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Distributors Designing Video Surveillance Systems?

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Frank Pisciotta
Aug 02, 2015
IPVMU Certified

NOTICE: This was moved from an existing discussion: Does Anixter Sell Direct To End Users? YES

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Of course, there is the consultant perspective here as well. We know from one current client that one of the distributors named in this article is not only selling equipment direct to them (for the express purpose stated by the client to cut out the integrator and the associated mark-up), but the distributor is laying out systems (design) which directly made our services (for fee) irrelevant. I was looking through the posts with interest in hopes of finding some specific cases of distributor design problems so that at least we could defend ourselves at little better. Our client is all smug about having saved a few bucks and not having had to pay the integrator mark-up or the consultant for a design. We can't compete with free, even though I suspect that the design effort was covered somewhere else in the costs. Unfortunately, it appears that there is very little justification (other than ethics) to prevent distributor direct selling to the end user. I will continue to monitor this post to try and identify whatever tangible downsides there are to such an arrangement, but I am having a hard time defending the results to my current client. I don't know if these distributors are carrying a full range of product lines, but I know that we as consultants have no such constraints and can look at the entire spectrum of products without having to be limited to what it is we might sell.

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JH
John Honovich
Aug 02, 2015
IPVM

Cutting out the integrator and the consultant, quite the move...

"finding some specific cases of distributor design problems "

I am sure they are out there but I doubt many people will talk. End user would make themselves look bad. Perhaps an integrator who was brought in later?

Structurally, having a distributor do a design raises serious concerns.

Very very distributor employees have the training / skills / experience to actually design an enterprise system (more than just picking camera, VMS vendor, etc.).

No distributor carries a 'full range of products', simply because many manufacturers do not sell through distribution or certain distributors. Even for the products they sell, they have varying profitability levels depending on arrangements with manufacturers, that could skew their choice.

"there is very little justification (other than ethics) to prevent distributor direct selling to the end user"

Shedding light on which distributors does this is a powerful disincentive to distributors doing this. They do fear their customers knowing this because distributors have lots of distributor competitors that their customers can switch to.

U
Undisclosed #1
Aug 02, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Shedding light on which distributors do this...

At this point it might be easier to ask which ones don't...

JH
John Honovich
Aug 02, 2015
IPVM

Btw, here is an interesting RFP from an Illinois high school. Money quote:

"Anixter is the technology advisor to UTHS and has arranged special pricing. They can be contacted to answer specific technical questions regarding this project or products listed in this specification. Contractors will provide Anixter 48 hours for the completion of quotes. Anixter will insure pricing is set in 90 day increments to minimize price changes to UTHS projects."

They even list Anixter part numbers, e.g.:

An Anixter designed system using Arecont cameras.....

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Ross Vander Klok
Aug 03, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Just posted this screen shot of an Anixter email in another Anixter section, but I think it belongs here too. I would never use the Ask an Expert section, but looks like it is pretty easy and straight forward to do. If I was a smaller end user and did not know any better it would be tempting to click.

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