Marco Sells To Anyone

[John Frazee]

Do any of you that own trophy shops have customers that order just plates? No trophies? In the past year or so we have had this happening and have them now bringing in Marco catalogs with them showing what they ordered and wanting to order plates. Last week one came in carrying a Marco metal cup and a resin to show us so we could measure for plates. I asked how he set up an account with Marco and he said he just had to give them a tax id number. It could have been for Pedros Taco's, Marco doesn't care. I have been at Marco/Garner, NC and saw customers ordering from the catalog and the warehouse guy pulling stock to show them what different resins look like. I was nosey one day and looked at one of the invoices and wrote down the address which comes out to be just an empty building for sale. These are all people that are doing soccer and basketball leagues. They don't have a trophy business, just an end user. How can we compete with our supplier? I mentioned it to my sales rep and he said he was going to do something about it but didn't. It's not hurting his commission. It only hurts businesses that have invested in equipment and overhead.

[Jeff Belany]

I agree but doubt anyone will stop selling to anyone with a pulse and a CC. I'm an Authorized FedEx shipper but FedEx will open an account for anyone. Then they print a label and drop it off for me. Or else they bring in the package, I do the paperwork and they give me an account number. By doing this, instead of making a couple bucks, I get 75 cents. Couple weeks ago, a person brought in over $2000 in overnight packages. I had to handle about 400# of boxes, do all the paperwork and I made $5 instead of the $125-150 if they had paid me.

FWIW -- the only large industrial company in my area buys direct from JDS. Money is money and the companies are going to take any bodies $$.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Bert Kemp]

I don't think I'd be doing that anymore.

I agree but doubt anyone will stop selling to anyone with a pulse and a CC. I'm an Authorized FedEx shipper but FedEx will open an account for anyone. Then they print a label and drop it off for me. Or else they bring in the package, I do the paperwork and they give me an account number. By doing this, instead of making a couple bucks, I get 75 cents. Couple weeks ago, a person brought in over $2000 in overnight packages. I had to handle about 400# of boxes, do all the paperwork and I made $5 instead of the $125-150 if they had paid me.

FWIW -- the only large industrial company in my area buys direct from JDS. Money is money and the companies are going to take any bodies $$.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Ross Moshinsky]

What exactly should be the criteria for opening an account? This post opens a whole can of worms because I bet there are people on this forum spending less than $1000/year with certain vendors. Should they be allowed to open an account?

I wish these various companies would make it more difficult to open accounts but at the same time, I've opened wholesale accounts with various vendors for small orders. So can I really complain?

[John Frazee]

I think the first part of setting up an account would be for the sales rep for that area to either pay a visit or at least for the time being, make a phone call. Some of the questions should be: What type of equipment do you own to embellish our products with? A desk top printer with Avery labels shouldn't fly. What kind of location do you have? A check cashing store that sells a few grocery items shouldn't qualify. It goes on. I spend about fifty thousand a year between my trophy suppliers and have friends that spend only a few thousand. They have a showroom selling trophies and plaques but focus more on screen printing and embroidery. All of that goes together. Their orders are small but consistent unlike one or two four or five hundred dollar a year orders.

I can't order direct from almost every commodity including laser manufacturers, large printers etc. If I needed more sublimation ink and called Sawgrass, they will not sell to me the same prices as their distributors pay. They would direct me to a distributor. That's what a trophies parts supplier should do instead of competing with us.

[Bill George]

You need to have two prices, one you supply and do the work, the other higher price they bring there own. Oh, and if I screw up on your purchased direct item, then its too bad. Go down the street.

[Kev Williams]

You're allowed to sell to anyone, I'm allowed to sell to anyone, why shouldn't Marco be allowed to sell to anyone?

Like Bill says, up your price for doing only the plates.

If you don't like Marco's biz practices, don't patronize them. Give your money to JDS or Champion or PDU...

[Keith Winter]

John how often do you see this? All the time, or once in a blue moon some guy gets really creative and registers with the state for a sales tax permit to buy trophies. My gut would say this is pretty rare, but my curiosity is peaked.

Up-charge for doing the plates as others suggested. X if you buy with the trophy or Y if you want them done. I know trophies have good margin in them, but you might be able to make pretty good money doing the plates with less work.

[John Frazee]

You're allowed to sell to anyone, I'm allowed to sell to anyone, why shouldn't Marco be allowed to sell to anyone?

Like Bill says, up your price for doing only the plates.

If you don't like Marco's biz practices, don't patronize them. Give your money to JDS or Champion or PDU...

I take it you do not have a store front with high overhead. I know anyone can sell to anyone else there's no written law against it. Loyalty is the first aspect of this. Next, Marco is a WHOLESALE trophy component distributor, not a trophy store that is open to the public. Checking their website for opening accounts states " Since we have restrictions on who we are allowed to sell to, we cannot open an account for you online". If they can legally sell to anyone why would they state this? I talked to one of the owners about a year ago and he said they do get audited by the government to make sure they are selling to up to date real businesses. It has something to do with taxes. But the part that hurts us, the ones that have a storefront and not working in our garage or basement is that we know it's unfair to compete with our distributor.

Do you think Chevrolet or Ford would sell direct to anyone that walks up? No. They would be sent to a dealership. Too extreme? Let's say your appliance broke down at home and you knew what to do to fix it, most appliance parts wholesalers will not sale to you. Most of us feel the same way about our suppliers.

[John Frazee]

John how often do you see this? All the time, or once in a blue moon some guy gets really creative and registers with the state for a sales tax permit to buy trophies. My gut would say this is pretty rare, but my curiosity is peaked.

Up-charge for doing the plates as others suggested. X if you buy with the trophy or Y if you want them done. I know trophies have good margin in them, but you might be able to make pretty good money doing the plates with less work.

We have a lot of seasonal workers that work the farms and factories that join different basketball and soccer leagues. I think it's great they have this available but it's not run through a parks and recreation department. I have gotten to know a few owners of these leagues. One guy owns a sheetrock finishing company and another installs cable for Time Warner Cable. You were asking how often? Each league only orders maybe twice a year but there is at least 5 leagues just in our small area. We used to make a lot of money doing these until they found they could easily buy direct from Marco.

Looks like I will take advice and charge a premium for the plates.

[John Frazee]

I talked to a Marco representative and was told they try not to set these accounts up. I didn't ask if they ask any kind of questions or just write down the tax number and send out catalogs. Any information that can be provided to close accounts that shouldn't be open should be forwarded to them. The issues that can arise from accounts that shouldn't have been open to start with can be a serious problem to Marco the way it sounds. It's a better feeling knowing they try not to compete with us. People slip through the cracks and sometimes it takes a while to clean them out.

[Cindy Rhoades]

I stopped buying from Marco because of serious problems with local warehouse. Corporate told me directly that they do not sell or make trophies but yet I waited for 30 minutes to pick up my order because they were to busy making trophies to bother to pull my order, I saw this with my own eyes because I was standing at the back door waiting for my items to load in my car. I figure if corporate is going to lie to me and let their warehouses ignore good customers then I do not want to deal with them.