Kamui tps 2.10 a piece increase??

[TomHay]

CONTINUED.....


A brief for Consumer Federation of America comments by Wal-Mart's founder 25 years ago that relaxation of the per se ban on minimum resale price maintenance would be a ‘great danger’ to Wal-Mart's then-relatively-nascent business. In-other-words, Wal-mart’s business model was structured around low price competition. Imagine if manufacturers set restraints – there may have never been a Wal-mart (which some may argue is a good or bad thing).

.

Joe, the long and short of it is "whats in a name"?

Lets say I want to buy a 42" Viziio Flat Screen TV and they have them at Macys for $1,025.72 and at Walmart for $498.00 and both places are about 5 miles from you. In todays market I am not going to pay Macy's prices for the same thing at Walmart. This however is where it gets trickey. I am not going to pay Walmart the $498.00, I am going to go on line and get the ViZio 42" flat screen at the Walmart internet price of $320.00 from Walmart, so WalMart beats Walmart.

That is a material thing.

Lets say I am tired on a trip and there is a Hilton for $59.00 a Night and a Motel 6 for $59.00 a night. Most are thinking you gotta go Hilton. The Hilton was built in the 1970's in this case done very little upgrades so it has analog TV running off cable and charges an additional $20.00 a night for WiFi. The Motel 6 was just completed within the last year and a half, modern everything and has free WiFi. Now, am I going to pay Motel 6 the $59.00 for the room? No. Right in the lobby I am getting on my smart phone and registering for the Motel 6 on internet special for $42.00. Even though the price is there for the taking the clerk can't give me the $42.00 price, I have to work for it.

My point being is many times there is money left all over the ground. It becomes a persons choice if they are going to stop and pick it up or blindly walk over it.

I am glad there is a Macys and a Walmart. If I buy the Vizio TV for $320.00 I can shoot over to Macys and buy something cheap and big, put the TV in the Macys bag and give it to a friend as a gift.

We live in a smoke and mirrors world.

 

[Blue Hog ridr]

Brupp, I believe Kamui will eventually price themselves out of business or at the least find them selves sitting in the hole they are slowly digging for themselves at the moment.

Who was that little gangster, James Cagney. At the end of the movie he proclaimed: "Top of the world Ma, top of the world.

Thats how I see Kamui at the moment. Top of the world, or at least they'd like to believe so.

They can keep increasing the price of their tips until fewer and fewer repair men and buyers will buy them no matter how good they believe they are.
It might come to the point that Kamui will keep testing the water by small price increases until people will refuse to buy them out of principle.

Its a matter of time before another tip manufacturer will produce another Black tip that can compete or is better than a Kamui. Maybe that has already happened with Black King tips.

At that point, what do you think will happen. The decreased tip sales will force Kamui back in line or maybe even put them out of business.

A matter of time before someone else produces a Kamui like chalk that is much cheaper. There was and still is a mad rush to try the chalk.
What percentage of the triers will continue to buy more chalk?

I tried once so I can have an opinion and that will be my one and only chalk purchase. How many others will feel the same?

Will they have enuff buyers to continue manufacturing the chalk or will they eventually feel the decrease in sales and have no option but to lower the price to continue selling.

I totally missed Tom's TV analogy. Sorry Tom, I wasn't trying to be a copy cat.

I'm not an Economics Prof but lets compare two guys who are selling tvs.

Seller A has 20 42" flat screen LCD tvs.
Seller B has the same amount.

Seller A sells his tvs for $500 each
Seller B is selling his tvs for $700 each.

Seller A gets a good reputation and is working on his second 20 tvs.
Seller B is still working on his first 20 tvs.
Seller A will no doubt soon be working on his 3rd set of tvs. He is a nice guy and gives great customer service along with great prices.

Who will make more money and be in business the longest in the long run?

Yer welcome for the Economics lesson 101.

Top of the world Ma. Better take it while they can because just maybe, the Gravy Train is pulling into the station very soon.

 

[Busbee Cue]

Brupp, I believe Kamui will eventually price themselves out of business or at the least find them selves sitting in the hole they are slowly digging for themselves at the moment.

Who was that little gangster, James Cagney. At the end of the movie he proclaimed: "Top of the world Ma, top of the world.

