Hello,

I was curious as to how many of you would be willing to turn over your companies login, and password to a Distributor so they could see what your buying at? I personally would not give my employees access to my passwords! I am sure as heck not going to turn over my password to PGW, Pilkington and other companies. I am of the firm belief that if you can not trust me you do not need my business. After all they are the ones calling on me asking why I am not purchasing from them.

Thoughts are appreciated on this practice. I for one do not support this.


Regards,

Martin

Sounds very sleezey to me. What kind of sales person would ask that of you.

Sounds like Pilkingtons finest.

Actually its illegal for a distributor to use a password given to them by a customer unless you sign a consent form giving them the authority to do so. When you give a supplier your password your only cheating yourself as the distributor will in almost all cases lower some prices to be competitive and raise prices were they may have been lower. I would urge everyone to stop this practice as it only benefits the suppliers as they put this info in a data base to determine area market pricing. If you trust your sales person let them see an invoice copy so they know your not trying to beat a better price out of them. If they tell you they can't help you without you supplying them with a password or giving them invoice copies then move on. They will eventually come around if they really want your business...

There is one question I'd really love to ask
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner,
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?

No don't Print a couple of invoices to give to them if that's what you want to do. PPG used to put there invoices in there dumpster with the prices on them. We recovered a few and found out we were buying glass at higher prices than others. It's been downhill since then. When prices were high we charged more and made more money. Now the prices are so pathetic that your lucky to make a decent profit. And it takes an act of congress to return a bad part. It's nice to buy low and sell high. But your distributors think that way also. HTH

don't kid yourself, my eyes get pretty big when i see the clip board of deliveries the drivers keep. Ask the big S, it's advantageous to know the
numbers.

It is perfectly legal for a company to get competitive pricing from a customer. We all know that. (aka showing an invoice)We also know that it is illegal for anybody to get pricing information directly from a competitor. So when the sleazy sales rep gets home and enters his competitor's database using the keys that you provided,is he getting his pricing information from you, or directly from his competitor? I don't know the answer, but I am pretty sure that the corporate attorneys would not be happy about having to let the courts make a decision (to keep the sales rep out of jail). Also,could it be argued that the supplier whose site was entered by a competitor was negligent in allowing price collusion via lack of sa***uards? Slippery slope here guys. I agree that to assume the sales rep would only lower prices is naive at best.

Another great topic, that will get over looked while we try to figure out which of the 5 people we always go to for answers will be featured on the front page. What ever happened to Journalist? You would think someone from the staff would have chimed it. I don't know what staff changes happened or why that no one is listening but I think this is an issue that AGRR should tackle. It is my belief that there has to be some sort of collusion or some law that is broken, and whom is to say that the shop giving out the password to the company to look at another companies pricing is not or could not be held liable. I am for one, not a lawyer.

Martin

Martin, I am pretty sure that AGRR, nor anyone else, would tackle this sticky subject in a public forum (nor should they). However, as a fellow industry member, you asked a great question and asked for opinions, so I will tell you of 2 situations that I am aware of. Situation 1- Customer complains to Supplier that his prices are all high. Every price. Sales rep asks for login info so he can 'research'. Sales rep gives the login info to Customer's competitor. Customer soon loses all his commercial work and has no idea why. Situation 2- Customer gives Rep for Supplier A his login info for Supplier B. Rep, so proud of his achievement, emails the login info to all of his colleagues throughout the country. IT guy for Supplier B tells his Sales Manager that Customer is logging in from URLs in 28 different states at the same time. Sales Manager for Supplier B, a rather clever fellow, does not panic. He simply changes all of Customer's prices and sits back and lets Supplier A data mine incorrect information. So To respond, Martin, I am quite sure that this happens a ton in our business, and the people who do it are just plain stupid.

I agree I refused to give it out. They called on me asking why I bought 10k less last month, sales were up 17k I told them I have been buying elsewhere. Pretty simple to figure out, they called me asking what was wrong I told them, and they did not believe me, oh well there loss. Not a shocker that it took me reducing my buying for them to call I bet they get a taste of my sales.

1037

I am not going to say who it was as I do not need a backlash from them. I was not trying to cause a ruckus I just wanted to know if this was a common practice. Up here I have never heard of such a thing.

I do not understand remarks here about legal or illegal. To me it is simply an ethics issue. You want to see the invoice your competitor sent me? Go fry ice!

If I am happy with your price, I'll buy from you. If I am not happy with your price, then I won't buy from you. And if I am not buying from you and you ask me why I am not and I tell you your price is too high, then you can improve your price to me or live without my business. Why do some of you make these "issues" so complicated?

Martin, I give my distributor the passwords to my online bank accounts, the key to my safe deposit box, my social security number, my date of birth, my mother's maiden name, conjugal visits with my wife and daughter, naming rights to my grandchildren, and anything else they care to ask for!

Somebody once asked Zuckerberg from Facebook why people actually gave him their real personal confidential information when they registered. His reply: Because they're (expletive)ing stupid!