|   online sales | Terry Stanard
Jul 26, 2002 9:31 AM | | I'm trying to get into the business of selling home theater gear online. I established accounts with two distributors who sell a range of brands. They both clearly said they would drop ship to customers I met online, then later said emphatically they would NOT, when I asked them about the warnings on manufacturer websites saying they do not warranty products sold online. It was like I raised a taboo subject!
Is there a way to sell products online and still warranty them to customers? Or, do on-line dealers simply avoid the issue and let the customer find out later the warranty is no good? Or, are the manufacturers simply not able to track whether something is sold on-line, and the warranty issue is really a non-issue?
Thanks,
Terry |
| re: online sales | wanderingbob
Jul 26, 2002 11:02 AM | | I have purchased a lot of gear from All Home Theater (http://www.allhometheater.net/). The price was usually about 25% less than MSRP and less than I could find at local brick-and-mortar stores. I think that one of the reasons that All Home Theater can sell gear at 25% below MSRP is that they are not an "authorized dealer." This means that most equipment vendors will not honor a warranty claim for equipment purchased at AHT. However, AHT advertises that they honor the manufacturer warranty - if a component you buy there fails, box it up, send it back to them and they should arranged to have it fixed.
From this experience, I would say that the manufacturers can definitely track when products are purchased online, and will not honor the warranty. However, with a 25% discount, I was willing to take the risk that AHT will honor its warranty claims, and others probably are also.
Bob Gardner
wanderingbob@yahoo.com |
| re: online sales | piece-it pete
Jul 26, 2002 1:02 PM | | Terry,
You could also go the aftermarket warranty route.
When I bought my DVD player from returnbuy @ebay they offered a warranty from Kemper insurance: http://pics.returnbuy.com/programs/kemper/warranty_ex.htm
You could either include it in the price or offer it seperately.
Good Luck!
Pete |
| re: online sales | AVMASTER
Jul 26, 2002 1:21 PM | | your distributors backed out because they prefered to maintain their accounts with the manufacturer than sell a few pieces to you. manufacturers can track their product a variety of ways and quite a few are aggressively going after unauthorized websites with legal action. some of these on-line dealers may offer a warranty in which they will swap out defective equipment for the same or "same as" or may actually do repairs on site or may have a third party program in place with a separate warranty company ; in any case it is to your advantage to seek the blessing of some of the manufacturers if you want to be any kind of crediable A/V reseller |
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