Distributors, Who do you use and why?

[drnick5]

Hey All

I'm looking to sign up with a distributor, and I'm wondering who all of you use?

We work a lot in small business, meaning we don't typically order 30 workstations at a time. Its usually 1 or 2, or in some cases 5-10 at a time for a bigger project. I'm looking to sign up with a proper distributor to make this easier, especially on the bigger projects when they come.

In the past I've signed up with a few different distributors, but we ended up not ordering much from them as the prices were significantly higher than I could find elsewhere (amazon, newegg, etc). And inventory wasn't updated on the sites. (a few times i went to order something, and was later sent an email saying they were out of stock).

We are really trying to make the push into the MSP market, so i'm trying to get in with a proper distributor to make quoting and ordering easier. We are currently signed up as a lenovo reseller, but don't really use the program right now. I'm looking to change that and start doing things properly. I'v also started the process to sign up for Dell's reseller program.

For those of who are Lenovo or Dell resellers. Who do you buy from? How are warranty issues handled with these places? (do you have to deal with the manufacturer directly for issues? or do you deal with the distributor?)

The 3 that I'm looking at are:
Ingram Micro
Tech Data
D And H

I've read some recent horror stories with Ingram, they also seem to be the most difficult to sign up for, and require an application fee.

Tech data seems to be nearly as big as Ingram, but i haven't read as much feedback on them (either good or bad)

D and H seems to be the easiest to sign up for, but seem to be the smaller of the 3.

Any suggestions? Is there another distributor I should look at besides these 3?

 

[BlackLabTechs]

I just recently signed with IM and yes, I read all the horror stories too. About all of them. Any business that big has someone telling bad experiences and those are the ones that are the loudest. I figured what the hell, I've got to start out the proper way and just do it. Worse things can happen than throwing $200 app fee down the drain. Had no problems getting accepted and I've worked with a few of them there already on pricing, vendor authorizations, etc. I've got nothing but nice things to say about them. I was very surprised at the service I've witnessed so far and it's all I can ask for. It's a reminder that I need to be just as helpful and pleasant to any and all of my customers. The Lenovo rep at IM reached out to me as a new account and got me started on the Lenovo partner signup. All set there now as well.

Getting ready to place my first order tomorrow for couple grand so we'll see how the follow through goes.

As one member on here put it (sorry, can't remember who posted), keep your purchasing a 60/40 split between 2 vendors. Keeps one honest and the other begging for more (or something like that).

 

[BlackLabTechs]

Also - forgot to add - as far as pricing.... I was overly impressed by the pricing at IM. After reading all the comments about the main distributors being more expensive that usual routes, I was a bit hesitant to sign up with one of them. Now that I have, I'll admit the pricing wasn't cheaper than Amazon, etc. but not overly overpriced either. I don't mind paying an extra 2 bucks on a $200 item if that means I'm going to get sales support and extra help when needed. Plus some of the vendors get reported your sales and give you a rebate on the back end. Or send you promotional items, evaluation products and marketing materials (banners, etc.). Try getting Amazon or the vendor to do that when you aren't going through preferred channels.

 

[kwest]

Sad but I spend around 15k a month at Amazon. Suppliers seem to be a pain and savings are not there.

 

[lan101]

Sad but I spend around 15k a month at Amazon. Suppliers seem to be a pain and savings are not there.

wow!! that's a lot. I only spent about 10k for the year of 2015. Majority was amazon or suppliers selling on amazon. A couple orders to newegg and walmart too. If you don't see any savings spending 15k a month, I certainly won't see any at 10-15k a year. Do discounts ever come to small guys just over time of doing business? I know most want to see volume sales.

 

[kwest]

I have tried and they can't give bigger discounts than Amazon.

Maybe someone else can chime in. I don't need a rep. Amazon refunds my money when I have issues. I stopped using new egg when they gave me a hard time when I needed to return something. I mentioned what I spent a month with newegg and they didn't care.

 

[AlexanderCS]

I'm having great luck at D&H in Canada.

They give me weekly emails about rebates on different brands so I'm afloat of all that. Their pricing is good, the ship time is next day. If I place an order by 5 PM I get it next day by 4. Being partnered with Lenovo as well also means I can load back-end rebates through my distributor, something I can't do at Amazon or Newegg.

Another plus, my rep keeps me afloat of good deals. Just this week I got something saying they were wanting to get rid of some HP desktops/laptops... make an offer. Good prices, especially on 5+ units, made them an offer and got i5 machines for $575 apiece. I already had 3 buyers lined up before placing the order. With my setup fee and the machines themselves, I've made my money back before even placing the order. The next two machines at $699+tax each are pure profit.

If they were Lenovos, I'd also claim around 5-9% back and get about $50 in SPIFFs loaded to my Mastercard.

Distributors can be pretty helpful. Thanks, Stonecat.

 

[callthatgirl]

OMFreak! $15G at Amazon a month?????

 

[HCHTech]

Distributors can be pretty helpful.

Yes. It's not about the best price. It's about service. Someone to call when something goes wrong. Simple RMA with cross-ship. They charge 10% more than some random Amazon vendor? Who cares! You are passing the price along to the customer anyway. The goal is to make YOUR life easier, and the customer benefits by that. Plus, the more you spend, the better your rate is in any event. Over time, you will find that they are competitive, AND you get all of the other benefits as well. Pick one close to you if you can, so you can benefit from faster shipping for no additional cost.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Been with Ingram for...over 15 years.
As you build history and volume with them, your pricing will be lower than you can find via the fly by night back of the unmarked van deals on slamazon or oldegg resellers. So as time goes on, it's really worth putting the time and effort into it...so you can GROW and become much more profitable down the road.

