I have tried tiger emerald. They mushroom even when pressed. I admit that they were good after redressing the mushroom.
Kim
Kamui tps 2.10 a piece increase??
- Thread starter pescadoman
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I have tried tiger emerald. They mushroom even when pressed. I admit that they were good after redressing the mushroom.
Kim
Kamui totally pissed me off with there availability and pricing. I used to get them from Atlas and a AZ member here. I couldn't see buying them from a 3rd party or Muller for inflated prices. ( nothing against Muller) At this time i refuse to carry Kamui. I only install them on my loyal customers. Just charging them for installation when they supply there tip. The rest i have steered to another quality brands. Black Kings, Moori, snipers, emeralds, ect.
Mueller doesn't have inflated prices. They are at MAP (minimum advertised price), which is set by Kamui, not us. If you call in and set up a business account, the pricing for the whole catalog gets better for you.
Mueller doesn't have inflated prices. They are at MAP (minimum advertised price), which is set by Kamui, not us. If you call in and set up a business account, the pricing for the whole catalog gets better for you.
Here we go again. MAP is illegal. No one can set a price for a retailer or wholesaler. It's a free market. Those who agree to abide by MAP do so at their own free will and for fear of being cut-off by the supplier and/or for fear of not being supplied. I know a major supplier who will succumb to any whim of the manufacturer because he has built up a substantial business on this manufacturers products. He doesn't dare deviate for fear of being cut-off; this is gospel.
I'm sure there are varying opinions on this and that's ok. We only deal in products where there is no MAP or where the manufacturer understands that MAP cannot be enforced with us and that we're free to sell any product for any price we choose.
When you buy a product you can price it at anything you want even below your cost. That's the American way for a free market system. MAP protects only the manufacturer and not the consumer.
True, we can sell it at any price we want. We cannot advertise it as such.
Where do you live and do business? I know the answer to that - in the USA. Well guess what! You can sell it anywhere, anyway in an manner you choose; however you choose, whenever and where ever you choose. The manufacturer has no say over what you do with product you own and the methods and/or prices you sell them for. Of course, the manufacturer can choose not to sell to you but if they have been selling to you and cut you off, you have legal rights. They don't have to sell to you as a new account but if you have an established track record - you are under no obligation to sell it for "MAP".
Ryan...
First of all: MAP is illegal, that's price fixing. Suppose Exxon, BP and Sunoco decided to tell all their station owners that they have to sell a gallon of gas at the MAP price of $3.50. Can you imagine the outrage of the American people if such action were instituted! Well, what makes the sport of billiards different?! I'll tell you what. When you have a mix of strong armed companies and put them together with merchants who are hungry to do business; any business, then you have MAP! The manufacturers get into the merchants pockets and then the merchants are stuck (or so they think) for fear of being cut-off.
You are absolutely correct in that the manufacturer has the right to sell to anyone they want. However, if you have been doing business with a certain company and they have been supplying you steadily for years and you have a track record, then go off of MAP. If they refuse to sell to you, you have them! However, be prepared for a possible legal battle. They will lose but it may cost you $100k to prove that point. No American company can enforce MAP. And I seriously doubt that any company in billiards would want to try to defend such a dubious and illegal policy. We were seriously considering challenging a certain company but decided to just not handle their product. Imagine if every merchant got together and stopped selling a certain product! That would change the whole landscape.
We don't abide by MAP with any company but of course we don't deal with any company who has a MAP policy. A year or so ago we were selling Aramith products for prices we felt were fair. I got an email from some joker in Belgium (Aramith Company) stating that I had to raise my prices and adhere to MAP. My reply was two words and it wasn't 'thank you'. Yes, I emailed them with the almighty fickle finger of faith and said I will sell my products at any price I choose. I further stated that you cannot fix prices here in America. We never heard back and we continued to sell at our prices and we continued to get supplied. No one cut us off and no one said anything after that. We have since discontinued their products as I am sick and tired of supporting foreign businesses. I was going to sell Instroke cases but he has a 10 page agreement which I refused to sign so we didn't carry the product. However there are many who would sign the agreement. We will never agree to sell at MAP no matter what the product may be.
Predator Cues sent out a scathing email written by their legal counsel to all their reps showing how MAP can and will be enforced. It was BS but it scared all their merchants. Predator needs a MAP policy otherwise their cues would be selling for $20 above cost and even less on the secondary market. Predator needs to protect their market and MAP does that for them. Without MAP, their products would be selling for exactly what they are worth. I think it is illegal and of course it does nothing for the consumer who buys a product whose price is set at inflated levels. The natural market doesn't make the market for their product so the consumer is forced to pay higher pricing. And yes, I know you can sell it for less off the advertised price but this does nothing for us and everything for the manufacturer plus it's extra work for us. We don't need extra work. We don't need to jump through manufacturer hoops. There are enough obstacles out there without manufacturers creating more.
In my opinion, any company who adheres to MAP is weak.
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Does that mean if I buy 100-300 I can get them for less than 14.30 a piece?
