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Gerry's Is Getting An Equinox Delivery Tuesday!


mn90403

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44 minutes ago, DetectingMO said:

That deposit talk and priority things sound like a lot of hogwash.  No offense.  I don't sell Minelab but zero other manufacturers/distributors work that way.

Now I will say some distributors and manufacturers are better at logistics than others so I can see why some dealers have one message and others have a different message.  

DetectingMO,

Do you have a relationship with a dealer where he knows you are GOOD for the order?  My dealer Bill knows I'm not shopping him and my check and credit card are good.  I'm not much of anything to Minelab but my dealer Bill is as good as gold to them.  He told me Minelab knew there was going to be a fire storm so dealers could just tell everyone it was based upon order and/or deposit time.

Minelab can't micromanage a dealer but they are also not going to disclose their entire distribution plan either.

Mitchel

 

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I have had mine paid for since may 2017, i originally paid for an atmax preorder but switched it over to the nox the first day it got talked about on the forums.. My dealer is a good guy and I still have t heard anything so I would guess his distributor hasnt confirmed anything with him. 

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38 minutes ago, SavingThePast said:

I have had mine paid for since may 2017, i originally paid for an atmax preorder but switched it over to the nox the first day it got talked about on the forums.. My dealer is a good guy and I still have t heard anything so I would guess his distributor hasnt confirmed anything with him. 

I hope soon then for you.

Individual dealers might have some explaining to do to their customers.  Sometimes explanations are excuses and sometimes they are reasons.  You don't keep your customers with an endless supply of excuses.

Mitchel

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32 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

I hope soon then for you.

Individual dealers might have some explaining to do to their customers.  Sometimes explanations are excuses and sometimes they are reasons.  You don't keep your customers with an endless supply of excuses.

Mitchel

Ground rules as they pertain to distribution would have been nice to know above board if the prepaid pre-order thing was actually a determining factor in how ML decided distribution #'s for units to individual distributors or dealers.  I have total trust and long history with my dealer, that is why no money exchanged hands before a transaction occurred.  I also know that he has a close business relationship with Minelab.  So you are saying that I should blame my dealer because neither he nor I insisted on a pre-paid pre-order?  Strange.  That's a good way to build trust and good will among the various stakeholders.

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Chase,

I stand by my statement. 

My dealer is sending me a detector next week (if FedX delivers it to him) .  If not then it will be later.  The beaches will still be there for me.  I hope the waves come in and make it easy the first couple of uses.

Mitchel

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10 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Chase,

I stand by my statement. 

My dealer is sending me a detector next week (if FedX delivers it to him) .  If not then it will be later.  The beaches will still be there for me.  I hope the waves come in and make it easy the first couple of uses.

Mitchel

I am glad for you, honestly.  Man, I don't mind waiting.  Expected that.  I am just naive enough to think that we should all be informed of the rules so that we all have an equal chance of drawing that winning lottery ticket instead of the 7/11 guy having inside information on which numbers you should pick and it is up to him to decide to tell you or not.  I guess the house always wins.  Lol.  Makes me feel all warm inside and renews my faith in "the man".

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I don't think the dealers knew that prepaid preorders would be the only ones getting detectors in the first batch.  That's the way it ended up, yes, but at first, I'm sure the dealers were assuming all preorders would get filled in the first batch and it wouldn't matter of they were prepaid or not.  Then, when it became clear that there was only going to be a trickle of machines in the first batch compared to the huge number of preorders, Minelab had to have some way of differentiating who would be getting detectors in the first batch and who would have to wait, and they decided to have dealers send them only to customers who prepaid.  That decision probably wasn't made until the last couple weeks or so.  Maybe Minelab consulted with dealers and asked them the fairest way to handle the huge backlog and they agreed together that the first batch would go to prepaid preorders.  But I'm pretty sure this was not decided on until very recently.  So I guess what I'm saying is:  don't blame the dealers.  There wasn't necessarily any hidden hidden knowledge or conscious effort to "hide the rules."  

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Interesting theory, Mr. W., but I don’t buy it.  Minelab doesn’t likely have that kind of information or clout.  It might even be unlawful.  There is likely nothing in the dealer agreement which allows Minelab to enforce who the dealer can sell to.  Again, probably unlawful since federal trade law greatly restricts the ability of manufacturers to interfere in the marketplace behavior of dealers.

This sort of “clout” pretty much went away when Federal law made it illegal for manufacturers to enforce “list price” on dealers.  Now they are left with Minimum Advertised Price.  If a dealer Advertises a price lower, he is violating his sales agreement.  He can, however privately agree on any price he wishes.

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Sorry, the logic here is just baffling.  LOL

Especially, if you assume the rules were changed in the middle of the game as suggested by Wayfarer.

For the dealers that accepted no prepayments because that is how they normally roll with all their customers - they get no detectors because they didn't anticipate the change in plans or were forced to call customers to ask for prepayments?  Nice.  "No soup for you!"

The bigger volume dealers that insist on 100% pre-payment for all pre-orders will have an issue too because they couldn't possibly fill their hundreds of pre-paid pre-orders.  That's going to happen whether or not Minelab insisted on prepayment for distribution allocation simply because their list is long.

Also, that would mean in the case where a dealer seeks prepayment as a form of commitment from less trusted customers, those customers would have priority over the "don't worry about it because we trust you" customers who were not asked to prepay because Minelab sought agreement  (after the preorder lists were generated) from dealers that the first batch would only go to pre-pays?  Don't seem fair. But life isn't fair.

The Savvy dealers had two lists, I guess. The "higher priority "Have" list" for those who prepaid and the "I'll take it when I can get it no pre-pay list."  

I guess I can still blame my dealer for not being savvy vice being devious. Or I can just face facts and realize that I was not actually a "most trusted" customer.  :laugh:

Wish they just distributed the detectors in proportion to the number of preorders (prepaid or not) and let the dealers figure it out (recognizing that the distributed numbers would be small).

And, despite Mitchel's insistence to the contrary, perhaps that is what they actually did happen.  Who knows?  All we can do is speculate that the process was fair vs. a moving target that could result in inequities.  

Despite my natural cynicism, I am going to assume Minelab and the Dealers acted in the best interest of their customers, and hopefully the dealers kept their most trusted customers in the loop as to the best way (e.g., first to sign up and prepayment as necessary) to ensure they would get a detector as soon as possible.

"You may say I'm a dreamer,  but I'm not the only one." JL

(This post has the patented "Tongue-in-Cheek" entertainment disclaimer so as to not stir up serious hate, discontent, and drama.  I'm finding humor in the most dire of circumstances, hope you can, too.)

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customer arrangement with dealer has no bearing on dealer to distro arrangement and/or distro to manufacturer arrangement.   If a dealer is putting prepay first in line thats on the dealer.  Not dictated by distro or manufacturer.  Each relationship has their own agreement.  Stating otherwise is false.

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