UKC

I've recently tried to by two specialist bit's of kit for work, I got quoted £3,000 of the British stockist of a US manufacturer.

Long story short he's been very lax about replying to emails, and mucked me about something rotten, so I started looking elsewhere.

The companies stockist in Holland said he wouldn't sell to me because they have a "gentlemans' agreement" not to sell into each others areas.

By subterfuge I got a Dutch mate to enquire about the same item and they are priced in Euros the same as pounds, so 20% cheaper.

I realise people can chose to sell to who they like but is this legal, since we haven't Brexited yet shouldn't we be able to buy from anywhere in the EU?

In reply to krikoman:

As you say, people can choose to sell to who they like. Of course it´ s legal and standard business practice.

In reply to krikoman:

I don’t think that any company is obliged to offer its products in any particular region - they can refuse to quote for work if they don’t want it. If the manufacturer has a distributor set up for a territory/country it would be common practice for their other distributors to decline to undercut each other.

Exceptions to this do exist, such as where a manufacturer is regarded as dominant in the market (generally seen as having more than 50% market share). In these instances refusing to quote can be regarded as anti-competitive.

In reply to krikoman:


Where can i get some of those pounds? The ones i got are close enough to parity with the Euro s[ecially once you get hit with exchange rates and international payment charges...

In reply to Mr Lopez:


You can buy Euro 1.10 for £1 so you are at least half right

In reply to Pedro50:

Depends how you pay i guess. If you are handing a suitcase full of Euros it may be, but if you need to do online payments or bank transfers the rates and charges quickly eat into that 10c to the £.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

If you're paying that high a percentage on a £3000 transaction you need to change your bank.

In reply to krikoman:
Can you use subterfuge to buy it cheaper as well as finding out it is, possibly get your Dutch friend to buy it?

Business is full of subterfuge anyway, carefully worded questions to find things out. Join them if you can't beat them.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Get an account with Revolut. Currently €1.13 : £1, no fees.

There is no reason to tolerate fees or poor exchange rates when exchanging currencies these days.

In reply to jimtitt:

And yet there are laws about RRP and Resale Price Maintenance (RPM), so how can you reconcile one against the other.

and to RJ_Townsend, I'm not asking then to undercut each other, they are already selling at different prices, I'm just being prevented from buying at the prices they are selling at, because I'm in a different part of the EU.

I'm probably going to get a Polish mate to buy them for me and save myself a grand, but it's a bit of a farce.


To the rest, thanks for you thoughts and input.


Edit:
Better news I've found the same unit in Slovakia and not only do I gain in the exchange rate difference but they've give me a discount too!

Hurrah!! for bad service, if the English bloke had got his finger out I'd have been £1k worse off.

In reply to krikoman:


Yes, resellers can choose what price they sell at. In this case resellers in each country have chosen different prices according to their margin aspirations and market conditions. I don't see a link between RRP legislation and a company's decision on whether or not to trade in any given territory.


Essentially you're trying to import the items yourself as a grey-import. The distributor in the UK has been useless so you're going to another distributor. Whether or not that other distributor chooses to sell to you at a UK address is entirely up to them. However, they would be unlikely to prevent you buying within their sales territory (and for the £600 saving on buying from the Dutch distributor rather than the UK one it would be worth a Ryanair flight), and it is then up to you to bring it over the border. This way the distributor isn't breaking their supply agreement with the manufacturer by impinging on another's territory.






Good stuff - given our move out of Europe, UK companies are going to have to wise-up on their service.

In reply to rj_townsend:

It's not a grey import though, because is from within the EU, there's free trade (at least at the moment) between member states, I buy loads of stuff from Germany it's not classed as grey imports. We pay VAT as required.

Anyhow all's well that ends well.

Just wondering what hoops I'm going to have to jump through for our next set

In reply to krikoman:

A 'friend' has been known to sneak uncleared bottled food into the US as English gifts for a conference, in boxes labeled brochures.

As a way of approaching obstacles I think it has some merit...

In reply to Timmd:



Your friend could find themselves in hot water. Anyone who has been through US immigration, will be be aware that they take a pretty hard line on even minor infringements.

In reply to The New NickB:

Yes - smuggling stuff into the US is just nuts!

In reply to krikoman:





Would this be an item that could go wrong. That you may need some aftersales with? Before anyone says consumer rights and fit for purpose, this is B2B so different.

In reply to J1234:


That's a good point, it could well be. Usually, though the type of instrument we're buying are pretty good, but that is something I hadn't considered.

Given the attention the UK supplier gave me though when trying to buy them, I'm not sure how interested he'd be when trying to sort any problems out. He also told me lies, which didn't make any sense, when I picked him up on them he had no answer.

In reply to The New NickB:

They've always had 'a nose' for what they can get away with, but that's a very good point, it's probably not something I'd ever do.

In reply to rj_townsend:


More likely they will sign exclusive distribution agreements and immediately bump their prices up 20% knowing that without the single market it is going to be much more difficult for anyone to circumvent their monopoly and import the product themselves.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I suspect you're right. Also depends on whether the manufacturers actually choose to distribute in the UK when the economy is knackered and we're all living in caves.

In reply to krikoman:



The whole issue is covered by the splendidly titled "Vertical Retail Block Exemption Regulation" or VRBER (Commission Regulation (EU) No 330/2010 if you are keen). Since the right to refuse to trade is paramount you would have to take the two distributors to court to decide whether they were cooperating in breaching the EU antitrust regulations since each case is decided on it´ s merits and it is nescessary to show that the anti competetive effects outweight the economic benefits.

In reply to SDM:


Thanks, i'll check them out. If not time sensitive i use transferwise which is pretty decent, only issue i have with it is that it can take a couple of working days to go through, but other than that and the fact a lot of people think i'm trying to pull the western union scam on them i'm pretty happy considering.

In reply to jimtitt:


Yeah sounds a bit involved to be honest, I did suggest to the Dutch bloke it might be illegal (without really knowing either way), who then asked me to call him, I haven't had time yet, so we'll see.

Since there are many distributors in many European countries I don't think it would be very hard to prove these an anti-trust regulation being broken, if they all refused to sell to us.

In reply to krikoman:



You’ve already demonstrated that their pricing is different, so no evidence of price-fixing. The distributor network appears to be legitimately set-up by territory with them showing little interest in taking sales from outside of that. That’s their commercial decision. No company is obliged to sell its products anywhere it doesn’t want to. I can’t see that there’s any anti-trust leg to stand on.