Online Price Wars

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:25 pm

It doesn't seem like this policy is in the best interest of consumers. Let the free market rule! And why should Creamware have any say in how this site is run? Now I see why they were trying to direct people to their message boards... a site where they can have 100% control over everything.

On 2002-07-23 20:02, John Cooper wrote:
Creamware has notified me that it is in violation of their agreement with their dealers for the dealers to engage in online pricewars, etc. They have asked me to delete the three threads which contain such behavior, so I am doing so now.

Please, dealers, do not post prices here.
-John

Post by **hubird** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 8:51 pm

Well, some time ago I had some doubts about a CW announcement here on planetz ( http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... orum=10&19 and http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... forum=10&6 ).
It seems to be a normal legal thing to controll prices, but in fact it's against the interests of us consumers as you say Braincell
At the same time they got John so far to allow them to announce special offers here on planetz.
I don't really feel pain about that if it was just one post between the others.
But it got a 'sticky' label, and THAT made me feel worried about the independency of planetz.
Sticky means 'this is important, more than other posts, it's of general interest'...
I didn't want to embarrass John, so I let it go after a subtle protest.
But now I'm glad to find the opportunity to explain what I was worrying about.
Not exactly the same subject you are talking about Braincell, but yet it's in the same area

Freedom and independency, you can't have enough of it

(no offend John, just speaking freely).

_________________
Let There Be Price Wars!

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2003-12-19 06:48 ]

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:32 pm

Good points. Creamware is allowed to post here. I hadn't thought of that.

I was under the impression that this was an independent site. It's like big brother watching.

I love those sites you go to and it automatically checks the prices of other sites on the internet such as:

http://shopper.cnet.com/

I wish there was a site like this for musical equipment!

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:26 pm

Maybe planetz is not the right place to fight a price war, as it was going on amongst some USA sites at the time.

I check this one for music items for sale:
http://tarfo.com/music/?item=Creamware

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:32 pm

Great likst, thanks atOmic

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:38 pm

I basically agree with your ideas, Braincell and Hubird.
The free market should be the regulation force.

Unfortunately it seems to demand too much brain work for the majority of customers and as such it doesn't work at all in this part of the industry.

We don't have a free choice here anymore for more than a decade now.
Method 1: flood the market with free or cheap stuff until competition is outbattled and then take it over as you like.

Examples: M$soft and Apple, office software and databases (Filemaker is 5 times more expensive today than in it's early years while roughly at the same functionality).
Avid, Digidesign, Hotmail, Emagic, Steinberg to name a few...

I've seen it myself (when in Apple sales) that all and any attempts to achieve a somewhat 'reasonable' price policy failed.
Each party (Apple, distributors and dealers)involved broke their own rules or common agreements as soon as a better deal came into sight.

It ended with margins finally that low that you had to convince customers to buy anything, without even considering if it made sense for them.
In the shop I worked we had about 30% and could afford spending time to build proper solutions - today the dudes have 8% at best.
Now we call the big blurb 'consulting' and charge a fortune for nothing but bla.

Nevertheless customers still follow without complaint - and that would be totally different in any other kind of industry.
I'm not to blame anyone (I'm a fan of the free market too), but I must admit that I don't understand it.
And I won't complain as it adds pretty good for making my living

Imho it's a (helpless) attempt probably made in good will by CW, but it won't prevent the thing mentioned above.

Hubird, I once talked you into that Bitheadz stuff - obviously it's officially distributed that way (for whatever reasons) just to get it into market.
An $800 app for 50 bucks, wave buy bye to CW if you want that happen here too.

Ok, not exactly on the topic, but it may add some background. I've no solution either

cheers, Tom

Post by **hubird** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 5:54 pm

thanks Astro for your thoughts, coming from the real world

!
My main concern was about independency of planetz, I'm not exactly a fighter for the free market (I would call myself an anarchistic type of marxist, in those days

).
BTW, I still don't have the Bitheadz'Unity Session... but it will be all right soon.
Let me explain why.
Talking about the free market, may be you find this interesting, at least those who live in EUR countries.

Since 1 juli 2003, if you pay mony to a private person or office or shop, you don't have to pay charge anymore IF you fill in that persons IBAN number in the form.
The charge was rather big, 15,- EUR at least.

