[c-nsp] Cisco Price list

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

That won't tell you anything.

Cisco has a price list that gives "list price"

The major distributors like Ingram Micro and such sell these parts
at lower prices than "list"

If your a dealer that does a little bit of volume from Ingram and you buy
it
from Ingram you get it for less than list - noticeably less - than list

If your a dealer that does a LOT of volume from Ingram - and I'm not
talking just Cisco gear I'm talking a lot of other stuff - then you get
it
for a LOT less than list.

If your a "large company" that Cisco's sales people have identified
as a company they want to suck up to for whatever reason (and the
reasons may have nothing whatsover to do with how big you actually
are)  then you can buy direct from Cisco at less than the lowest
price a dealer can get from a distributor.

If you are a "cisco dvar" which is a Cisco reseller with "gold" status
who have a whole staff of CNE's, and probably some CNI's and you
do lots of installs and probably a half million or more of Cisco business
yearly, then you can buy the stuff direct from Cisco for the lowest
price imaginable - and I'm talking way under 50% of Cisco "list"

None of this is common knowledge and Cisco's sales shifts around
the people and favored companies from year to year in order to
prevent people from trying to buy cheap.

Now, Kim, let me relate how much this means a part is going to cost
YOU to buy.  And as one of the sister companies that I work for is
a Cisco reseller (not Gold, though) so I have some experience.

You call a local Cisco dealer.  That dealer sends out a sales guy.
The sales guy seizes you up.  If you give the impression that your
shopping around, automatically add 10% to the lowest price that
that dealer could possibly quote you.  If you give the impression
of being "i need it next week or else" that is trying to force a
deadline,
then add another 10%.  If you are a general arsehole or rude or
you try to play the dealer against some other dealer in your city,
add another 10%.  If you give the impression that you regularly
pay 60 days out or hold up payments until your happy with the
gear, add 15%.

If you pass the initial sniff test as a good guy then the sales guy
calls out a sales engineer.  The SE goes in and looks at your network
and what your trying to do.  If your tech guys give the SE the
impression of being know-it-alls, then add 10%.  If you tell the SE
that he can't look at a config of some piece of gear for whatever
bullshit reason (security, ownership, whatever) then add 10%.
If the SE makes some recommendations of changes for you to
make and you pooh-pooh them, add 10%.  If you give the impression
of being a complete imbecile who is going to be pestering the
SE for advice on every piece of gear connected to the Cisco
gear, then add 20%.  If your network is cobbled together with
shoestrings and falling apart, the SE might just veto the deal
entirely since the second the new gear goes into operation
the rest of your network is going to fall apart, and it will make
the Cisco gear look bad.

My advice is this.  Think carefully about how you have treated
the local distributor in the past year or so.  Have you called him
a lot and asked for advice and never paid him a cent for it?  His
phone time helping you to make a choice costs him money,
and he wants to have that time paid for, you know.  I would be
willing to bet that if you feel the distributor is rippping you off,
that the distributor probably feels like every time they give you
a finger you take an arm.

Cisco does not pay dealers or distributors to put CNE's on
staff, nor do they pay them to give out good advice.  If you
spend a lot of the distributors time on the phone, they have
to pay for that with the markup they charge to you.

If you really feel the distributor is ripping you, well there's lots
of other people that sell Cisco, start calling around and getting
quotes.

Ted

>-----Original Message-----
>From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net
>[mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net]On Behalf Of Kim Onnel
>Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 12:33 AM
>To: Cisco List 2 (E-mail)
>Subject: [c-nsp] Cisco Price list
>
>
>Hello,
>
>We think that our local distributor is ripping us, can anyone
>please pass me
>the prices of the below items from the price list ?
>
>  BPX-BXM-155-4DX  BPX-MMF-155-4-BC  BPX-SMF-155-4-BC  BPX-BXM-E3-12EX
>BPX-T3/E3-BC
>Regards
>_______________________________________________
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>