Thats how I see Kamui at the moment. Top of the world, or at least they'd like to believe so.

They can keep increasing the price of their tips until fewer and fewer repair men and buyers will buy them no matter how good they believe they are.
It might come to the point that Kamui will keep testing the water by small price increases until people will refuse to buy them out of principle.

Its a matter of time before another tip manufacturer will produce another Black tip that can compete or is better than a Kamui. Maybe that has already happened with Black King tips.

At that point, what do you think will happen. The decreased tip sales will force Kamui back in line or maybe even put them out of business.

A matter of time before someone else produces a Kamui like chalk that is much cheaper. There was and still is a mad rush to try the chalk.
What percentage of the triers will continue to buy more chalk?

I tried once so I can have an opinion and that will be my one and only chalk purchase. How many others will feel the same?

Will they have enuff buyers to continue manufacturing the chalk or will they eventually feel the decrease in sales and have no option but to lower the price to continue selling.

Top of the world Ma. Better take it while they can because just maybe, the Gravy Train is pulling into the station very soon.

Good post Blue,
Kamui lost my business a long time ago, I did not like their attitude that they said just charge more and you will still make the same profit as the other tips.

I only have two people that only use the Kamui black SS exclusively. It was hard to push the Kamui when I was offering Moori at a lower price.

 

[Blue Hog ridr]

Thanks Buzz, and thats exactly what I had to deal with re Bertone.
I can push what ever tip I please in my little town.
I wasn't asking John for a better price than what anyone else got but was asking for a fair price. I told him that I had the ability to put a Kamui on every players tip in the city if he played fair ball with me. He wasn't interested, period.

I asked him why I would buy a Kamui for $14.35 and install it for the same price as I would for a Moori or any other higher end tip that I install.
When I can buy a Moori for $9 or any other decent tip cheaper when I buy in bulk.

His answer was, charge $50 or $60 for a Kamui install.

Where I live, $35 is about as much as the market can handle and I wouldn't think of trying to hose my customers over for what he suggested.

I don't and won't buy Kamui now or in the future.

If more people let him know how they felt, it wouldn't take long.

 

[patrickcues]

Joe, the long and short of it is "whats in a name"?

Lets say I want to buy a 42" Viziio Flat Screen TV and they have them at Macys for $1,025.72 and at Walmart for $498.00 and both places are about 5 miles from you. In todays market I am not going to pay Macy's prices for the same thing at Walmart. This however is where it gets trickey. I am not going to pay Walmart the $498.00, I am going to go on line and get the ViZio 42" flat screen at the Walmart internet price of $320.00 from Walmart, so WalMart beats Walmart.

That is a material thing.

Lets say I am tired on a trip and there is a Hilton for $59.00 a Night and a Motel 6 for $59.00 a night. Most are thinking you gotta go Hilton. The Hilton was built in the 1970's in this case done very little upgrades so it has analog TV running off cable and charges an additional $20.00 a night for WiFi. The Motel 6 was just completed within the last year and a half, modern everything and has free WiFi. Now, am I going to pay Motel 6 the $59.00 for the room? No. Right in the lobby I am getting on my smart phone and registering for the Motel 6 on internet special for $42.00. Even though the price is there for the taking the clerk can't give me the $42.00 price, I have to work for it.

My point being is many times there is money left all over the ground. It becomes a persons choice if they are going to stop and pick it up or blindly walk over it.

I am glad there is a Macys and a Walmart. If I buy the Vizio TV for $320.00 I can shoot over to Macys and buy something cheap and big, put the TV in the Macys bag and give it to a friend as a gift.

We live in a smoke and mirrors world.

Tom:

One thing you have to look for when you go price shopping at Macys and Walmart is. Check to see what country the Tv is made in. That will make a huge difference in price. I know that Sony used to be made in Taiwan and Japan. The Taiwan one was on average $50.00 cheaper. Why you ask..... Because the same company uses cheaper parts to build there products in different countries.


Anyway back to Kamui tips. I personally love them... I think they are a little high priced. But I still love them.

Tom I havent played with your tip much. But I do like them so far!!

