Quote:
Originally Posted by zeno
...but big boxes had 1 week sales where they sold for about dealer cost.
That hurt.
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Or even under..
Back in the 70s, we would buy our Zeniths from Plymouth Electric (NH CT) and RCAs from Eastco (MA). Several large local TV/Appliance stores belonged to a buying group that we didn't and often sold TVs for less than we were paying for the same models.
I started buying from what we called a "transshipper" which was a big box appliance store that also sold to smaller dealers below what the distributor charged. I recall we were paying $75 or more less on a console than we paid through the distributor. We weren't big enough to hurt them and selling us a few dozen pieces at a time kept their numbers up.
One day, the RCA salesman came in and saw some RCAs on the floor that he didn't sell me. We got into a shouting match and I basically told him I didn't want to pay retail from him. He shouted back that I wasn't paying "retail". I shouted back that if Brands Mart was *retailing* RCAs for less than I was paying, then I certainly wasn't paying wholesale.
I don't think it was too much longer when RCA and Zenith terminated the contracts with the distributors and started selling direct with no middlemen.
John