Marketing Issue [RE-wrenches]

Joel Davidson joeldavidson at earthlink.net
Fri May 16 13:21:34 PDT 2003


Brad,

You are a good example of a smart shopper looking for a good deal. What did
you decide to do about your boiler or water heater and why?

I'm not a big fan of the theory of human nature, but everyone I have ever
met wants to pay the lowest possible price for goods and services and is not
happy to learn that they could have gotten something at a lower price. On
the other hand, sellers have various pricing methods (what the market will
bear, % markup, % margin, suggested retail price, list less discount,
whatever price works, etc.). When seller and buyer agree, business can be a
pleasure for them but is almost never a pleasure for the competition. Human
nature? I don't know, but expect things to get worse as population increases
and resources become depleted and more of us are forced to "share smaller
pies" (remember when RAIN first published this essay in 1975?
http://www.tombender.org/smallerpies.html).

I've been telling builders, plumbers, electricians and now PV installers not
to worry about customers buying their own equipment. Most of the
buy-it-yourselfers are not your customers anyway. Installers make more money
selling their skilled labor. If the customer buys the wrong part, that's
their problem. If the customer installs the system wrong, that's an
opportunity for you to sell your skilled labor if you so choose.

Best regards,
Joel Davidson



Brad Bassett wrote:

> In contrast to the PV industry, the plumbing/heating industry is very
> tightly controlled. I don't know if this is due to that industry being
> much older and more mature, or if it's the manufacturers, or
> distributors, or all of the above.
>
> I've recently tried to find a boiler or water heater for my own house. I
> challenge anyone to find a price for a Rinnai water heater, or Monitor
> MZ25, or Vitodens 200 boiler on the web. Not only could I not find a
> price, I could not find someone who would sell one to me as a homeowner.
> There were certainly no discount houses selling them.
>
> When talking to a wholesale house as a contractor I got pricing, but
> also the warning that I could only get a warranty if it was installed by
> a certified installer. On the other hand, I was invited to attend a
> certification class for one of them next week at the local distributor,
> so I will be a certified installer after a 1 hour class I think.
>
> There are a couple of brands of instantaneous water heaters that are
> much more widely available, ie: Takagi and Bosch, with pricing easy to
> find on the web. This leads me to believe that manufacturers have the
> choice of selling through established distribution channels or a more
> open distribution system. I'm sure there are pluses and minuses to both.
> I expect Takagi and Bosch get a lot more stupid tech calls than the
> others, but might sell more also.
>
> I think it's possible that manufacturers in the PV industry believe that
> it would be hard to gain market share by restricting their sales to
> reputable distributors, they may or may not be correct. There may or may
> not be very many reputable distributors, certainly not every area has
> one.
>
> Brad Bassett
> RWE Schott Solar Inc.
> (formerly Schott Applied Power/Applied Power/Solar Engineering Services)
> Tumwater, WA office
> bsbassett at earthlink.net
>
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