 

[Joe Barringer]

Joe, that was a informative, well thought out writeup. I can't speak to the veracity of it all but you do make a solid argument. Unfortunately, its all moot. I doubt anyone would seriously take that on, if nothing else given the expense. Even if you just went after, say Predator, most likely other companies would see it, understand the complications to their business and offer support. And in court, you never really know how the judge will rule or really if you'll even be given a fair shake. But say you are given a fair chance with an impartial Judge. Obviously, you'll have one of 2 outcomes.

1. You win. But, I think you may find it a hollow victory. You've really only won against one company, if the AG or whomever, doesn't enforce it then whats the point. And its almost certain they will appeal to a higher court. A big company can drown you in paperwork and expenses. But what do I know, this could be a huge far reaching win.

2. You lose. Unfortunately, this isn't a lose against one company. You have now set a precedent. And every company that someone tries to go after will reference this case and it will most likely be thrown out before its even heard. And on top of that, companies will be more brazen with their policies and who knows how many others will follow suit.

So what's the point?! Everyone can talk all they want but its doubtful anything will be done. If this was happening in just the Pool industry than 'maybe' someone would look into it but this is being done across across the board. But I would like to see someone try. Go for it! I can't write you a big ol' check but I can put together a nice supplies order

I see 3 possible things:
- Everyone will boycott and force them to change their policies (doubtful)
- Someone takes them on, win in court and the world is right again (also doubtful)
- Everyone just sucks it up and pays their prices (thats the one my money is on)
- Actually I though of one other that maybe you're going for here. If you can get enough people *****in' about it, they just maybe someone in congress will notice and look into it. But given how much money you're talking about and how many companies I just don't see it going anywhere. Even the Democrats protect big business.

Thanks for taking the time to write that up, it was a good read!

First, I'd like to say what a pleasure it is to see and read a thread that has remained totally on topic and without any trivialities. Very nice indeed.

Someone made the remark, "Heaven forbid if the owner (Kamui) stayed loyal to his distributor who built it up in the US. Maybe that's too Japanese".

We do business worldwide and have come to meet all types of people. We do a lot of business in Japan and every single transaction has been pleasurable both buying and selling; yes every single one. My point being is that there is such a thing as a "Japanese" way of doing business. To me it says honorable and a handshake is your word and bond (sort of like it was 25 years ago here). However, when the owner of Kamui was willing to bypass his own USA "distributor" and sell to us at the same price as his USA "distributor" would sell to us, that was underhanded and not the "Japanese" way. We passed on that deal and on the whole Kamui fiasco. Too many other products out there.

Just to give you a reality check, we agreed to move well over 3,000 tips a month with Kamui. Actually I think it was 3,500 so you can see how much of a chunk of change the owner of Kamui would have been taking out of his USA "distributor's" pocket if we agreed to his deal.

As far as anything happening with this whole discussion... nothing will happen and business will go on as usual. The corporations will place more restraints on small businesses and the consumer will be screwed. MAP is only the beginning. If you read my article you would see that a merchant can't even add value to a product as it's against the manufacturers "rules".

We ran a special last month on Moori as low as $8 a tip if you purchased $200 or so of other merchandise. The sale was a huge hit but if we participated in Kamui's scheme of price fixing, we would not have been 'allowed' to offer that savings to our friends and clients. Why would we bother selling a product that competes with us, our other free market items and our own free market system of bringing price saving deals to our clients? It doesn't make sense and we won't participate in any price fixing and we especially will never sell a product at a higher price just because the manufacturer says we have to. BS!

All I know is that if we buy a product for $10 and want to sell it for $12, no one on God's green earth is going to restrain me from doing that.

The problem is that the resellers of certain products have come to build up their business to such an extent that 60% of one dealers business relies upon the manufacturer. So, if he sticks it to the manufacturer and goes off MAP, the manufacturer will cut off the reseller and 60% of his business. And if he did do it, other resellers as greedy as they are would not take a lesson from that but jump on the "opportunity" to fill the void.

As I said previously, we will not sell any products from any manufacturer who has a MAP policy. To me it's just plain, restraint fo trade and anti-American. Perhaps that too strong but it's just not normal to tell me what I should sell a product for when it's my money that's invested.

OK, I have to get back to work now. I want to wish all of you a wonderful weekend. I have to get a newsletter out.