J Sigmo
Known around here
- Feb 5, 2018
- 996
- 1,336
Ever try to buy anything at all from Grainger supply? They have a policy of only selling to businesses.
This is for the reasons @fenderman has stated.
They carry motors, pumps, plumbing, electrical, etc. I'm sure they are simply protecting the many contractors they sell to so those contractors can mark the parts up. And they save themselves the grief of dealing with homeowners and hobbyists who would likely make up 99% of their returns and tech questions.
When I had my own electronics company, we never did work for consumers. Industrial and commercial customers, only!
We once had a guy come in who wanted us to design and build him two, count 'em, TWO custom designed CB radios for his motorcycles! When I shot him a guesstimate price of $50,000, he was incensed! I tried to explain the work involved and the hassle of obtaining FCC type-acceptance, etc., and he just didn't get it. That is the example I always use when explaining why we never did business with consumers. They generally suck!
It also pissed people off when we refused to even try to repair their broken CD player, etc., and told them to just go to Target, Wal Mart, etc., and just buy a new one for $30. They just couldn't understand that we'd have to charge them twice that to even open the thing up, and then it would have some proprietary IC in it that you couldn't get unless you were an authorized service center and agreed to keep $50,000 in parts inventory on hand (cough Sony cough).
Anyhow, I sympathize with these manufacturers who dont want to deal with the public directly. Let the pros do the installations and let them deal with the morons.
This is for the reasons @fenderman has stated.
They carry motors, pumps, plumbing, electrical, etc. I'm sure they are simply protecting the many contractors they sell to so those contractors can mark the parts up. And they save themselves the grief of dealing with homeowners and hobbyists who would likely make up 99% of their returns and tech questions.
When I had my own electronics company, we never did work for consumers. Industrial and commercial customers, only!
We once had a guy come in who wanted us to design and build him two, count 'em, TWO custom designed CB radios for his motorcycles! When I shot him a guesstimate price of $50,000, he was incensed! I tried to explain the work involved and the hassle of obtaining FCC type-acceptance, etc., and he just didn't get it. That is the example I always use when explaining why we never did business with consumers. They generally suck!
It also pissed people off when we refused to even try to repair their broken CD player, etc., and told them to just go to Target, Wal Mart, etc., and just buy a new one for $30. They just couldn't understand that we'd have to charge them twice that to even open the thing up, and then it would have some proprietary IC in it that you couldn't get unless you were an authorized service center and agreed to keep $50,000 in parts inventory on hand (cough Sony cough).
Anyhow, I sympathize with these manufacturers who dont want to deal with the public directly. Let the pros do the installations and let them deal with the morons.
