Anixter Sales People Selling To End Users

What Mr. Leatherwood states he's doing in NC is HIGHLY illegal. Unless he is registered by the NC Alarm Board and has a security alarm license - he is overtly breaking the law. (see NCGS-74D). If an integrator (or anyone) cares to file a grievance the Alarm Boards Phone # is 919 788-5320

I am thinking all the "Bad business move" votes are saying it is bad for their business and not bad for Anixter's? As one of the large end users mentioned above, we have bought directly from Anixter for 20+ years, but they are more expensive than other options so we rarely use them any longer.

Could they not be end-user BDM's who create/capture demand and drag it back through the installer partner channel?

Integrators regularly oppose distributors selling to end user...

Do they oppose this?

We have tried to get feedback from Anixter in the past but with no response ever. If Anixter would like to comment, we would be happy to share their feedback.

Des Plaines supports one-way traffic only :)

To the best of my understanding, unless Mr. Leatherwood is doing business which qualifies for the exemptions, eddie Perry ( fake name) refers to in his entire diatribe is BS.

The last point is, Ignorantia juris non excusat^[1] or ignorantia legis neminem excusat^[2] (Latin for "ignorance of the law excuses not"^[1] and "ignorance of law excuses no one"^[2]respectively) is a legal principle holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely because he or she was unaware of its content.

Hope Leatherwood is following the law. As its his personal responsibility. Its not my position to advise Leatherwood on the law, Its his responsibility to follow it.

With all this legal jargon I think someone needs to go look at what is defined as a "security" device.

In a nut shell, In my state a security device is defined as a piece of equipment that is designed to automatically invoke a law enforcement response.

Which is pretty much nothing until you add a dialer into an intrusion or other device.

I have not posted often lately an even when I do, I have tried to me a bit more civil. We have been very busy on our end and I while I have a very hectic day ahead, I will make time for this topic.

I have to be honest here. Technically, I don't see anything wrong with the add. It is a matter of interpretation. Mr. Leatherwood's add (and I have not had the pleasure) says he "supports" end users. Legally "support" can be defined a lot of different ways. Just as equally, so can "Business Development". I am quite sure that if he were questioned by the SBI (they actually investigate a complaint) he would not go so far as to incriminate himself.

Axis, Genetec, Sony, Honeywell and tons of others also have sales reps all over that "consult"; Anixter is not unique. They try to sell their products. They are everywhere, all day hawking their products. That is what they are supposed to do. As long as they are demonstrating their products or lines, giving general advice, I don't see a violation of the law (I am not a lawyer, but I have been doing this for 32 years).

I am a proponent of the alarm board. I am a strong advocate. It was created to protect the consumer (not integrators); not just residential but commercial as well. Slammers give us all a bad name. I want them licensed and I would appreciate it if they all acted professionally. But they don't so we need some sort of governance. We need somewhere we can go that can offer a legal remedy to make them stop. I don't appreciate my chosen profession being dragged through the mud any more than anyone else. I applaud the board and its efforts.

One interesting observation I can make is in NC, the Alarm Board has no jurisdiction until someone actually files a complaint. They are not out across the state seeking out lawbreakers like the police seek out someone who is speeding. There actually has to be a complaint filed by a license holder or an end user before they can or will get involved.

Manufacturers made a decision long ago it was to their advantage to have a personal relationship with the end user. Fine by me. I can't stop it. I am not even sure I should. Once upon a time I saw it as taking food off of my table and money out of the pockets of my employees. I saw it as hurting my business. I adjusted my vision; I now see them as an extension of my sales force and it is free to me. I have learned to make it work for me.

Mr. Perry quotes a portion of the code that says, and I am paraphrasing "they can be registered by a license holder for a period of 48 hours". A license holder is clearly not an end user. You are legally entitled to install a new sink or dishwasher in your own home but that does not make you a licensed plumber. That to me is not even open for debate. End users are exempt, but they are not licensed. I would also enjoy seeing how many 48 hour reports are filed with the state. I would imagine not many and certainly not as many as the law requires. Everyone in this state would be in violation of that one.

The NC Alarm board is comprised of serious contractors and those law-abiding contractors of this state have done a good job cleaning up their industry. There are not near as many "slammers" as there used to be.

Look, slammers gotta eat folks. The Anixters of the world asked them to put on a suit and tie, give them a title and some polish, a business card, a LinkedIn profile, offer them a paycheck and an opportunity to succeed in life. Okay, so as it turns out, you can put lipstick on a pig. That one should earn me a free dinner at the next Anixter road show!

This is more about business than anything else. Is Anixter in violation of the law? As it stands, probably not. I seriously doubt they have any, and I mean ANY valuable expertise in the installation of anything they sell from any perspective. If an end user has a full technical grasp of what they are doing Anixter is probably providing a service to them. They can buy at below suggested retail - far below. That is the service they are really providing, and that separates them from the true manufacturers. If that end user buys it from Anixter I bear them no ill will. Buy it, install it and service it; just don't call me when things go wrong and don't bear me any ill will for saying no. Call Anixter.

Is Anixter a supplier of ours - No. I simply do not trust them to respect my relationship with my customers. Foxes are as much a part of God's creation as any other animal and I think they serve some value; they are at least fun to watch. But they are not welcome in my henhouse.

Now, back to work.

legal or not isn't important to me other than trying to get them fined. I've been clear with all 20 of our offices that we do NOT buy from them unless it is absolutely the last option.

Everyone,

Time to suck it up. Products are becoming more 'plug and play' and larger end users in most cases have their own qualified installation crews.

AXIS has been feeding fuel to the fire by selling through the IT channel which traditionally sells direct to the end user. Who do you think Ingram Micro and Synnex (to name a few) sell to??

