Subscriber Discussion

Integrators Can't Get Timely Pricing From Hikvision?

UE
Undisclosed End User #1
•Mar 21, 2016

NOTICE: This comment was excerpted from an existing discussion: Hikvision Marketing Across America

We regularly work with some competing integrators, all of whom have tried to price Hikvision products at our request for a couple of our smaller projects. Each integrator expressed frustration at not being able to obtain pricing in any kind of timely manner. One told me that they can't get price lists because they were told by their Hikvision contact that "prices change almost daily". One of the integrators has decided not to pursue any further dealings with Hikvision because of the inability to obtain timely pricing and at least one separate poor support experience in which they stated they were unable to get in touch with a live person at Hikvision's U.S. support group.

I think Hikvision has a good product offering, and for certain their pricing is beating many of their competitors. If they cannot deliver on the support (pre- and post-sale) for the products they are marketing, however, they will find themselves less than successful (in my opinion).

BTW, I'm posting undisclosed out of respect for the integrators I mentioned above. We're an end user with hundreds of cameras (several different brands), multiple NVRs, etc. I'm not a Hikvision competitor or "hater" trying to hid behind anonymity.

(1)
KS
Kuber Singh
•Mar 28, 2016

This issue happens almost too often. What I have come across so far is that each mass market manufacturer has two pricing models. One is their standard price lists which offer products that sell in huge volumes and you might be better off purchasing these through one of the manufacturers assigned distributor / local wholesale. The other pricing is project based pricing where timely support is critical and manufacturers often fail at providing this anytime soon. For few of our larger projects, this can take up to a week and its worth the wait since you wouldn't want to go wrong on quoting without knowing pricing provided you have a week to hold off your customers. For smaller projects, manufacturers and their assigned sales agents give even lesser importance and if you have a good pull inroads with a manufacturer and their sales team then you may get a response within a day at the earliest if you provide enough pressure else they might not even reply at times (at least not in enough time to close the sale). Even though we purchase and sell hundreds of hikvision and dahua cameras each month, it is still tough to get the right insider pricing at the right time.

(1)
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Mark Jones
•Mar 28, 2016

Frankly UND1, I don't find that to be an issue, which would suggest it is a matter of whom they are dealing with, not a corporate policy.

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