This ADI promo mailer hit my inbox today:
I did some price checking, and found ADI pricing was higher than Dell.com direct pricing for the same gear, ie:
I did not expect undiscounted Dell.com public pricing would beat ADI, but that's the case here. Are you surprised?
Hi Brian, Dell gear is frequently more expensive in stores than from Dell online in Australia too. I'm guessing that's partly because of transport costs to the store plus the convenience of being able to immediately have a computer rather than waiting a day or more for it to arrive via courier. Sometimes in business, a computer is needed fast so paying a small premium for it at a local store is not so bad.
Either you have tapped into their abandoned e-cart pricing, or they subscribe to IPVM and fixed it, cuz mine shows this:
Does yours have a CD-ROM?
Brian, don't you just want to save as much money as possible? Sure, your final price may have increased $41 from $579 to $620 but at the same time, your total savings has also increased $18 from $248 to $265. Sounds like a win-win to me!
New Motto: "Dell, saving you more, by charging you more!"
It really speaks to the branding name power Dell has built when this occurs, because it's not that uncommon. Dell's business was built on cutting out the middle man. I think the only reason they started being "friendlier" to the channels and resellers is demand, where in a lot of cases like Rukmini said, someone are willing to pay extra to get something quicker (Dell has had some LONG lead times last few times I got quotes), or in some cases the buyer just doesn't realize the price difference.
Brian,
Thanks for this interesting "research." When one gets busy doing their everyday tasks "on the job", finding time to do this little extra "research " on seemingly otherwise no-brainers gets put to the back of the line and and often doesn't take place. Interesting.
David McG
It does not surprise me at all. ADI is all about MAXIMIZING profit and being a one stop shop for smaller installers. You can always ask them for a discount and usually get it if you have a good relationship. If you have agreements with some Honeywell divisions, you have minimum sales levels to meet. This kind of program allows you some flexibility with those expectations. For instance, to be a ProWatch dealer, you have to meet or come close to some sales expectations, unlike other Honeywell divisions. But you can purchase all of your power supplies for all jobs and they count towards your ProWatch numbers.
When they first had access to Dell my boss wanted us to buy through ADI and stood vehemntly against it and won that battle. A lot of what we did was custom builds which I could do through ADI but even one screw up on ADIs part would cost us a lot of man hours, delayed projects, etc. I just do not trust ADI to handle any technology on that level correctly.
Jason, thanks for the feedback. What's the pro side / advantage to buying Dell from ADI? In other words, why did your boss want to do that?
"One throat to choke" would be my guess. Unfortunately, my only experiences with buying products from ADI left my hands numb, if you know what I mean :-\
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