There is a point.....I believe it is $100,000 a year and Automation Direct will give you a better discount.

It is ludicrous to me why so many people do not understand markup on selling components.
What is going to cover the expenses of:
Labor cost of the engineering research to make sure it is the correct part and specify it?
Labor cost of the parts department to order the part?
Labor cost of the receiving department to handle the part when it comes in?
Labor/Material cost of the accounting personnel to handle related paperwork and paying the bill? Plus.... floating the money till they receive payment from the customer, which can range from 30 days to 120 days..

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Exact and all this cost about the same for each sale regardless if it is 1 or 10 units so the return cost per unit get lower when you get more.
You could also mention shipping fee and technical service after you buy the part. Peoples asking how to connect it, how to do x thing with it etc.....Usually peoples buying just 1 have more questions per unit than someone that buy 1000...

Jeff23spl said:

Exact and all this cost about the same for each sale regardless if it is 1 or 10 units so the return cost per unit get lower when you get more.
You could also mention shipping fee and technical service after you buy the part. Peoples asking how to connect it, how to do x thing with it etc.....Usually peoples buying just 1 have more questions per unit than someone that buy 1000...

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I did forget to add the part about the cost of post sales support....

I am hesitant to reply, but here goes.

when buying a new car, you look for the best deal, why not do the same when buying control panels, programming, machinery?

if everyone knew the prices, how would large companies with 100+ employees and a massive building compete with mom and pop shops?

there is more to consider than just parts costs.
Building rental / upkeep, utilities, insurance, quote costs, design, engineering are a given.
what about the time to write tor po's, receive parts and check them in, moving the parts, cleaning the parts for machining, testing, assembly.
there are a lot of hidden things in business operations that small companies don't have versus large companies.

My background for an oem,: electrician, electrical and mechanical designer, programmer, quotations manager, inventory control, purchasing manager, do inventory on machinery before it leaves the plant to verify materials versus quoted materials, installations.

just my 2 cents and I don't want to offend anyone.

james

just my 3 cents:
If you want to buy a phoenix terminal block, you can buy direct on their web site.
If you live in the US, it has to go through a few companies first.
List price you say? What a joke.
How many List price tiers does Shneider or Allen Bradly have?
I buy a sprechter and shu (spelling) mtr contactor and overload for $106 from company A, or I buy the same exact part marked AB for around $40.
I'm just saying, why don't the buyers all get together and share that info.

How is this any different from telling me that I can spend 15 minutes and save on auto insurance. Or my buddy telling me that blow up doll is on sale on amazon. (see, you don't have to get the asterix's to get vulgar)

The company I work for has global purchasing agreements with a handful of big companies. We buy millions of dollars of gear annually. So naturally we get good pricing due to bulk purchasing.

Had a client try and bully the local agent into giving them the same pricing we got. He calmly told them "when you buy €20M a year like they do, we can talk."

Pricing is very much a negotiation between the buyer and the seller. You can't apply "domestic" pricing logic to business. If you feel that something is too expensive, shop around.

m251 $380
8 analog in = 170
32 di = 140
32 do = 140
cables = 17 a piece.

1/4 hp drives 200

geniusintraining said:

I think one issue would be 99% of the people only l tell/talk about a bad experience and dont talk about the positive, I think its just human nature, I send one email to every customer after every purchase asking for feedback but get less than 1% reply.

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It is human nature and something that is taught by some customer service experts (that’s where I learned about it when I was a mechanic). People talk about the “unusual” experience and/or the one that generates an emotional response. Think about it, when is it you will go out of your way to tell someone about something that happened? When it was something that you’ve never seen before (or it’s been a long time) or something that made you very emotional (happy, sad, angry, etc…). However, emotions tend to “fade” rather quickly unless it was a big deal so only one out of ten people with a bad (or good) experience will do anything about it. What I was taught was that for every 1 complaint you get, there are 10 people with the same/similar complaint they just don’t complain.

One thing that’s being left out (unless I missed it. Which is completely feasible) is “cheap comes out expensive”. That goes for the equipment you buy and the place you buy it from. If you buy a “lower cost” PLC online and start up doesn’t go as planned, who are you going to call? There are always exceptions to that but for the most part when you buy from a major PLC distributor and you need help they are there with people who know how to solve your problem. They also help prevent you from getting into trouble in the first place (pre-sales support). Try that from an online source. The main point here (as was hidden in my previous story) is that it cost money to get good products and service. Mc & Mc doesn’t come cheap because they spend a lot of money making sure their customers are taken care of. In some small applications it might be worth while to save some cost and deal with issues as they come but when you’re building a multi-million dollar SCADA system time is money and spending a little more money in the beginning can save you from having to spend a lot more money in the end.

Firejo said:

What I was taught was that for every 1 complaint you get, there are 10 people with the same/similar complaint they just don’t complain.

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Negative emotions are usually more intense than positive ones. Which means that for every compliment you receive, there are 100 people with the same / similar compliment who don't say anything.

Aardwizz said:

Negative emotions are usually more intense than positive ones. Which means that for every compliment you receive, there are 100 people with the same / similar compliment who don't say anything.

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I'd reverse that logic. If an emotion is felt more strongly, there are more likely going to be actions that become of it. We see more complaints than compliments even though, generally speaking, any successful business has more happy customers than unhappy ones (as they are still in business).

So, for every positive review, there are 100 people out there who feel similarly. For every negative review, there are 20 people out there who feel similarly.

Numbers fudged for examples, but you get the idea.