ADI's 'Elves' Selling Direct on Amazon

How are the prices compared to dealers buying direct from ADI?

Assuming Elves is a for-profit company and as does not have owners in common with ADI (which it certainly could), what is the concern?

Elves' margin (and taxes) should provide some buffer between ADI cost and end-user pricing.

Maybe its because we dont buy enough from ADI, but that price on the amazon screengrab is approximately $30 less than our cost for that part at ADI (which is part of the reason we dont ever buy that part from ADI).  chicken or egg?

 Distributors Emarketing, LLC out of MN has an F rating with BBB. I don't think they like people.

We had a run-in with ADI a week ago, after two decades of doing business with them my father is ready to leave them behind. I have been slowly moving our business elsewhere over the last 4 years. This is disappointing and will not help them. We pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and I'm disappointed. Rather than trying to sell to consumers they should be working on fixing how they sell to the companies who buy from them.

If ADI want's to move to 100% e-commerce and sell through amazon to their existing client base, I would be OK with that. I would want our dealer pricing intact and I would want a strict MAP policy that didn't hurt integrators. 

ADI is struggling right now (or at least the branches in my area) my guess is some hotshot at ADI thinks this is what's going to save them.

I just checked out their prices (Elves) on a Honeywell Vista 20P, $116.00.  That's slightly more than my cost at ADI when I don't buy during a sale, which is seldom.  However, I noticed Amazon has a Vista 20P V10.23 for $54.00.  ADI periodically promos a bundle, or kit, combining a panel with a keypad, PIR, battery, RJ31X, cord, and the cost of the panel matches the Amazon price.

Online price shopping by customers just means you need to sell your services rather than just the equipment.  I do not install equipment that I did not acquire through my company.

I'm curious to hear what others say in protest to the online sales.

Btw, the Elves about us page makes it weirdly sound like they are ADI:

ELVESsupply.com fills orders from our closest location or partner location to our customer from 100+ locations here in the lower 48 United States. With over 100+ shipping locations ELVESsupply.com can get the product to our customers faster while the customer only paying the shipping cost via UPS/FedEx ground rate.

The major concern is not that ADI has given away their data base file, the real concern is ADI may have loaded the file with heavily discounted pricing for ALL ITEMS.  ADI will give the master parts list file to any dealer that asks, but all prices from that list default to column 1 prices (the highest "wholesale" price offered).  In order to get better pricing, the dealer has to negotiate each line-item (or kit package) and it is assigned a new part number and adjusted price for that dealer/group.  Normally done for items that are purchased the most or if the dealer is part of a larger buying group (Moni/ADT etc).  If you are a small operator that does not know the "multi-column pricing game" chances are you are paying 30-40% more that your competition (or online seller).

So, the real major concern is if ADI is giving Elves (or other online only sellers) a multi-column discount for ALL ADI ITEMS.  Even the largest of buying groups do not get global discounts on every line item, just those on their pre-negotiated parts list.  

We can get this reader $5.00 cheaper from ADI than Elves.

To be competitive we increase mark up on Services and decrease markup on Materials. A lot of customers are getting savvy and shopping prices online anyway. 

When the customer can shop technical labor online is when we need to be worried.

It is disingenuous for ADI to sell to a direct distributor.  ADI is playing both sides of the fence.

ADI claims their customers must be licensed installers.  But then they agree to partner with a direct reseller, just so ADI can technically say 'we don't sell direct', yet count direct sales as a channel for them anyway.  

Statements like this are false, not because of some vague grey market, but because ADI willingly stocks and even dropships on behalf of direct resellers:

The question of tech support and warranty fulfillment then comes up again, but for every brand Elves resells direct on ADI's behalf.  Do manufacturers have the willingness and resources to support product bought through Elves?

Is it not just another result or indication that they are firmly entrenched in the race to the bottom? With low cost low margin products it the quantity that counts as I'm sure the manufacturers are looking for larger orders all the time. This juts looks like another way to 'shift boxes'.

The issue is as much with the manufacturers as it is with ADI. If the mfr's don't wish to protect their installing dealers by enforcing a MAP policy or restricting online sales, then ADI is within their rights to sell to any legitimate reseller (within each vendor's agreement). It's a loophole and it sucks and I hate it, but blame goes beyond ADI. If you don't like it, send more business to Silmar or whoever your small local distributor is. But when they get bigger or get bought out, you may be in the same boat again.

