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Dear Vendors:

Our security camera DVR horked up a hairball, and I’m tired of babysitting the thing any longer. I spoke with my boss and he suggested we replace the DVR with Cloud! Storage!

And there are a bunch of you out there. And as far as I can tell, none of you are willing to state up front on your websites what the charges will be for using your services will be.

Are you really going to make me call you so your sales team can work their voodoo? If you’re out of our budget range we’ll both be wasting our time. You have that kind of time? I don’t. Can’t you at least supply a range of prices to go with the various service plans offered? What are you afraid of?

Love,

Your dear Uncle Slaton

35 Spice ups
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Well put. I don’t think any of the corporate security vendors are worth a damn. They either won’t give you realistic costs or they use systems that aren’t secure, or both.

6 Spice ups
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The lack of up-front pricing is a real hassle and time-waster.

I’ve said it before, its not like just because your service is super cool or you gave me a great demo my budget will magically grow.

6 Spice ups
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Truth,

While I understand that “customization” is huge these days so prices are as varied as Lego constructions…

Even the phrase “prices starting at X” is a help. If I see that line I don’t really expect to meet my requirements at $X but if it is less than my budget can afford, we’ll talk. If it is more… not wasting time on that solution. Your Time, or mine.

5 Spice ups
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I agree with this x 10. Sometimes I just want a price and that is it. Not a complete 30 minute presentation that just wastes each others time in the end.

Side Note: Have you looked at Avigilon? I have always had good experiences with their security camera equipment and software.

4 Spice ups
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I rarely will give a vendor a second thought unless I can easily see the price of their product without giving them any information.

I know things can be negotiated and all that but giving me a list price at least let’s me see if we’re in the same ball park without both sides wasting time.

4 Spice ups
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This issue irks me to no end. I guess if I have to ask I can’t afford it, bye, bye.

4 Spice ups
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yes … we love to look at prices before we call…

but if you, the customer, can look at published prices, so can our competitors.

if the competitors know that customers shop by price, they will undercut the others in the hopes that you will call them first.

price wars begin.

prices get so low that the company has to start cutting corners to deliver service / product with such low margins.

quality suffers.

sucks either way… with or without prices.

on the sec cam / dvr note… have historically used custom solutions for security … as none of the service providers I found could provide the service that I required.

hybrid local storage with cloud backup of specific events …

the cost and bandwidth req’s of offsite storage for the number of cameras used was prohibitive, so … internal box.

also kept 6-8 months of footage, as some customers would call up their cc company after 3 months and dispute a purchase of several thousand dollars for equipment, we would show them the transaction with the customer face time stamp included, and the customer would have problems with their credit rating.

2 Spice ups
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At least tell me how many zeroes come after the first number.

6 Spice ups
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7 Spice ups
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Price. A fair price. That’s not what you say it is, and it’s not what I say it is… It’s what the market will bear.
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market_bear.jpg

Here’s the Market Bear.

3 Spice ups
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What i hate is when, on behalf of our clients we look into solutions for them but the vendor says

“unless you give us the end user details for our records we can’t give you a price”

Do i sound stupid? am i in the first week of my job as an IT person? do they really think i am going to give them all the end user details so they can ring them their selves and cut me out of the system?

Just give me a price for what i am asking or i will go somewhere else.

1 Spice up
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I don’t think this has merit. If a competitor wants to know pricing, nothing is stopping them from having the demo/sales pitch/etc that a customer would have to go through to get pricing.I think what it boils down to is tactics. They get you emotionally invested in something so that you will request the funds from your upper management, or at least that’s the idea. They just don’t realize that we’re smarter than that, either that or there are a lot of gullible IT people out there.

2 Spice ups
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I got an email yesterday from a supplier who I am pretty sure got my email address from spiceworks. The sales guy asks if my company might want to consider them for our IT needs.

I took a minute or two to consider the new source of hardware and services. I followed the provided link to their website. The website is so vague and in my opinion incomplete that the products and manufacturers that they sell are not even visible, “call us” is the only response. Made the decision really easy. If you will not even put the products that you sell on your website then we are done already. Similar issue, I have no interest in calling you just to find out if you sell product x or y. I certainly do not want them calling me trying to sell whatever they have for product.

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I disagree with this last statement 200%

Competition does not always affect quality. In some cases it may, but that’s a “Buyer be ware” situation. Know who you’re dealing with.

I believe that the lack of competition actually hurts quality. If you don’t know what other companies charge, when you are unhappy with a service or product, you have to jump through loopholes to switch and these price hiding companies know this. It’s hard enough changing services and products in the IT field.

3 Spice ups
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Famous answer What do you want to pay lol

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By not posting any pricing, the sage company hopes to uncover your maximum budget and charge that much. The excuse that they do not want competitors to see the pricing tells me that a vendor only competes on price and can provide no tangible benefits that their competitors do not and therefore they are only offering a commodity, that yes, you are wise to buy anywhere that will offer the best price. A quality vendor should be able to provide real benefits to dealing with them and if they cannot provide a value proposition based as much on quality of service as the cost they may just be in the industry for quick easy money and will get out when they have to honestly compete and move on the the next latest and greatest quick money grab.

2 Spice ups
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I too hate having to request pricing. It is a huge waste of time. Maybe that’s why I buy so much from Amazon. It’s too easy and convenience is a huge factor.

2 Spice ups
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You really can’t buy anything if you don’t have a price.

I don’t like dealing with people unnecessarily. Meaning, if the vendor makes it a necessity it is unnecessary for me to deal with them.

If you require me to deal with people, particularly Sales People, just to see if you are in the ballpark price-wise, then you will have likely lost the potential sale.

Sales and marketing tactics are based on emotion, as pointed out above.

I AM SPOCK, when it comes to dealing with sales people.

Live long and prosper.

1 Spice up