You get great pre-sales support, consulting. Need a custom server quote? Talk to their HP Server reps....get custom quotes. Need special laptops ordered? Talk to their Lenovo team and get a custom build done. Oh..and the Microsoft CSP program...if you want to service businesses and resell O365 and cloud services and make a good profit...CSP is where it's at. Only available through a few select wholesalers.

 

[drnick5]

Thanks for all the responses guys. I'll probably bite the bullet and sign up with Ingram. Thanks!

 

[stro]

Another concern is warranties on inventory items. When you buy retail the warranty starts then. If it sits on your shelf a few months before it is sold, the actually warranty for the customer will expires before sooner than the packaging might indicate. When you buy from a distributor the warranty starts from your receipt date in most cases.

 

[fencepost]

I spend around 15k a month at Amazon

I hope you're using someone's affiliate links for at least some of that - smile.amazon.com, podnutz, etc. Also, that's one way to make Amazon work for you. I was really disappointed a few days ago to determine that the next town over from me (which I could hit with a thrown baseball) gets same-day shipping from Amazon, but I can't . I still signed up for Prime, but that just hurt.

Also, if you're in an area with a Fry's Electronics, take a look at Google Express - $5 next-day delivery on orders above $15.

Finally, I'll link you to Bryce's podcast about just this question from back in October.

 

[jzukerman]

I have accounts with TechData and Synnex. I created an account with D&H but it got disabled due to inactivity. The sales guy still e-mails me every couple of days "Is there anything I can help you with???". Ingram Micro disabled my account due to inactivity. Actually Ingrams was more annoying. You can go online, log in, and search for items. When you try to add to a cart you get a cryptic error message. It took 2 phone calls and several e-mails for their CS department to finally figure out that my account had been disabled for inactivity. I no longer do any business with them.

Back to TechData, I buy mostly Dell computers through them. Warranty is direct through Dell. TechData used to ask for my End User info so they would fill in the Dell warranty in the name of my client, but they no longer do this. I really should contact Dell to fix that but it is a huge pain in the butt to track down every single Dell computer that I've sold, then give Dell the client's info. I also usually purchase 1 or more computers at a time, not a big player. Very few problems with TD. I don't know if they do dedicated account reps. I've never been contacted by one. Just random sales reps. Their shipping policies are kinda a bummer ($2 to $7 handling fee, plus you pay shipping up to $1000 each order). Shipping center in NJ so I get my orders via ground shipping in 2 days which is awesome. This month though they had free shipping on all orders. Very much appreciated. I'm hoping that becomes the norm. I definitely purchased a lot more stuff from them due to that. I purchase Microsoft volume licenses through them as well. I've called their sales dept for MS license questions and all of my questions were answered quickly. I don't think I've ever been on hold with them for more than 20 or 30 seconds.

As for Synnex, I have mixed feelings with them. First they don't sell Dell, so I have go through TD for that. Second, my dedicated account rep changes every 6 months or so. Right now I have a woman who speaks with a thick accent and isn't very smart. I had to remind her on 2 separate occasions to use BCC when sending e-mails. I got a list of all of her customers e-mail address. Yeah not cool. Third, she always fricken calls when I e-mail her, almost never replies to my e-mails. Annoying when I am not in my office a lot of the time. Forth, she e-mails and beg for purchases at the end of every month because she "hasn't met her quota" which is very annoying. I don't have time for that as I already get enough e-mail as it is to sort through. She also works some strange hours. I get e-mails from her at 9 or 10pm eastern, usually about products she is trying to sell, products that I've never purchased nor have any interest in. She doesn't get me as a customer even though I've explained who I am and what I do and what my clients are. She does get back to me when I do contact her, so I give her credit for that. Synnex has no handling fee and shipping is free over a certain amount, I can't remember what now. Shipping centers are close to me (PA or NJ) so I get ground shipping in 2 days, which is awesome. Return process is meh, not automated have to go through someone who takes days to respond by e-mail with RMA info. I signed up for MS Office365 CSP through Synnex instead of TD because it wasn't offered or easy to find out if TD offered it. I got a MS Synnex rep who fully explained the CSP process and followed up with me. Very nice.

For small purchases I still buy through Amazon. Actually used to do a lot of business with NeweggBusiness but it is just cheaper and faster to go through Amazon.

 

[notto]

Where i work.

Altech, Synnex, Leader, Bluechip, Dickerdata, Synnex, etc.

Mostly use Leader now as they have been very professional and friendly to anyone suffering from Altech.... (we jumped ship before it happened as we could see the writing on the wall).

Dickerdata is GREAT for ESD Microsoft Office typical 30 Minute turn around!!

Synnex is very good - website a bit messy
Dickerdata - crappy website.

 

[vickie thivierge]

Been there, done that!

Signing up with distributors has it's ups and down's The down side is simply some require a large first time purchase...or they require you spend a certain amount each year to get the discounts. Either way, as a small business....I'm getting better pricing from the distributors on Amazon.

 

[FrankiePC]

I agree with Vickie. I have accounts with Synnex & D&H but lately I have been getting better deals with Newegg and Amazon. Its less of a hassle as well.

 

[fencepost]

The main reason I'd look hard at distributors is warranty questions like "who's warranty" and "starting when?" I say that as the proud owner of a dying 64GB Sandisk microSD card with a lifetime warranty - for the original purchaser only, with receipt. Since I got it as a gift, I appear to be SOL though I suppose I could mail it to my folks and they could see if they still have a year+ old Costco receipt.....

Though I have to admit, the future possibility of things like this is why I take photos of every receipt for items that aren't simply consumables, often before I even leave the store.

 

[What'd you break?]

Thank you all for the info. This site has helped me a lot.