Tell me about how HP deal registrations work
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I love Softmart Shannon does a great job for us and our customers generally. Does she always get the best pricing? I have no idea... she has yet to lie to me and is always there to do some leg work making sure parts all work together and licensing is correct on everything.
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@Dashrender said:
I understand the MSP push for SMB's, but do they really want to deal with you either, again assuming you're someone like me - doing my on research and I'm only calling the MSP so they can order stuff for me?
You are paying them to be a reseller liaison then. An MSP would not care as long as they are getting their consulting rates. But this seems a weird way to leverage your experts - as paperwork pushers exclusively.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I understand the MSP push for SMB's, but do they really want to deal with you either, again assuming you're someone like me - doing my on research and I'm only calling the MSP so they can order stuff for me?
You are paying them to be a reseller liaison then. An MSP would not care as long as they are getting their consulting rates. But this seems a weird way to leverage your experts - as paperwork pushers exclusively.
Exactly - which is why I don't leverage them at all.
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@Dashrender said:
They are going to have to add onto the price they get from their VAR to cover their costs, and that just adds to the cost for the end customer (me in this case), it doesn't really help me.
Well they would charge for the labour the same that you bill by the hour (or salary, but same thing.) Your business sees you charging in the same why when they have you place an order instead of having a secretary do it. You are treating the MSP as your VAR, not as an MSP, so you are inducing the problem here. If the MSP tacks on money to the cost they are really a VAR themselves, not an MSP (in this action.)
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm like you Dash. I'd rather do my own research and just get someone to place the order for me. I don't really get any "value" from my VAR. If there was something I was unsure about I'd be more likely to post on here that ask them.
In most (many, at least) cases you can choose to not use a VAR then. But VARs often get equal or better pricing than direct. If you get better prices direct, you probably have a low end vendor.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Aren't CDW a VAR? What's the difference?
CDW is a VAR, that is correct. They are the largest VAR. Their "VA" component is low, but they carry a lot of stuff at huge volume. So they get less expertise in exchange for some other values.
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@Minion-Queen said:
In the case of you deciding not to use a VAR for what they are there for. Why not just go with CDW, Amazon or like Newegg or something to order stuff?
Because places like Amazon and Newegg can't carry enterprise gear. Almost all enterprise gear is exclusively through VARs. Same as why Amazon can't carry audiophile gear, only low and mid end. Try to buy a VMAX through Amazon
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@Dashrender said:
CDW tries to sell you whatever they are getting good prices on that week. This week it might be McAfee, next it's Symantec.
Many VARs do that, even little ones. They just don't have as many things to sell and so you notice it less. This is why it is important that IT / MSP be the layer that filters out that sales BS before it gets to any decision makers.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So the take out from this thread is that you need to be pretty sure who you want to buy from before you get any quotes, right?
Yes, exactly. It's very important to have a clearly clear picture of your needs, and understand why you need what you need. Without that it is very easy for a VAR to trick people into all kinds of things - that is their full time job and where nearly all of their money comes from. They get paid only by selling things, so that is what they are going to try to do.
But that doesn't help you with deal registration, that's an aside to that.
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@Dashrender said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
So the take out from this thread is that you need to be pretty sure who you want to buy from before you get any quotes, right?
Yep.
The idea of shopping around is apparently just not a real thing at this level - which I agree with the @Carnival-Boy seems weird.
Not at any level where you are not dealing with a commodity. The idea of shopping around is a consumer one, not appropriate to the business partnership space.
Put yourself in the position of a skilled vendor. Imagine if your boss had you bid for every bit of IT work that you did and no matter how good of a job you do over and over again he'd also call on random MSPs and have them bid and if they were cheaper he'd pay them instead of you. How would you feel? How would you start to react when you realize that the lower bid always wins, not the quality of the work? How would everyone be impacted when everyone, you and the MSPs, realize that you are not trying to build a partnership, that the success of the customer doesn't matter and that all that matters is winning a bid?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
The VARs I normally buy PCs and stuff from are pretty big here in the UK (Insight, Softcat, Misco) and carry huge stocks of HP servers. If they keep stock, I'm guessing they won't register the deals, since they've already bought the stock off HP (ie the deal has already been done). Is that right, do you think?
