homo maris;
First off you make some valid points and I generally maintain that neither party in a dispute like this is totally innocent.
homo maris:
1. Dive Sports acted in the best interest of its customers by providing superb service at a low cost. Their action jeopardized their economic subsistence (i.e. they knew they could loose the AL dealership) but they regardless acted in the best interest of their customers.
And exactly how does getting their dealer license, and thus the ability to provide continued service to their AL clientele, suspended help their Al clientele. There is also the smell of retailer market share protection going on here. While Phil has said that he was standing up for his clients, his in-ability to compete was also costing him sales and that was eating into his profits. So while I can agree that a certain amount of the motivation for his actions was based on what you refer to as “best interest of its customers” it also has to do with money and his not getting the sales that ended up going to the grey market. Let’s keep it in perspective shall we. Phil is not being a martyr here, he’s attempting to protect his clients AND his profit margins.
homo maris:
2. I believe in a free global market, a market where price is determined by the unregulated interchange of supply and demand rather than regulated by manufacturers and government policies. This desire to have a free market is embodied in US Laws that prohibit restraint of trade or monopolies (e.g. Sherman Antitrust Act).
Please no not try to quote me US law and then try to convince me that US law protects free markets, and that free markets are the basis of capitalism. I live in Canada. Our trade systems and competition laws are similar. I’ve also seen the effect of US law as it pertains to free trade and free markets. The US has routinely ignored court rulings against them in various trade disputes so while they claim to support free trade and free trade agreements, they routinely ignore them when their best interest, and not the customer’s best interest, is adversely affected. There are many levels to price fixing ranging from manufacturers price fixing to market board price fixing, to national price fixing (duties and tariffs). In essence, capitalism, as practiced in the US, and Canada, is based on price fixing, to one degree or another.
There are other incidents of manufacture price fixing in the US markets. You already have reached, in many product markets, retail saturation so manufacture price fixing is one of the tools used to keep markets from devaluing. The auto industry comes to mind; as does the home appliance market. Agriculture market boards fix prices and quotas to maintain supply management and market value as does other natural resource based markets.
In the same breath that you would cry against price fixing and in support of free markets, you would also cry about third world manufacturing creating unfair pricing when compared against US based manufacturing. Then you would also cry out against the factories moving out of the US and the loss of secondary industry which is controlled by the free market. Before you jump onto the true free market bandwagon be prepared to accept all the facets of it.
I agree the internet has opened many markets previously closed to the retail market, and some transparency has been realized but it has also lead to an increase in the market necessity of caveat emptor.
My father often said “you get what you pay for”. Deal shopping is all fine and good, but if you expect something for nothing you end up paying next to nothing for something of less over all quality. (Quality includes service support, warranty, trust, etc). Paying a few extra dollars for a quality item from a dealer that I want to deal with is not a big thing for me; nor is it a big thing for many other buyers out there who still prefer to use the Internet for information, and keep their spending local, hence AL will probably not give this as much attention as folks here seem to think. I’m not saying it is right, just a probability.
Peace
Whitelightnin:
The customer comes first. ALWAYS!!! ...
have had customers ask for Aqualung & I simply tell them why I don't carry that line.
...They ALYAWS have simply bought a brand that I carry.
James your whole paragraph is entirely contradictory. If the customer comes first, then the brand they are looking for is what you should be ordering. The first time a reatiler tries to sell me a "line that they prefer to carry" over the product that I wanted would be the last time I walked into their shop...period.
You're confusing good salesmenship with the customer comes first attitute of good customer service. If that works for you all the best...it wouldn't work for me.