Suppliers right or wrong?

[sprocket]

rph9168, what he said!

 

[Earl Weiss]

Sounds here like the internet has made the distributor a dinosaur.

Perhaps for some and for some things.

I had a soap salesman for a large well known company tell me 10 or more years ago.
"Earl, we provide a premium level of service, so we charge a premium price. We visit customer sites regularly, check dilution levels, supply volumes on hand etc. etc. You don't need that service."

Now, another guy from the same company was telling me how the business has changed with many owners not being there full time and 7 days a week. They can use that level of service. I know some operators who just don't want to be bothered with messing around with their solutions and are happy to let someone else do it.

So, there is a niche for various levels of service and costs.

 

[pitzerwm]

There will always be a niche for almost anything, but will it be large enough to make a living at it. Look at the tablets and smart phones making a GPS obsolete, almost over nite. Cell phones killing pay phones.

 

[mac]

I've been finding out that many operators think their chemical arrangement is doing fine. Since selling a new brand of chemicals I'm spending a lot more time in equipment rooms and I have yet to go into one where there wasn't something wrong. One successful and busy tunnel operator had what looked like a dead rat in his premium sealer mixing tank. It was his chemical that had congealed. I like to think there will always be a market for distributors that have the experience to assist operators. My customers seem happy.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I've been finding out that many operators think their chemical arrangement is doing fine. Since selling a new brand of chemicals I'm spending a lot more time in equipment rooms and I have yet to go into one where there wasn't something wrong.

Sadly, I have to mostly agree with you. except I don't think they are doing fine. I am pleasently surprised on those rare occasions when everything is as it should be. I don't have the time to check everything daily, but on a weekly basis something is amiss more often than not in a tunnel or equipment room, and it's something one of my guys should have caught and fixed. Of course their is always the chance it happened 5 minutes before I got there. (Yeah, right!)