In most cases, especially servers and up, the registration is likely required. Not for desktops or printers. But servers, almost certainly. HPE probably requires registration for them to complete the sale and get you your warranty.
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@Dashrender said:
Are you saying - That the only thing that registering does is put HP on notice.. and when you call Insite and ask for a quote, they contact HP to register the deal, and HP says.. oh hey, yeah.. someone else already registered that deal. Now Insite just doesn't bother competing on price and simply offers MSRP?
Exactly. Basically what happens is the one that registers the deal GETS the deal. Another VAR has to buy FROM the partner that registered. So the second VAR has no way to provide a discount without losing money, and why would they lose money to gain the business of someone who shops around? Loss leaders make no sense in the "shop around" world. You have to make your profit on every item.
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@Minion-Queen said:
@Dashrender said:
Well to @Carnival-Boy point, I have had CDW tell me they get better pricing from HP for my project if they register the deal with HP - are you saying that's not true?
Are you saying - That the only thing that registering does is put HP on notice.. and when you call Insite and ask for a quote, they contact HP to register the deal, and HP says.. oh hey, yeah.. someone else already registered that deal. Now Insite just doesn't bother competing on price and simply offers MSRP?
Pretty much. Unless there is an extreme case, Insite won't get any deals on it so yup more than likely they will just offer you the MSRP. Again bigger VAR's that deal in lots of volume probably get better deals for offering percentages off. But in my experience not that much from what say NTG can do a deal on.
Big ones know that if they provide deals that people will post it online, it will become common knowledge and everyone will demand it. And since their profits depend on those margins, they can't just go around slashing them willy nilly.
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@Dashrender said:
I've sense bailed on CDW. I use Softmart now. Shannon is pretty easy to work with.
They've been great for us. It's been a long relationship there.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I understand the MSP push for SMB's, but do they really want to deal with you either, again assuming you're someone like me - doing my on research and I'm only calling the MSP so they can order stuff for me?
You are paying them to be a reseller liaison then. An MSP would not care as long as they are getting their consulting rates. But this seems a weird way to leverage your experts - as paperwork pushers exclusively.
Exactly - which is why I don't leverage them at all.
You do, actually, but it is specifically because of the NTG / Softmart relationship.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I understand the MSP push for SMB's, but do they really want to deal with you either, again assuming you're someone like me - doing my on research and I'm only calling the MSP so they can order stuff for me?
You are paying them to be a reseller liaison then. An MSP would not care as long as they are getting their consulting rates. But this seems a weird way to leverage your experts - as paperwork pushers exclusively.
Exactly - which is why I don't leverage them at all.
You do, actually, but it is specifically because of the NTG / Softmart relationship.
Are you saying Softmart wouldn't talk to me if not for NTG?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I understand the MSP push for SMB's, but do they really want to deal with you either, again assuming you're someone like me - doing my on research and I'm only calling the MSP so they can order stuff for me?
You are paying them to be a reseller liaison then. An MSP would not care as long as they are getting their consulting rates. But this seems a weird way to leverage your experts - as paperwork pushers exclusively.
Exactly - which is why I don't leverage them at all.
You do, actually, but it is specifically because of the NTG / Softmart relationship.
Are you saying Softmart wouldn't talk to me if not for NTG?
They would talk to you, but you wouldn't get the same pricing or experience.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
If I want to obtain 3 quotes for some HP kit, is it true that the first reseller could register the deal to obtain bigger discounts, and this would prevent the other two resellers from getting the same price? Is that how it works?
Correct
Not correct according to one of my resellers. All resellers will be given the same price from HP, so it makes no difference which reseller registers the deal.
Also, to answer my other question, there is a minimum order amount before deal registration (or special bid pricing) occurs, and that's way below the $10k in my budget.
Maybe it's different in the US.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
If I want to obtain 3 quotes for some HP kit, is it true that the first reseller could register the deal to obtain bigger discounts, and this would prevent the other two resellers from getting the same price? Is that how it works?
Correct
Not correct according to one of my resellers. All resellers will be given the same price from HP, so it makes no difference which reseller registers the deal.
Also, to answer my other question, there is a minimum order amount before deal registration (or special bid pricing) occurs, and that's way below the $10k in my budget.
Maybe it's different in the US.
If that is the case... what would be the purpose of the deal registration? I don't believe that this is true, nor does it make sense.
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It makes sense to me.