It was my understanding that a few distributors in the past were giving breaks to such transactions and that a witch hunt by John commenced.
Why should a distributor be punished for trying to do volume business if he chooses and why shouldn't I get a bit of a break if I am spending that kind of money?
There are many companies(Canon for one) that enforce (MAP), but Kamui is the only one I know of that threatens to kill a business owners ability to resell if sold below that.
It isn't that I don't like the tips. In fact, I have been encouraging players to try them. The fact is that nearly every player around he is blue collar(like me) and I have a hard enough time charging 30.00 and John suggests we charge 50-60.00? For someone making 15.00 an hour that is half a days work for the 20-30 mins it takes me.
If I could buy 100-300 at a lesser price(and I would), things would be different and this wouldn't be an issue......but I can't.
Joe, I understand what you are saying but almost all of the major cue manufacturers have MAP policy. I don't agree with it any more than you do but I don't see all of the wholesellers and retailer putting their foot down as you did. It is much too easy, for the end consumer, to click on another site that has the products you want.
I am also not seeing how a company, like yours or Muellers, has a legal case against a company that has a MAP policy, even if you have a track record. Hypothetically speaking, how is that any different you not selling me any wood if I have bought wood from you before? Your reason could be a violation of a different policy other than MAP but the outcome is the same, is it not?
<~~I'm being serious and learning. I think you have a lot you can share.
I am also not seeing how a company, like yours or Muellers, has a legal case against a company that has a MAP policy, even if you have a track record. Hypothetically speaking, how is that any different you not selling me any wood if I have bought wood from you before? Your reason could be a violation of a different policy other than MAP but the outcome is the same, is it not?
<~~I'm being serious and learning. I think you have a lot you can share.
I agree 100%. Retailers should be able to charge whatever they want after they have purchased the product from the manufacturer...whether it is higher or lower than the MAP. This is done EVERY day in the car business. Have you EVER bought a car at the MSRP? I HAVEN'T!
I have a Kamui Black SS on one of my shafts, but only because it came with the shaft...there is no way in hell I would pay $40 dollars or so to have one installed, unless I played world-class pool. And if that was the case, I could probably get them for free.
The same goes for their chalk, it is WAY overpriced and the only way the market price will come down is for people to quit buying it at the INFLATED prices. This stuff is chalk for playing pool, not a miracle cure for cancer...there is NO REASON in the world for a piece of chalk to cost $35.
BINGO! Let me explain something. The owner of Kamui is trying to micro-manage the entire operation. He found a "distributor" that will run the operation as he wants it run. Kamui contacted us years ago do distribute his tips; they were new; they were priced higher than Moori and we saw no reason to handle them so we passed on the deal.
Years later they made a market in a higher priced tip. We contact Kamui to distribute their products but John was set up as "distributor". We did not want to buy from John as he could not handle the order without us financing the purchase. In-other-words, we had to prepay and wait 30 days while Kamui sent the tips to John and John forwarded them to us. Atlas Billiards does exactly that. They prepay; we won't as we feel John is not financially secure to reimburse us should something go wrong because of the fact that he needs us to finance our own purchase (this is not to reflect poorly on John but a fact of life). I don't need the aggravation nor do I need or want to have to chase my own money. I'm too old for that.
As an aside: when we were negotiating with Kamui, Masato (the owner) said we should buy from John. We told him we didn't want to buy from John and wanted to buy direct at distributor pricing. Masato agreed to sell to us at the same price that John sells them for. So we could buy direct and circumvent John but I would not pay Masato the higher price whereby allowing him a higher profit than he was making by selling to John.
Bottomline - we don't need Kamui and we feel that eventually this will be a passing fad as more and more people are being turned off by the whole deal. And, anyone telling me that I can charge $50 to $60 for a tip installation is wacko! Who are they to tell me what I can charge to install one of their tips. To me this is ripping off a customer.
The whole principal behind Kamui is to be the highest priced tip whereby making people believe it is the "best" because it has to be becasue it's is the most expensive. And I hate to say it but that's why we're known throughout the world as the dumb Americans.
So basically this whole thread was a shill for you to tell people you cant buy Kamui stuff the way you want but that doesnt matter because you dont want it anyway and it sucks and no one will want it in the future.
The internet. Got to love it.
I'm not debating MAP(and MAP isn't illegal, numerous BIG companies enforce it with MUCH more to lose than Kamui if it was illegal).
An advertised price is just that. ALL new cars list MAP and then the dealer can sell it for whatever he chooses. The manufacturer has their money...done. Go to Amazon and many times you will see "click on for better price". They aren't allowed to advertise that price, but are allowed to sell it for what they choose...which is how it should be.
The bottom line here is this. If I, or Joe, or whoever, started selling at free market prices there would be no motivation to buy from John or he would be forced to lower his prices.
Why on EARTH would I send 20 grand away and only be able to MATCH John's or Atlas' prices? I wouldn't want 2000 tips laying around selling slowly while everyone Googling Kamui is directed to their website and buying for the same price.
