Not a fan of ‘price matching’ stores, as in they offer to match or beat a price by X%. What you have is a store whose natural pricing policy is higher, but they will lower it long enough to beat the better priced store. The inevitable end of that is the naturally lower priced store goes out of business and you just have that higher priced store now, without any ability to price match.
+1 with that and also, many times, the lowest price seller will not guarantee their stuff, even if they say they will, because they sold it so low that they effectively made no money, or so little that they are not willing to stand by the product. Low price does have it’s disadvantages. I know many will only buy from the lowest price, no matter what, but you also hear them complain about that lowest price item they got, or they won’t say a word after, because they got shafted and don’t want to make it public. The “lowest price wars” here have caused more trouble than they are worth sometimes, but, that’s just how it is and dealers are only after one thing, sales at the moment, not long term.
They forgot an item in my order. I called them and they shipped out the part with zero argument on their part. Postage free. They are reputable merchants. Give them a chance. I am not yelling. This is a very long post. Used bold just to get noticed. Peace All.
No worries. No, we are not the same. We aren’t connected in any way. And yes, all of our products are shipped from our store location here in North Carolina.
I am not a flashlight seller in any way shape or form, I do agree with old lumens about short term goals. But consider it is a lot like politics. We vote for folks who tell us what we want to hear. Then we get made that nothing changes.
Distributors are in a cutthroat market, and it is we who made it cut throat. Who here shops for a better price? If we gave our business on a metric other that lowest landed cost (for identical items) that new metric is what distributors would compete on. As they don’t make the lights they are stuck with the spec. They can drop a whole line (and that happens) but it takes time for truly bad manufactures to loose market distribution channels.
I don’t expect any of this to actually be new news. I did notice that on my favorite p36 (great light by the way) that they are clearly among the lowest (I know Banggood is lower but you need the code).
But these guys are openly (or maybe not so openly) advertising this price so I don’t know if this is a breach of MAP or not but I know enough pressure is out there (because of price shopping) that distributors are working hard to come up with ways to get the prices in our hands before we personally ask for exactly the reason that the asking is more work for both sides.
But on the flip side monopolies, oligopolies and protected markets are very good at gouging customers, i agree with what your saying that a race to the bottom is destructive, but a race to the top has equal if not worse consequences.
We have no idea what the actual profit margin on a chinese flashlight is, and if we did we also don’t know what their costs of doing business are, an extra 10% discount may just be a reduced profit or may be the final nail in the coffin. I highly doubt we are buying many of our flashlights below cost, and i think we are rewarding sellers who offer good service, how many flashlights have fasttech or intl outdoor sold to BLF members, i’m guessing mountain electronics is a US distributor.
I’ve bought several Olights from their ebay shop over the past few years and they were always great. Received my lights really fast like 2 days after ordering! Nice to see this thread on BLF, I see some awesome deals posted. Subscribed.
I am not yelling. This is a very long post. Used bold just to get noticed. Peace All.