IBAN means International Bank Account Number, it looks like NL53.72.45.867.269.45.674.720, where the first two digits determine the country where the account is settled ( NL = Netherlands), with the other digits contain your accountnumber plus other numbers I don't know.
NB it was the dutch Euro parlementarist Frits Bolkestein, right wing liberalist, who did fight for this, it's the only thing of him I'm thankfull for

Anyway, I correctly filled the form at the bank office, but -as showed up later- the bank charged me for 7 EUR and the German Ebay guy for 15,- EUR!
It took two weeks, they tried me to accept that the Foreign Payments Department (...!) had to check this out till bottom, and nothing could be done before this had been done.
To make it short, I insist to speak with 'some' boss, and she (yes) after all did what the bank had to do: pay the german guy the rest of his mony and pay me back my charge, and check her departments in her own time.
So, thank you Astro, thank you very much...

But soon I'll get my Unity Session, hmmmm, for a give away price

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 7:40 pm

Thanks for once again being helpful at0mic.

Maybe planetz isn't the place for a price war but if John so deems it, let there be a section of the forum for that.

It has always been Creamware's philosophy to keep prices high. I contend (as I frequently have in other posts) that it would be in the best interest of Creamware and the consumers if prices were much lower. I'm not a businessman. It is only my gut feeling (based on the principals of a free market system).

Fancy Italian sports cars cost a lot but surely the companies that make them don't earn as much as Honda. Creamware recently filed for bankruptcy. Maybe this is "normal" but to me it doesn't seem good. Call me old fashioned. I would prefer if they didn't have to take this action and had a surplus of money.

[ This Message was edited by: braincell on 2003-12-18 19:55 ]

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 12:17 am

Marketing tends to ruin things down... unfortunately moeny can bring us some nasty people into the forum, and they start writing not because they want to participate of our passion, but because they want to create a market place for them to sell. This is not fantasy, it has happend many times. Bussiness people (not everybody of course), can be very intrussive, and they could easyly change the caracter of this site.

I once was told by Ken an intelligent reflection about not turning Planet Z into a comercial area. I think he's right.

Of course, I am nobody to say what Planet Z should or should not be, it is just a thought. Cheers.

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 5:50 am

On 2003-12-19 00:17, Nestor wrote:
Marketing tends to ruin things down... unfortunately moeny can bring us some nasty people into the forum, and they start writing not because they want to participate of our passion, but because they want to create a market place for them to sell.

If I remember well, it's was short after adding that sticky topic to the purchasing forum that Subhuman disappeared - he was so intrusive that he got into each topic and solved the problems

C'mon Nestor, you were there back at the time, you should know...

Post by **hubird** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 6:46 am

...

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 11:38 am

On 2003-12-18 17:54, hubird wrote:
...So, thank you Astro, thank you very much...

I hope there isn't too much irony in this line - the amount of action compared to the acual value is ridiculous

cheers, Tom

Post by **hubird** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 5:30 pm

no irony at all in fact, it'll be a perfect purchase

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 11:13 pm

On 2003-12-19 05:50, at0mic wrote:
On 2003-12-19 00:17, Nestor wrote:
Marketing tends to ruin things down... unfortunately moeny can bring us some nasty people into the forum, and they start writing not because they want to participate of our passion, but because they want to create a market place for them to sell.
If I remember well, it's was short after adding that sticky topic to the purchasing forum that Subhuman disappeared - he was so intrusive that he got into each topic and solved the problems

C'mon Nestor, you were there back at the time, you should know...

John Cooper · Post by **John Cooper** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 1:01 pm

Planetz is definitely an independent site. I can do whatever I want with planetz. But, I am a Creamware user and supporter, and I want their business to succeed. So of course I don't mind posting occasional announcements for Creamware. Perhaps I shouldn't have made those announcement posts sticky- that's really a judgement call, and next time, I think I agree that non-sticky would be more appropriate.

As for the "no dealer postings allowed", I understand that this is part of Creamware's contractual policy with their dealers/distributors. In their agreement with Creamware, I believe the dealers have agreed not to post prices in online forums, etc... Some of the dealers were violating that agreement by posting here, and Creamware asked me to remove those posts.

