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I sent this email to my DSM, Region Manager, VP & President. Lets see what type of repsonse I get, may you all can change a few things and send them to your DSMs and Region Manager along with Alan Nielsen and Tom Salierno"

Gary, Art & Alan:

RBS just taken two more of our larger accounts, one pricing at DMAP Level 6, customer (customer stated that they were 20K less than us on price) will not give me pricing, Eatontown, NJ based Health Management Firm (lost 7 machines) crushed us @ DMAP level 6, the other Design Ideas Group (lost 6 machines). Why are they doing this to Ricoh Dealers???? We will be out of business if this trend continues, somebody has to step up to the plate and tell them the business they should be getting is from Kyocera Accounts, Konica Minolta, Xerox, Sharp, Toshiba not from Ricoh Dealers!. RBS must stop giving them incentives and special pricing for upgrading Ricoh machines that are considered new accounts because they are from a Ricoh Dealer Account!!!!!

This type of selling where Ricoh Business Solutions is entering our account and stating, and I quote word for word, "why are you doing business with Century, We are the manufacturer, We will provide better service and the lowest pricing for Ricoh equipment". This is maddening and has to stop! I have never ever seen this in my 27 years of selling copiers!

Will Ricoh and Ricoh Business Solutions not be happy until of the dealers in the State of New Jersey are out of business? We are not alone in this, a recent poll from 40 dealers across the country, 85% voted that Ricoh is Unfair to Dealers, by letting this type of selling occur. How can we compete when RBS is telling existing customers that you should being doing business with the manufacturer because we offer lower pricing and better service. Lets be real, what would happen if General Motors decided to open up direct branches, and offered cars at wholesale and promised better service? Most of the GM dealerships would evaporate over time.

We as Dealers know we have the better service, however potential customers along with the incumbent customers believing they will get even better support, by the time customer figures they should have stayed where they are it is too late for us, ONCE THE BUSINESS IS GONE WE WILL NOT GET IT BACK!

Plus where does this make sense for Ricoh Americas Corp? Ricoh will sell more boxes to Ricoh Business Solutions at a lower price and lose the profit on the boxes that they move to Ricoh Dealers.

After 27 years in the business, I'll have to admit maybe its time to move on, this type of selling will eventually be the downfall of Ricoh Americas Corp, Ricoh Dealers will be either driven out of business or forced to take on other lines, from there once the customer finds out about the poor support, poor knowledge from the reps and the layers of red tape, then they will not buy another product with the brand name of Ricoh.

Ricoh Management Philosophy:

Goal
To be a good global corporate citizen with reliability and appeal.

Principles
To think as an entrepreneur
To put ourselves in the other person's place (try putting yourself in our place and see what Ricoh Business Solutions has created) To find personal value in our work



Art Post
Docusultant
Century Office Product
Original Post

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Art:
Even though you are correct, look at it from this point of view. When Ricoh sells to their dealer base they make X profit for each machine plus, of course, profit from parts and supplies. Now when they sell to there own network they get the total profit. All revenue goes to them. Sure it may be a RBS dealer but when it is all said and done RBS profits go to Ricoh. They get all profit, I believe they understand exactly what they are doing. Look what they lost when Xerox bought Global, was it 200+ million per year? They know exactly what is going on, and they are going to make their RBS base as strong as possible I believe they cannot afford for the dealer base to be bought up by the larger companies or manufactures. I have seen Ricoh dealers in our area be purchased by Toshiba, Sharp and Xerox and with Ricoh policies of dropping dealers it is decimating their new sales. I believe they do not consider themselves strong enough throughout the Nation to survive all the dealers selling off. So they must build their base and not worry about the dealers competing against RBS, any thing the dealer sells they will still get some profit and when they win they get all. This may all be rambling but it is my point of view.
Just food for thought on this subject, I mentioned the current RBS tactics to my father at dinner tonight and he thought it would be reason for a lawsuit. I have to listen to his advice because his business is administering corporate class actions and corporate bankruptcy. I could see in the not-too-distant future the independent dealers coming together to fight Ricoh for their predatory pricing behavior.

What a horrible way to protect market share? Loyal companies like the one I work for make the manufacturer that much stronger. Why not empower everyone equally and let the market decide who should stay and who should go? Talk about a strategy that is guaranteed to cause dishonesty, misrepresentation, and ultimately, failure!
quote:
Originally posted by CopyFax Jax:
Just food for thought on this subject, I mentioned the current RBS tactics to my father at dinner tonight and he thought it would be reason for a lawsuit.


i doubt there is any law that covers this. As far as I know, it is perfectly legal to sell your product for one price to one person and another price to another person... Don't we all do this all the time?

It actually reminds me of a lawsuit involving Microsoft where they had agreed on a "most-favored" clause in their contract with a PC supplier (Dell? I forget, doesn't matter) meaning that they had guaranteed Dell that no matter what deal they worked out with other suppliers they would never sell Windows to anyone else for less than they sold it to Dell.

About a year later, Dell shows up with a lawsuit shoing 20 cases where Microsoft had sold Windows for less. If I recall the judgement cleary, the Judge told Dell that what they'd found was grounds to void their contract, but otherwise, tough crap. Considering that there's only one place you can buy Windows, Dell didn't have any recourse and dropped it.
Close, it's an example of an ACCUSATION of illegal dumping, and the Trade Commission is going to respond in a popular way.

Article says Chinese apple juice concentrate went from 3,000 metric tons to 40,000 metric tons in three years (twelve years ago), or in other words... from an insubstantial amount to a substantial amount. Price fell by 50% during that time, which economists refer to as "economies of scale". US producers that cut their prices to remain competitive complain that the new price is below THEIR cost of production, of course they have no idea of the Chinese cost of production, but we can assume the Chinese cost of production is low enough to still profit at the new price.

US Apple Juice produces think that a 91 percent import duty would be a fair solution. Very fair of them not to ask for something outrageous like 100%, don't you think? Smile

Protectionists will always fight to protect the status quo.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the low, low, prices some people have seen from RBS are not below "cost".

They may be below the price Ricoh sells them to you, but as long as they are at or above the actual production cost, there's not a legal issue.

Also, it seems that the only entity that could file a claim against "Dumping" would be a manufacturer of the same product. In the example you posted, it was apple juice. To make a similar claim for MFPs, we'd need to find a domestic producer who at least made MFPs.

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