I can not keep quite any longer as I work for a distributor which represents over one hundred and fifty manufacturers of industrial process controls. There are many of our manufacturers that set prices and do not allow us, the distributor, to sell lower than their minimum selling price. This price is not necessarily list price. Another issue with manufacturers is that most have protected territories in which a distributor can not sell outside of their territory. This is not the case with a company like AS&.S since they are a worldwide catalog house (i.e.Grainger, McMaster, Wicks, etc). If Garmin has a set minimum price with their distributors and have signed contracts with said distributor and a contracted distributor is selling below that contracted price, then said distributor is in breech of contract. If a distributor learns of another distributor, then it is at the discretion of that distributor to report such actions to the principal manufacturer. In the case of Mr. Irwin, he is simply protecting his and other reputable distributors interest in the principal manufacturer's product he represents. Mr. Irwin's only mistake here was to publicly call that distributors hand on this issue. However, we all make mistakes and I admit I have made many myself in my 28 years of selling. Having said that, I must go to bat for Mr. Irwin and AS&S. Why you ask? Because Mr. Irwin has gone to bat for me with one of his principals, on an issue which was not the fault of AS&S, resolved the problem and treated me both fairly and respectfully. He personally handled the issue and followed it through till it was completely resolved. And with my knowledge of selling, I know he took a loss when all burdens of cost were factored into what I had purchased. I can sympathize with his concern with this distributor selling below contracted price because I have had the same type of issues arise in my sales career. I honestly feel all of you have strongly expressed your opinions and concerns and Mr. Irwin will address this appropriately. We all spread our money around to many suppliers of aircraft components, both large and small. AS&S is a large supplier of aircraft components and carries what others do not. So let's not be so harsh on Mr. Irwin, he is only trying to protect his interest in this manufacturer.
Mark Jones (N886MJ) Wales, WI USA E-mail me at flyk...@wi.rr.com Visit my KR-2S CorvAIRCRAFT web site at http://mywebpage.netscape.com/n886mj/homepage.html
