Nicko

Originally Posted by Nicko

Although I often complained that the prices for Magellan products under the helm of Next Destination (AKA Magellan Australia & PHM) the move to distribute it through an IT Disto by Mitac was and is a bad move. Why?

From a s p e c i a l i s t point of view two reasons.

1. I would have to compete with people who sell l.T gear such as HD enclosures, LCD screens, MP3 players, printers etc.

2. Such companies get special pricing because they buy all IT equipment from the disto and thus buying power is the winner. Unless I buy 6 figures worth of gear I won't get discount thus I won't sell their product.

From a customer's point of view?

1. No way in the world are you going to get the expertise, the support or the longevity out of your Magellan like you did with Next Destination. Next Destination had a GIS guy developing the excellent maps, now, well all you are going to see is a hash up of what was originally an ongoing developed product.

2. The poor quality of the Triton screwed Magellan (and ND for that matter) and with my personal experience with the new Explorist series the failure was no fluke.


You only have to go onto shopbot.com.au and see for yourself that the cheapest Magellans are from IT shops. But is price a mitigating factor for buyers? Yes, as our poll indicates a large proportion of you think so, and if it weren't online purchases would not be as high as it is. So all of your favourite stores who have the years of experience in GPS products will realise it's just not worth promoting these products because that's all they will be doing, promoting and not selling.

This is why I don't sell TomTom, because it's through an IT disto who offers them to an IT dealer that can sell them 6-10% cheaper than I can buy them from the same supplier.

But the pricing structure doesn't end locally because internationally prices are cheaper than in Australia, no matter which GPS manufacturer you buy from. Okay some are on par but many are clearly price gouging. Even with the strong Aussie dollar the prices to dealers do not match prices to dealers overseas. When a manufacturer quote extra costs including GST, well sorry but USA and UK have taxes as well you know! Freight is not from those countries they are always freighted from the factory in Taiwan and is cheap freight at that to Australia.

Maybe you are one of these customers that buy from stores such as DSE or Harvey Norman. That's fine, just don't expect a GPS s p e c i a l i s t to show you how to use it or give any support, you don't deserve it. As one of my competitors says to me, harsh but understandable, "If you don't like my prices or training charges for your GPS then there is the front door". But he does ocassionally use course language just to make the point heard loud and clear. That I don't condone but I understand the frustration.

On one ocassion I had a "gent" pull up in his new Sahara Landcruiser, walk in and say "Do you know how to operate this GPS?" .... Even though I looked at my 2000 Magna then at his car and gold watch and rings, I was polite, I said "no".

Another competitor in Sydney have a policy of charging as well and do often have the same problem when they quote $65 per hour. This is not an unusual figure and a fair figure to give you the one on one training you are after. Put it another two ways. Can you go into Harvey Norman and spend an hour with the sales rep to get training? If you owned your own business would you give free training?

The crux of the matter is

When your favourite GPS s p e c i a l i s t dealer won't budge on his prices, when he quotes $65/hr or goes red in the face when you mention Magellan or Garmin, understand it's not his fault he is getting screwed!