Lets refocus. Yes Safelite & D/T have a large part of the marketplace, BUT they are not the independent’s biggest problem. That is the have van will travel, slop & drop, not registered, pay no insurance, pay no taxes all cash no receipt fly by night installers. They suck up all the area cash work so we loose a large part of our market. Eliminate these parasites by all legal means available to you and see the improvement in your business. I do blame our distributors who sell to these people too. The excuse “if I don’t sell to them someone else will.” Is bogus. If you are not legitimate you can’t buy glass wholesale would help tremendously. If you are a legitimate shop how can you disagree? If you are not, I expect to hear you scream loudly.

I agree 100% put some pressure on the distributors who sell to these bottom feeders

Please convey what "any legal means" are to rid installers from a given area. Thanks, Dave.

The distributors just need to sell glass to the bottom feeders for more money. They should not be getting the volume discounts that the bigger shops get. The new little guys coming in to the industry should be paying more for the supplies that the bigger long term companies. I think what has been happening is they are giving these fly by night shops close to the same discounts as the Mom & Pop and Larger shops. That is not helping the industries competitiveness. You know what I mean?

There was a time many years ago when a new shop did pay more then established shops. As time went on and their volumue grew so did their buying power. and if they were not legitimate they could not buy at all. I was there I saw this.

Now I have two aftermarket sellers that sell lower to anyone than I can buy from their suppliers lof&ppg.

KB-there may be a "slight" legal problem with your suggestion. It's called price fixing.

No legal problem with price fixing if price is based on volume. That is the way wholesale distributors base item prices. Bigger volume bigger discount

Price fixing is when different companies get together and agree to set a price that is higher than they would otherwise get if they were competing fairly.

This only works when there are enough companies involved that hold enough market share that they can make it happen.

E.g., if two mom and pop shops got together in a big market to set a high price, it would be hard to show that they affected the market as a whole and hard to prove anyone got hurt.

However, if Pilkington and PPG got together and set prices, that would be price fixing.

greed,greed,and more greed....make sure your suppliers know hou feel about low overhead glass companies. if necessary, give them a short vacation. thay will be around to talk about it sooner than you think. perception is reality..

what should be apparent is that the suppliers want these little guys around. they are easier to control then the larger shops. You can not seperate the supplier/network connections and it's to their advantage to have "parasite", business working within their system. get some guy to work for you with out a 1099. you have a the overhead, they hand you the work, and pay you just enough to make you think you're making money. I'm gonna stop before I really start to rant.

John,

There's no such thing as being a little bit pregnant.

If ANY 2 companies or individuals agree to set a price, it's called " conspiracy in retraint of trade" and it's against the law.

That's not to say that the government is going to come down on a couple of mom & pop shops, but there are a couple of
glass men in Texas who went to jail for doing it.

Well aren't the network price fixing then? We are all only allowed to charge the same price to them whether you are on the network or not. They only pay what they want to pay. Each market gets the same payment amount for the same part.

The insurance and the network set a price= quote "If ANY 2 companies or individuals agree to set a price, it's called " conspiracy in retraint of trade" and it's against the law" end quote
Just curious-can anyone help me find the written law on this subject?

OK, let me try to clarify my statement.

If any two companies in the same business agree with each other, to establish a price it's against the law.

When an insurance company, or TPA, "negotiates" a price with us ( that means ramming it down our throats), that is a customer - vendor relationship which is perfectly legal.

I hope that clears up the misconception I might have started.