Does ADI honor Amazon Prime through the ELVES setup?  Prime is AUsome as far as delivery issues.  The only benefit to Prime using the USPS is that if the item is not delivered on the day the USPS says it will be, you will get a full refund, no questions asked.  The USPS in my area is HORRIBLE!!!  Every once in a while, the item gets delivered a few days after my refund comes through.  "BONUS POINTS" 

supply & DEMAND!

This is becoming widespread practice - manufacturers are using large distributors' logistics capabilities to serve as sort of master distributors to the vast array of internet retailers. Ingram Micro is the largest of them - we have ordered IT components from provantage, newegg, etc and the shipping labels read Ingram Micros warehouse address. 

The fact that manufacturers pretend to have "partner programs" and "restricted product" and then peddle it to internet retailers indirectly through supposedly wholesale suppliers is a sad state of affairs to be sure. 

I guess we haven't negotiated a good enough price on that reader (have never bought it previously and we only do a small amount of business with ADI right now). Our price is $30 more than Amazon/Elves.

P.S. I have seen other items show up on Elves by doing a Google search. They are usually only a few dollars more than our ADI price on the majority of cameras, access control panels, etc.

Most decent manufacturers take MAP seriously. Elves has been out there for a number of years as one of the worst and most visible MAP violators. Manufacturers expect their distributors to help them enforce MAP, sometimes contractually. Distributors should be free to sell to online resellers provided they comply with MAP. They would be foolish not to. But in this case ADI clearly knows that Elves is not complying with MAP and that this works at odds with both their manufacturers and integrator customers. But if you are a manufacturer with 30-40% of your business going through ADI then I think you have a big problem getting ADI to cooperate and help enforce MAP. Pretty tough to tell them you will take your business elsewhere.

I believe that was more that ADI walked away from Sony. From what I was told when that happened, Sony was demanding that ADI stock a ridiculous amount in each branch. The market at that time didn't warrant that, and it probably still doesn't. That could be ADI/Honeywell spin, but that is what was told to me a the time.

Lot of anger on this site about so many topics. we've been dealing with ADI for 20 years. Anything we've ever needed they have accommodated us. ADI is an integral part of the security industry. 

If they want to recapture the segment of the market that went DIY by selling product to internet retailers - what do I care? but then again I dont do 4-camera installs at convenience stores and residences. Plug and play technology has rendered the integrator to be an optional condition in such installs. That ship has sailed. No point in complaining about it.

I read a lot of people on here bitterly complaining about market conditions, thinking that enforcement of licensing and wholesale models can protect them from evolving markets. It wont. Licensing is purposed for consumer protection, not job protection. If a trunk-slammer is taking away low-end small jobs, then maybe focus on larger higher end jobs in which the trunk crowd are excluded instead of calling up your local licensing agency and howling about it.  

We dont use Hikvision as we see it as a low-end non-secure solution, regardless of the technical specs it boasts, however the hysteria regarding Hikvisions self-destructive pricing model and the invoking of jingoism and patriotism as a means to foil it is also ill-advised. Hikvision will kill itself off. Nobody can stay in business by giving its product away.

stay the course. Provide value-add. Exceed expectations. Thats what will keep you in business as an integrator. 

If I am going to compete with my supplier, I will find a new supplier!

Can we do the Distributor poll again, please?

For years manufacturers have been blamed for selling direct to end users.  The manufacturer I worked for at the time didn't but we had several distributors that did.  This is nothing new, nor anything that the manufacturer can control.  Once a product leaves the manufacturer's dock, what happens to it is only the business of the purchaser.  Since these are often very large companies, their prices can be lower than the dealers are used to buying the products for on a direct from distributor basis.  HOWEVER the problem comes when it comes to warranty.  When consumer A buys a product from the "dealer", the warranty is through the dealer, not the manufacturer.  If you have a problem with the e-commerce site, your problem is through them.  Your tech support is through them, everything is through them.  Buy at your own risk.

People who want to DIY will find a source to buy their equipment. And saying ADI doesn't sell directly is incorrect. Ask any Fry's Electronics store where they buy their gear. I keep my customers by providing levels of service and support that can't be bought at any distributor or reseller location.

Maybe they read this article. I checked both on Amazon and on the Elves' websites and found no mention of cameras or everything being out of stock.