MAP is fine, but don't tell me I can't sell at my own prices over the phone or facilitate a process(like Amazon) that can show potential customers a better one.
I'm nobody's SHILL Justin and I didn't ask for Joe's input or inform him about this post. This is about ME and MY frustration with trying to keep things affordable(and still make a little money). I'd like to buy a couple hundred tips and pass the savings along to my customers, but I can't. Really, besides some shipping cost that is saved, why should I stock 200(well I HAVE over 200, just not 200 14.00 tips) tips?
AGAIN, this had nothing to do with Joe. The only reason he, and he wasn't even named, was brought up was because of his good prices on Moori. Obviously, someone told him.
It would be nice to keep to the facts here and not make it personal.
I like you Justin, but call me a shill again and I will gnaw your knee caps off:wink:
Ryan....
I'll be happy to share knowledge as long as it remains civil and we all agree to respect everyone's opinion whether we disagree or not.
Anyway... what is wrong with your whole statement is your whole first paragraph and especially your last sentence and I quote, "It is much too easy, for the end consumer, to click on another site that has the products you want".
That's the problem and that's what is wrong with the whole industry. You're all afraid of losing business that you won't lose. Let's pick a fictious product; we'll call it Freakdor Cues. You have to get the #1 and #2 Freakdor dealer as well as Muellers, Seyberts and a couple other high volume dealers to tell Freakdor we're not going along with MAP (the problem is to get the #1 and #2 dealers to agree to anything as they are too wishy washy). It would put Freakdor out-of-business or close to it. You see the top 3 or 4 dealers actually control Freakdor and not the other way around. What would happen if Freakdor lost it's distribution network? How long can they sustsain it and how long would it take them to put a new network in use? It would take months and perhaps a year or two and in that time, Freakdor would lose market share, be backed up with excess inventory, etc. Our business doesn't reply upon companies that have MAP. We would never; repeat, we would never put our hard earned dollars, our blood, sweat and tears, our investment into a company that could put us out of business in a heartbeat because we disagreed with their policy. Sure it's our business but by subjecting yourself to MAP you really don't control your own business even though you take all the risk. Sorry, no thank you for me.
As for your second paragraph: If I am buying from ABC Company for 5 years at a certain price and I never have interruption in inventory flow, then I choose not to follow their MAP and all of a sudden they cut me off. LAW SUIT because you can prove that the interruption of service was in line with your change to following a no MAP policy which is illegal.
If that same company interrupts the flow of inventory - LAW SUIT for the same reason. You can prove the flow of goods was interrupted and directly caused by your changing to not following MAP; an illegal activity.
Ryan -- here is your problem. You actually believe their is such a thing as MAP and that it's a legal method of doing business. It doesn't exist. It's illegal. It's restraint of trade. It's anti-competitive. It's un-American. It does not promote free trade. You have to first not believe in it to comprehend why I feel so strongly about it.
And as far as your hypothetical analogy: speaking about me cutting you off for shaft wood, that's my prerogative. We can cut you off as perhaps we felt you were too high maintenance. Perhaps we felt that we had no responsibility to take back shafts that were altered from the way they were sent. Perhaps we felt that we had no obligation to take back shafts after 3 months. All of these are of course hypothetical. There is a huge difference between this and MAP. You cannot enforce an illegal policy such as MAP but every company is so in bed with their suppliers that their suppliers control the retailers business because of MAP.
Randy....
MAP is illegal and no one would win that argument in court. Find me case law where a company actually won a law suit on MAP. So you're saying it wouldn't bother you if Sunoco, BP and Shell all had MAP policy and advertised all their gas at $3.50 per gallon.
As far as your other statements: if you did away with MAP, it would cause a lot of dealers to go out of business as only the strong would survive.
Example: If I sell a tip and only sell 100 a year I would need to make 50% to 100% profit. If I sell 10,000 tips a year at a profit of only 10% or 20% you're talking a lot of money. If you gross 100k a year at 100% markup, you made $50k. If I gross 1 or 2 million annually at 10 to 20% markup it's a heck of a lot of money. And by pricing at lower margins it drives the weaker players out of the market. You see, MAP policy stifles free enterprise. It puts too many hurdles in place that don't need to be there. MAP protects the manufacturers only. We don't need MAP; period.
This I agree with but, as someone else stated, there are much larger companies with MAP policies. Apple is one and probably the most ruthless. If it were illegal, wouldn't Apple be nailed to a cross? If Company A shuts me off after a history of buying, isn't that their "right to refuse?" There may be a difference between a publically traded company and a private company.
Gas companies price fixing would be collusion, which is illegal.
<~~I am high maitenance. :embarrassed2:
Oil is a commodity and a necessity. Very high profile and if they tried the FTC and every news station would on their ass. We are just pool players, cuemakers, and repairmen. When was the last time your saw anything about pool on our news? Noone cares unless we are trying to sell ivory or certain woods.
A reality show with Earl would probably stand a good chance, but that is IT!
I don't want to do away with MAP, I want to be able to spend 2-5k on tips and KNOW I'll be able to flip them by charging what I want privately.