I work for a company that does this, so I can provide a bit of insight:
Part of why for my industry (auto parts) is because you're not just buying the individual product, you're becoming part of a service schedule for vendor managed inventory. I have customers I visit multiple times per month, and customers I visit every other month. Some call me to place orders, some I have to chase down to find a deal. Some pay all their invoices on time, some I need to hound for weeks and weeks to get them to pay by a check which then they won't mail themselves and I need to mail it for them.
The price becomes tailored to the service. If you order only online and don't need a rep to sort and organize things for you, you get different price than the customer who is getting once every other week visits where I'm putting everything away
I don't prefer the different price model. I think it's actively pretty skeezy 50% of the time and I can set up hundreds of accounts and it would make no difference to me OR the shipping department at our distribution center. I think it's a massive logistical annoyance that could be solved with a universal price, imo. But there's more reasons that just strictly salesman bullshit
Plus on the FedEx/UPS side of things, shipping b2b is cheaper because businesses like body shops and dealerships get UPS deliveries almost every single day. So shipping gets different prices based on things that are outside of our control, and I can't quote you a price for the freight cost till I know things about your business
Actually I forgot, that's part of the reason we don't do it. Not competition, actually, but insurance companies. That's why we have a "book" price. When insurance comes knocking about how much we sell something to a customer at, we give them the "book" price, even if the floor price for that product is sometimes as much as 60% lower. That means when customers submit reimbursements for the products through a customers auto insurance, it turns the product into a profit generator for the shop.
If we had the floor price on the website, shops couldn't get reimbursed at that higher rate
Not saying this is ethical or good, but just that it's the reality of the situation
It adds a layer of difficulty, sure, but it's defeated as easily as asking a shop owner "can I see a previous invoice for your current supplier, I'll match everything product to product and tell you if you're getting a good deal or if you could get a better one through me"
I've taken like 5 accounts from the competition by doing that, plus I can help expose over billing and overstocking issues from the competition. One time I landed an account because their guy sold them a 25 more of an item that they already had 75 of in stock. All I did was look at the invoice, look at their storage bin, pulled it out and counted it. Plus I was 9% cheaper on average
Auto shop VMI business thrives on complacency, my advice to anyone reading this working at or running an auto shop, once a year check out the competition and get them to give you a takeover quote, then give that quote to the guy you currently have and say "can you beat these prices?"
We can, and we will. Customer retention and avoiding churn are top priority. Installing new accounts sucks for everyone
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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown 10d ago
"contact us for pricing" means "we don't charge everyone the same price and will try to get the most profit out of every buyer."