Dear AGRRR,

Can you please ask the people from NAGS to share with the world how auto glass is the only thing decreasing in this economic environment? I am sure that they would jump at an offer from such a legitimate organization as yours to help explain this anomaly.

Without a doubt in our economy it's the most un understandable pricing methodology I've ever encountered. No one can make me understand, (unless they tell me who NAGS is in bed with?) how List goes down, discounts to ins & tpa's go up, and cost to AG businesses from their vendors goes up....it's a formula to create failure for small AG businesses, I don't know how anyone makes it without diversifing.

Why not compare do the dealer list prices. Do the dealer list prices go down every 3-6 months???

They say the Sept 11 release showing a decrease is because of changing market conditions. The only changes I know of that have occurred this quarter are the insurer's are paying less, the networks are screwing us over more than ever, wholesalers have had a 3% increase for all retail customers and wholesalers added a fuel surcharge on deliveries.

The wholesale price of glass has increased from shorts to truckload. It's not that I disagree that it has or hasn't gone down but why wont NAGS show use how they calculate the data?

Is it legal for an organization that controls an industries pricing to keep the method secret?

NAGS does not control industry pricing. They print/publish lists and line drawings, etc., it's anybody's option to follow it or not. Many of us are not following it as none of the distributors do anymore. They own their formula, they do not have to disclose anything to anyone, although it does add to the "mystery"....but they're tail gets pulled by the auto insurance industry so that's why prices keep getting lowered, very simple.

JW,

My old business partner said one time in a meeting if nags is going to F us over we should get out of the industry and open a burger king, something no one could tell us how to price. Crazy talk or not I agree if you can not make it work get out.

Larry

Somebody get bachman out.

IGNORE HIM

I am not hurting nor looking to get out, I'm just looking for answers to questions I feel are important for me to understand. I feel, we as an industry have the right to know how pricing is derived. For years it was no secret that NAGS based the list prices off a multiplier of truckload. Now list prices keep decreasing and the formula is a big secret.

Bachman, I would think that more people would be curious as to why? This is our industry and we should be able to understand, audit and track the data as to why these trends happen.

Sorry if I offended you

JW...He's going out of his way to offend people, don't apologize, ignore and listen to the Mark1's, Sglass, xxx's (and many others) on this forum who actually help and opine w/o belittling.

with no bloviating i might add.... thats bachman's job.

I love Bill O'Reilly (sorry Bryan)

Not usre if I can explain this question right but here goes... Nags has their list prices, the Dealers have their list prices, and the vendors like Mygrant have their list prices right. How can the insurance companies or the networks require we only use the Nags list prices. Why can't we just simply bill them off of the list prices from whom we purchased the parts? WITHOUT SHOWING THE INSURANCE/NETWORKS our cost? Since we all have different costs from the various supplier.

Mitchell owns NAGS, Mitchell is one of if not the most widely used auto body repair software used. Mitchell is in bed with the "big boys", so it only behooves them to keep lowering NAGS pricing to continue to endear themselves with the insurance companies so the insurance companies can continue to build 54 hole golf courses next to their 40 story headquarters. NAGS generally has the lowest list prices on most parts, that's why the networks make us use those prices.

That would be called PRICE CONTROL then wouldn't it?!

We are not forced to use NAGS though. Dealer lists could be considered price control as well then I guess.

About the only thing I would use NAGS data for is labor hours as a guide on what to charge for labor.

Other than that I would simply charge my cost + x% based on who it was (dealer, shop, ins agency etc).

Never have understood the point of list prices anyway.

As an industry I think we do need a basis for priceing. This gives us an idea of what we can expect to pay for glass and what we can expect to be paid for our glass & labor.
We need a guide line to form a reasonable profit margin that Insurance Co. s will accept and pay claims based on.