Was looking at Alta as an option to expand and standardize ALL of my deployments - but going direct and undercutting on Amazon blows that all up and is BS. This puts me in a tough spot with projects in the pipeline.
I found out from a customer telling me he found them cheaper on Amazon than what I initially quoted him, not cool. Of course I price matched, but forced to ensure good business. Price points and margins are what enticed me to even explore your offerings, performance is OK, but the key was pricing…and you do this?
Unless you can explain to me how we’re supposed to make a profit with this latest model of going direct, I have to jump ship and find an alternative (not TP Link haha). At the very least have ISP Supplies price match. But, honestly - leaves such a bad taste in my mouth the way it was handled…only time will tell.
You’re upset that Alta is selling directly to the customer because it doesn’t allow you to put a markup on an item? Am I understanding this correctly?
@BenGWiFi Thanks for the note and welcome to the community! Thanks for catching that. We have already corrected that pricing issue. I apologize for any headache that has caused!
@BenGWiFi I wanted to get a follow up note up on the selling direct. We did opt to step in on Amazon as there are certain tools available to a trademark owner that allows us to clean up the marketplace. We were seeing far too many vendors jump in and sell below MSRP, which was eroding margins for everyone. So, by stepping in, we are now able to restrict who is selling on Amazon and assure MSRP is being held.
I welcome any questions you have on this and would also be happy to setup a call to also discuss further.
Lastly, you say performance is “ok”. I would love to hear more about why you feel its just “ok.”
If margins and price are important to you, I would not be looking at Alta, Ubiquiti, etc. You’re only option really is going to be Ruckus, Snap AV stuff, etc.
As someone who does networking from time to time for businesses, I do not make money on the product, typically. They can even provide their own, as long as I am comfortable it will meet their needs. I then charge them for installing, programming, maintaining, monitoring, etc. I don’t really care about the $2-10/unit in margin, I care about the hours I spend programming, installing, and monitoring. Alta provides a free monitoring system, so you can charge whatever you want for that. That shouldn’t be free to an end user. If they think it is, then they can install their own network and manage it themselves.
