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How much will you pay for an exotic cartridge....

I noticed on another forum that there is an interesting point brought up by a US distributor/dealer about his perception that one of his potential customers bought a top end cartridge ( that he reps) from an off-shore dealer/source...and how he intends to try and stop the practice of ’grey market’ sales. ( At least for the lines that he carries).
This gent seems to believe that because he signed some paperwork somewhere that may ( or may not) give him exclusive rights to distribute the gear in the US, that he has the right to try and prevent anyone abroad from selling to US customers! To that, he wants to have the manufacturer try and enforce his right to do the above. Now, one could ask, what’s the issue with this, right? And here’s the rub, the dear distributor is adding over $8K to this product for the simple task of ordering and having shipped a cartridge from Japan ( Yes, i know the shipping of such a large and heavy item is expensive...and the dealer has to stand by the product...whatever that means when we are talking of a cartridge!) The profit motive is high here, and the opportunity to fleece some of the US consumers is also...so i get that, but to come on an open forum and complain about the practice that one of his potential customers did such a thing....is an interesting marketing tactic, IMO.
So, my question is this..how much will you pay for that exotic cartridge to insure that you are buying it from a "legit" US rep, and not from a grey market...or in this case out of area dealer....what’s fair to you...a few $$s- or the sky’s the limit??
daveyf

Showing 1 response by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
So, my question is this..how much will you pay for that exotic cartridge to insure that you are buying it from a "legit" US rep

That's easy: Zero!

But then I have been doing this a long time, and been privy to the realities of wholesale/retail markups long enough to know how insanely profitable such things are. Not only cartridges by the way. Typical wholesale-retail markup is over 100%. Well over.

My Benz was bought new in a factory sealed carton from some guy in Europe, and my Koetsu was bought new in the factory box from some guy on eBay about a year ago. Whatever slim risk there is isn't worth it for a few bucks but we're talking over a grand here. Sorry. But you want that much of my money you need to do a whole lot more than try and scare me with "gray market". Gray market is BS. Its a global market. Either its all gray, or none of it is. I say none.

That's if we're talking what I'll pay for that particular peace of mind. Because the risk to me is not is it legit or not. That's simply the wrong question. DYODD you can eliminate that risk.

The proper question is, how much will you pay to be secure in the knowledge that if you do not like if for any reason, any reason at all, you can just bring it back. That means home auditions. Some guy wants a couple grand profit and has a couple solid contenders I want to hear, no problem. No problem at all. He's earned it.

But these guys that think they deserve big money like that for being nothing more than a glorified shipping expediter, they can go.... well let's just say they can go find someone a whole lot less capable. Which should not be a problem. They say there's one born every minute.
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