|
Mark,
If we
have an "official bulk buy" then maybe we need some volunteers to organise
these
- as I said, people work in different ways, depending on time available to
them,
hassle factor etc.
An
advantave of this approach is that one or two people will be doing all the
wheeling and dealing, hopefully building relationships with the suppliers
(eh
SB) for the future.
If
different people organise the buys then you don't get this 'one voice'
approach
and you get inexperienced people maybe not getting as good a deal as they
would
otherwise.
Perhaps we'd have a system whereby if someone
finds a
potential bargain of interest to the group, they pass it to the bulk buy
co-ordinator to manage.....
Now
obviously, this means one or 2 people always get the hassle - and they will
not
always necessarily be interested in the deal at hand, so get nothing but
hassle
out of it - so maybe there would be an agreement that a certain percentage
would
always be added to the price as (some) recompense to the bulk buy
organiser.
Again,
as long as the price is better than the norm, this should not be an issue
for
people, and we really do become a recognised buying force in the
UK!
For
the record, I am NOT thinking I would like to be one of these bulk buy
co-ordinators!!!!
Tony
Tony,
As I said, I'm not
under
the impression that you're profiteering on this...
The area where I disagree is that I believe that we need to have the
concept of an "official UKHA bulk buy", with agreed rules, and that,
long-term, this will be good for the community. For those who've been
on-line
for a long time, you'll remember that similar things happened to the CIX
sales
channels about 10 years ago, and, whatever it felt like at the time, ended
up
good for the community as a whole.
... Yes, the end-game for this _IS_ pre-release ReplayTVs...
... which are, as you know, far better than TiVo or Showshifter :-)
:-)
:-) :-) :-)
M.
-----Original Message-----
From: BUTLER, Tony,
FM [mailto:tony.butler@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Thu 30/05/2002 11:30
To: 'ukha_d@xxxxxxx'
Cc:
Subject:
RE: [ukha_d] A Public Apology
Damn these crossing over posts!!
Apology accepted - it was a _little_ excessive I thought, but
forgotten already!
I
don't see that adding a bit for time & effort is too much - even if,
yes, an actual profit is made, on a product that people on the group want
and will get for less than they would otherwise. It might encourage
others to do bulk buys if they can at least cover the cost of doing so (or
fool themselves into thinking that anyway).
Maybe because it's so soon after the memory buy you are thinking I
am
going to be doing this on a commercial basis, but really I'm still
relatively new tot his group so I'm just trying to catch up on the gadget
count - and whilst I'm at it, if I can get a better deal if I do a bulk buy
then why not?
This I feel is way different to the guy who just spammed about loads
of PC's at bargain prices or whatever it was.
Some guidelines would be useful, but enforcing them would be very
difficult and constricting perhaps - eg, if I had to collect all the money
(thus getting exact numbers), work out the exact shipping costs, VAT etc on
the memory deal then I probably wouldn't have bothered because it would
have
taken more effort than it was worth - so I bought first, told everyone the
price, then collected the money (or even handed over the goods without the
money because 'I left the chequebook at home - you know who you
are!).
This is in contrast to the other buys I am aware of where money was
required up front. Fair enough - different people are willing to take
different risks, so guidelines should not be binding on
people.
Just IMO of course.
Tony
Let me publically apologise for my very OTT message back to Tony. I
over-reacted to his "good god..." reply to my original message, which
wasn't intended as a dig at him.
Let me further go on record with a couple of things:
1: I don't believe that Tony is excessively profiteering on the
AudioTron bulk buy.
2: It was ME who originally spoke to Mark about making profits on
the bulk buys... but read on.
This was _prior_ to Tony's recent post about European and "small
profit".
The reason I was picked up the phone to speak to Mark about guidelines
for Bulk Buys was because of the relationship that UKHA is building with
SonicBlue, who have expressed to me very clearly that they want to
understand how our bulk buy process actually works and is governed before
they enter into the next one (on ReplayTV.)
We discussed both past and current bulk buys, including (in
chronological order) Graham', Gareth's, John's, mine, and Tony's.
In our discussions, I said that I was felt we needed a clear
distinction between those who wanted to run Bulk Buys as a service to the
group as a whole, and would try to do this at cost, and those who were
commercially-motivated, in particular the guy that Mark banned last week
for just coming on and spamming the list with adverts.
The thrust of my conversation with Mark is that we needed to make
clear, in advance, the guidelines for doing this. As you know, I drafted
the original set of guidelines that, say, Gareth used. I think that it's
far better to understand what we're all letting ourselves in for up
front.
We _are_ becoming a powerful force in the leading-edge Home
Automation market, and wholesalers are beginning to ask questions that we
need to be able to answer...
Mark
________________________________________________________________________
This
email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs
SkyScan
service. For more information on a proactive anti-virus service
working
around the clock, around the globe, visit
http://www.messagelabs.com
________________________________________________________________________
For
more information: http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
Post message: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subscribe:
ukha_d-subscribe@xxxxxxx
Unsubscribe:
ukha_d-unsubscribe@xxxxxxx
List owner:
ukha_d-owner@xxxxxxx
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is
subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
Service.
********************************************************************
Visit
our Internet site at http://www.rbsmarkets.com
This e-mail is
intended only for the addressee named above.
As this e-mail may contain
confidential or privileged information,
if you are not the named
addressee, you are not authorised to
retain, read, copy or disseminate
this message or any part of
it.
********************************************************************
| Yahoo! Groups
Sponsor |
ADVERTISEMENT
;) | |
|
For more information:
http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
Post message: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subscribe:
ukha_d-subscribe@xxxxxxx
Unsubscribe:
ukha_d-unsubscribe@xxxxxxx
List owner:
ukha_d-owner@xxxxxxx
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is
subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
Service.
________________________________________________________________________
This
email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs
SkyScan
service.
For more information on a proactive anti-virus service working
around
the
clock, around the globe, visit
http://www.messagelabs.com
________________________________________________________________________
For
more information: http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
Post message: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subscribe:
ukha_d-subscribe@xxxxxxx
Unsubscribe:
ukha_d-unsubscribe@xxxxxxx
List owner:
ukha_d-owner@xxxxxxx
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is
subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
Service.
For more information: http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
Post message: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subscribe: ukha_d-subscribe@xxxxxxx
Unsubscribe: ukha_d-unsubscribe@xxxxxxx
List owner: ukha_d-owner@xxxxxxx
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
|