Originally Posted by Bikeophile
I agree 100% all that selling the EAI stuff at wholesale does is make a few customers happy in the short term...but hurts everyone in the long run.
The House of Track guy does seem to have some overly dramatic dealings and events going on that he shares with the public regularly. Perhaps that is his marketing technique...Anyways, I am not too concerned with this guy, because if he continues to deal with his suppliers like he is currently with EAI, I wouldn't be surprised if other distributors start pulling the plug.
Our business doesn't have a retail space, but we do have storage, rent, e-commerce, hosting, insurance, and other expenses that although may not be as much as the similar expenses of a full shop, but we definitely have our expenses that need to be covered as well. Selling prices at wholesale to try to attract a few customers, while losing a supplier is something we would never even consider.
retailers like chris king, sidi, easton, mavic(those who make a very premium product) etc etc tend to have very strict policies about the prices at which you're allowed to advertise their products. -- partially to ensure that no shop is disadvantaged in the market, regardless of size. they want uniformity in pricing so that everyone can carry their products and not worry about being undersold by a shop down the street or by the internet. I wouldn't be suprised at all if they pulled the plug on a shop like house of track that advertises well below MSRP.