I think what Anixter is doing is smart. They already 'touch' the end user so why not position key security product with the end user and bring in one of their faithful integrators?

Every distributor has sold product to an end user. Most have moral, legal and business reasons why they would not but when it's a school board that employs trained techs in Fire, Burg and Access why wouldn't a distributor sell to a school directly?

Let's not even begin to talk about Amazon/Alibaba/ and every other internet based resellers of security gear.

The landscape is changing. Time to adapt or die.

It takes away business from companies and ultimately a decent paycheck from technicians that have dedicated years to learning this trade in the long run. I 1000% agree with Ethan if you say you dont and do then you are deceptive,and a crooked organization that cannot be trusted and I do not trust any of them, ADI does it, Anixter does it also.

Its a slap the face of the very people that keep their doors open, too bad soo sad for City's that have staff for that matter so does every apartment community, Hotel and even Professional Baseball fields, where does it stop?

I think many peoples responses here miss the mark. Forget the legal ramifications about Anixter selling direct they will work that out and comply when forced to. As a company owner who lost a 7 figure sale in December to Anixter, I can confirm that Anixter does sell direct and does so in a big way. Every single company on this forum has a voice. It is time for you to stand up and be heard. If you are continuing to do business with Anixter or their Tried you are an idiot. They will take sizable sales from your organization and run them direct. STOP doing business with them. We did and we are better for it today. Anixter's bread and butter business is with us not end users. If they are going compete with us then show them that you won't stand for it. They may have snaked that sale from me then, but the money they lost by us moving our business to another supplier costs them every single year.

It doesn't stop with just a distributor, but manufacturers as well. If you are selling a product and competing with the manufacturer, you probably need to look at your product offering and realign yourself with a product that supports you. If you sell to large corporations you should get an ingram micro or techdata account and look at all of the ip video products they sell direct to IT departments. If you haven't already lost a hardware sell to an IT department buying direct you will. Without the margin on the product sales your company is missing the boat. There is a difference between be busy and making money. Installing someone else's hardware is busy work. I'll keep my companies efforts focused on making money.

This purchasing decision is power you control.

Not really harsh, but no the case in this scenario. That is because I didn't give you every single detail. So here are more details and even more reason why not to do business with Anixter specifically and to limit communication with manufacturers (although not always possible) as you metioned.

This specific example was developed by our company exclusively. We worked tirelessly to ensure that we kept the competition at bay and worked to get the project in by the end of the year for financial purposes. Due to the size of the sale it was registered with the manufacturer and they had to be fully plugged in to fulfill the order prior to years end. Not only was it registered (for the volume discount), but the manufacturers rep was fully plugged in as well as numerous executives. This specific manufacturer had a separate business development division internally that focused on key vertical markets. This one crafty BD guy saw the opportunity and weaseled his way into purchasing and negotiated an additional discount and arranged the sale to be completed through Anixter direct. Thus their dealer (me), their rep firm, and others were denied the sale and all margins or commissions thereof.

As you quoted yeah they got their stuff but who is going to service it? This is where integrators miss the boat as I said. Margins on "stuff" are what make business in this industry successful. Other integrators can make a great living servicing other people's stuff. Thats great for them. However, I will focus our organization on making margin on "stuff", AND money installing it, AND money servicing them after the fact. Other industries that lose their ability to sell and make money on "stuff" typically have difficulty surviving. We all got a first hand look at this by watching the AV market when TVs became so commoditized and the margins shrunk to single digits. Now consumers buy their own stuff with the proliferation of the internet and big box stores and installers are offering $59 flat panel TV mounting.

There is no doubt that consultation, design, installation and service are key. No matter what, you have to protect margins on equipment. I have walked away on good terms from more than one noteworthy "key" client because they changed the rules of engagement. When they make the switch to buying their own hardware, licenses, and even having a data contractor to do cabling we politely bow out. I have remained friends with the executives of those companies and have watched them struggle with trying to find a national integrator to install their stuff. Even today they reminisce of the days when they had the service that our company provided without all the headaches of trying to do system design, purchasing, RMAs and managing multiple vendors to try and get a system across the finish line. Ironically enough in most cases the business comes back.

Just wanted to provide some context on a local level (obviously can't use anecdotal information to say whether this is the norm or not):

I work for a manufacturer and Anixter is one of our distributors. They have an "end-user rep" that I work with, and he is amazing. He goes out and works with all of their existing end-users who buy cable and other commodities from Anixter (if you think the biggest companies shouldn't buy 5000 RJ-45 connectors for their IT department from a distributor, fine, but I think that's crazy), and this is what he does:

He finds projects (for security, for networking, whatever), and then connects manufacturers and integrators with the end-user. He's driving business to integrators, which acts as one of the VERY few differentiators that exist between him and his competition.

I think that there are obviously examples of big projects going straight to distributors, but I don't think it is as often as everyone suggests, and I think those instances are the result of greedy, short-term thinking reps. As a whole, sales people in distribution with long-term growth in mind are working with their existing end-user relationships to drive business to their real customers -- the integrators.

Anyway, rumors get thrown out about distributors and manufacturers on a local level every month, saying "they sold direct" or "they cut us out," when in reality, EVERY single project being talked about goes through an integrator. Maybe instead of complaining and dreaming up conspiracies, you should take the time to partner with distributors and manufacturers to create an environment that benefits everyone.

All Distributors sell direct! They either do this openly (like Anixter), or they do this through shell companies to hide the fact that they are selling direct. These shell companies are also responsible for moving product to the websites we see selling security gear. If you are an integrator you have surely seen names show up on bids that you never heard of coming from places like NYC or Las Vegas. If you are smart, you should never place a job name on a PO or drop ship gear to an end user site. Your end user will open up the box and there will be a flyer with your distributors contact info and Special Pricing.