CompuServe Messages

Really, most of what you have argue is real nosense from any marketing point of view. Let's get it straight. The game is _Free market_ You and Greg have jumped in defending your right to establish prices privately and this is OK for me. However, public prices will do not inflinge any harm in the dealer community in the forum, at least, not from my point of view. Public prices help to get competitive markets running. Free america, free capitalism, freedom of choice at least. You have talked about the magazines prices. Bad example. Unlike your ideal, seems to me, "protected dealer structures", the newstand is a complete open market in which magazines, newspaper and books compete to get a dollar from the reader wallet. What we have to try is to make our product competitive against other products and find the right combination between price and quality of contents. We put a price in the cover, a price that anyone can read. We compete against PC Magazine and PC World, and we are winning the battle to PC Magazine, but loosing it against PC World. PC World actually cost more that our magazine, while PC Mag cost the same. There is a contest for quality, best content and best offers. The reader, as a free buyer, have to make the choice. There are a lot of cheaper computers mags too, but they don't have any significant market share. And they are cheaper. But yes, I have been working in a magazine and I have heard the people in the PR dept. how they are tired of asking hardware and software dealers price for their products and recieve no answer. I have nothing against that, but I firmly think that this DOESN'T help an open market and doesn't benefit the costumer who wants, like you, to maximize profits. As an informer, I always ask for price, then publish it and make my opinions about if the price is the correct or not according to the product, the service support, etc… No, I don't want to dictate prices in somebody eles deal! Indeed, THE MARKET is WHO DICTATES the price. If you can't understand that, you should take ECO -101. But you are right, price is not everything. And here is where the dealer have to shine! You name it! Service, reliability, support, etc… here's is where you can make the difference against the discount market. For sure, I have bought my Kodak ColorEase from a dealer that can support me (or that's what I think <g>) when I need it because I have spend $7,000 in the damn thing. But If I need to buy Painter I will buy it throught the discount channel BECAUSE any dealer will give me support in a program that cost $170 (you talk about it in other threads). So here is a case in which dealers will not recieve harm. We are talking about memories, HDs, etc and programs from big companies… not the kind of deals in which you guys are involved. You won't find a PAR or a BetaSP deck or 3DS in CompUSA, would you? Regarding prices update… I'm not asking for a permanent track of best prices. I know how market fluctuates. However, an orientation price for diferent items and godd places to buy discount, along with good dealers and aproximative (i.e. $1,000-$1,500) prices of non-discountable items could be a way to inform the public, while maintaining your right to deal "privately". You know, Murph' this is not an attack to any of the dealers in the forum, which I think they are of a _great_ human and professional quality, but just a medium to protect the innocent buyer from the decieve and bad prices of other not so good dealers who actually "operate" in the US (as you say, those who don't know a thing about the products they sell at gold price). A little tale: I told to Gus by e-mail that the guys from DEC wanted me to pay _$800_ for an extra 8MB for each DEC. I said them, ARE YOU KRAZY? Well, I said that because I'm moreless aware of the market probably another (unaware) person will pay for it. The objective of an orientative list in the libraries is to avoid this type of situations in many other fields. Look at my as an electronic magazine in which people will get the opinions about lot of products from the experts here plus places and prices about how to get them. Add the HD, memories, etc… cheap sources to make your 3ds machines run faster. Finally, publish it bimonthly and save the time of happy users, save the time of the happy experts ("oh, yes, I think that the discussion about the PAR is in the September-October issue of ASOFT MAG, take it") and normalize the market traffic already present in the forum (in fact, it will completely eliminate it). ana /krazy images