For a comparison, I'm a Taylor guitar fan. Taylor's pricing policy is MUCH stricter-- absolutely no prices can be posted on line. Period. They're *very* strict about this. Whether or not I agree with that policy, I understand why the moderator of the independent <a href="http://www.taylorguitarforum.com">taylor guitar forums</a> tolerates no discussion of prices.

This all make sense?
-John

Post by **hubird** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 3:34 pm

thanks john, you understood my point, I'm completely satisfied...

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:27 pm

In any event this is not a commercial site so dealers would be out of place here.

The Taylor guitar pricing policy is ludicrous. I would love to see a site (not this one) where dealers have an online price war. If that runs against Creamware's "Dealer Agreement" it is a ridiculous agreement and they deserve to have it violated.

I have seen catalogs where for certain expensive items it says "call for price". If every item was like that then the catalog would be almost totally useless. The price is very important information for most consumers and for *any* company to dictate how dealers may display the price of their products is idiotic IMHO. Creamware's job is to manufacture hardware and software. How it is marketed should be solely up to the distributors. Otherwise they might as well cut the distributors out and just sell direct. It is a crying shame that they are telling other people how to do their jobs. Price fixing in any shape or manner is not in the best interest of consumers and is evil.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 9:44 pm

well Braincell, I've grown up in the 70s with a real anarcho attitude, school was something to torture free minds, etc...

From that time I remember a teacher for french who also gave sports lessons.
A tough guy, one of that kind to expect a good bashing up from, if you go to far.
He had the most annoying, old fashioned methods and always insisted on what's to do and how - no chance to cheat.

But finally (after years) it turned out that I had almost forgotten anything from various most lessons, but the french stuff was still present

I've even been asked if I was born in France when on a trip through Europe shortly after school

And the same as I've hated the french lessons, I was thankful to that dude and his methods, which now enabled me to communicate with people that I would have missed otherwise.

I could add other stories about nasty children grown by incompetent parents without any rules or limits, but you probably get the idea.

Sometimes there have to be rules, even in sales.
Laugh about it or call me an idiot, but reasonable prices are in the interest of customers.
Pricewars only lead to a single or very few survivers, which will then dictate the price.
There will be no choice left. That's a basic principle of our economical system.

You know that European borders are pretty open today, so there's a massive flood of people from the eastern part to look for employment here.
For a long time Portuguese workers had the lowest wages in Europe, now they are outperformed by rock-bottom prices from former USSR in their own country.
In German house building you cannot afford to hire local workers anymore. The work goes to the company with the lowest offer, so either close down or hire workers temporary from eastern Europe.
Siemens as one of the largest suppliers for information technology will release about 10000 software engineers in favour of 'off-shore' developement in India.

Btw : the biggest complaints about unemployment here is by people buying all their stuff by the principle of cheapest offer - nevertheless they don't give the same right to their employers...

That's what price wars are about (imho).
And let me add that without Apple's (indeed) high prices during their early years, you'd still control your DAW by the command prompt

A 'Live bar' with the look and feel of Norton Commander would rule

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2003-12-20 21:49 ]

Post by **garyb** » Sat Dec 20, 2003 10:20 pm

healthy(obesely fat with profits is NOT healthy)dealers directly benefit the consumer.FAIR pricing creates healthy dealers.if the dealers fail,the company's distribution network goes to hell.it is in the companies interest to make a level field for the consumer and the dealer.this is why the dealers are "franchised" and managed to some degree.this behavior shows that the company is interested in the long term.

the cheapest deal is not always the best......

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Sun Dec 21, 2003 2:33 am

these price war type corporate competition is rediculous. I mean, lower prices are cool for customers but it can wreck havoc on the corporate side. Living in Japan (which is almost a corporate run country, hehe), you see this happening everywhere.

It happened with factories. Electronics companies agreed to run their factories 8 hour a day, 6 day per week. (forgot what the exact number were) Anyway, one wise dude says, "hey, why don't we run the factory an extra hour to produce more products than everyone else"... and before long, ALL factories are running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And now people are trying to figure out a way to make people LIVE in the factory vacinities to cut down on commuting time. That's the sort of exreme results that unregulated competition can bring. All it takes is 1 wise dude who thinks it's ok to break the rules. The next moment, everybody looses.

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-12-21 02:36 ]