with companies?
Techstar – makers of Starcom charge £159.99 for the Advance.
Shipping on their site is a flat £7.50
They sell their systems on eBay for £149.95 with FREE shipping!
So I give them a call, politely ask as a long term customer, bearing in mind I would rather deal direct with them and am happy to save them some money, what price as a returning customer can they sort. Adding that I also want several cables, etc as well.
“we can do it the same as eBay, and the cables are £x/y/z extra but we will ship them free…”
WTF?
I’ve actually offered to save them the nearly £20 eBay/Paypal fees by paying over the phone and they think that is good value by charging me the same!
I actually feel like buying via eBay and paying with Paypal on purpose!!

Colleague of mine experienced exactly the same thing this week. Company have a tent on sale on their eBay site for £290, he emailed the seller and offered £260 for card payment, they said they couldn’t go that low in price!

But with paypal and ebay fees they would make less money, doesn’t make sense.

I’ve actually offered to save them the nearly £20 eBay/Paypal fees by paying over the phone and they think that is good value by charging me the same!

Its actually pretty sound practice – as a manufacturer you rely on vendors stocking and selling your goods – so you don’t piss on their leg by undercutting them. If you’ve set a value of £100 for your product then you aim for it to sell to the customer for that whether its bought in a cornershop, a supermarket, the distributor or from the back door of the factory. Similarly as a cycle buyer you could deal directly with a distributor to buy a bike – they’ll charge you the same price a shop would.

Issue is they have their own website, eBay shop AND sell to distributors, etc.
Offer to save them £20 minimum on a £150 base sale and they didn’t want to know!
There would of been another 3 cables on there too at almost £50.

Bear in mind they may pay much less in fees if they are a business seller with a lot of transactions going through, the costs drop off quite a bit when you have a decent volume to put through ebay.

35 sales since Jun 2012 is not going to see that level of discount though….

The thing is though – if you were coming to them with a big order then its worth the trouble of negotiating a deal. You want to buy one thing, you’re going to buy it anyway, they are probably busy and few quid of ebay fees are probably money well spent compared to time invested in a single sale. The reason you use marketplaces, whether its ebay our distribution and retailers, is so you don’t have your own time tied up un making and negotiating individual sales – thats what businesses you ‘pay’ shops for.

Do paypal fees go down as a business cost? In which case, they can offset it. therefore, don’t give a monkeys??

OP. I understand that you offered to deal with them direct. The £150 sale minus the ebay fees of around £20 is what they have budgeted for in their mark up. They offer it any lower than, even direct then they start to cut into their margins.

Yes they will pay £20 to ebay, but also they would have to pay someone to be on the phone dealing with your request rather than let ebay deal with it. They could in theory still make the same if they offered it to you with a slight discount, but then if it was only say £5 off how would then feel? Would you be asking “Is that all they can offer?”

Maccruikskeen – your argument doesn’t hold up!
I call them – they actually have a “New sales option” on their phone line. Tell them what I want (third purchase from them this year), they process it, send it. I’m happy.
eBay – I make the sale, they then have to process the emails, verify that it is all correct, check the payment is received, check the shipping address is correct (often isn’t with eBay/Paypal), send item, await feedback assuming the item is received, buyer happy, buyer doesn’t use Buyer Protection, etc. Then receives under £125 from the purchase price of £150 for the unit.
“A few quid” is a darn sight less than the £20+ just on the unit – let alone the almost a third more money on the cables, etc.
Bigblackshed – YES, a fiver would of probably seen the sale done. There was the best part of £60 more in cables too that would be on the sale so their mark up would of been massive. Goodwill towards existing customers carries a lot of weight. The same reason so many on here harp on about their LBS rather than Wiggle/CRC/Merlin/etc.
Tempted to purchase on eBay just so they don’t see the full amount….

I would buy on ebay and (hopefully) avoid the upset (your own).

Just seem this with razorblades with a dealer on Amazon charging more plus the P+P than their eBay outlet.

Wasn’t a hard decision to save me time and money to order from eBay they arrived the next day.

Clearly they’re happy to sell products that way so I’m happy to but them rather than waste time asking for a price match.

Exactly Drac – if it wasn’t for wanting one particular cable I wouldn’t of hesitated to use eBay after speaking to them.
As it is I will just take one off the other bike instead, buy the unit on ebay and let them lose the fees.

Hammy.

I can see your point. I can sympathise. But sometimes the person on the end of the phone line is not able to offer discounts. I’ve worked in mail order and shop based retail. Sometimes those in charge trust you to make those decisions. Other places everything, and I mean EVERYTHING has to go through the boss. It’s just not worth the person’s time and aggrevation.

I recently bought a camp stove, kettle, and paraphernalia from a local outdoors shop. Proper good stuff. They didn’t have the exact items instore. In their warehouse though. So ordered off their website. Cheaper online, free postage. I went into the store for something else a few weeks later and offered some advice. Store pickup, etc. Not interested. You can’t help some people or companies.

That was going through their “boss”.
Stupid thing is I don’t want the headset that comes with it (already have 5)
So considering that they are £35 and the cable is £25 they could easily of done something and everyone was happy.
turn up is that I have just spoken to the only Starcom dealer other than the manufacturer and there is a lot of stuff behind the scenes that Techstar are doing to shut out external dealers!
Now I can buy from them for £119.99 for the unit, £25 for the cable and free shipping.
Why couldn’t Techstar do that in the first place?
I wouldn’t even of questioned it – not at all!
Makes perfect sense, easy to understand and everyone is happy.