"ethics" (?) of forced supply purchases

Hi,

I'm curious as to the ethical issues (opinions) regarding tying customers into a particular supplier ("yourself") for ongoing product "consumables".

[E.g., Joe Computer User purchasing printer supplies from the manufacturer instead of Bob's House-of-Clones]

Ignore the case(s) where there are significant liability issues involved (e.g., replacement parts for aircraft, chemicals for medical assays, etc.).

Clearly, there are certain cases where the supplies can arguably affect the perceived quality of the product (*your* product) where you might argue that you have a financial interest (reputation) in preventing your product's image (and that of your firm) from being sullied by some off-brand supplier.

(This was an argument printer ink suppliers tried to float)

But, that often can be a thinly veiled rationalization for locking the consumer into *your* supplies.

When does this just get to be *too* outrageous? E.g., I know of a medical instrument supplier that sold "proprietary" distilled water (!) -- in tamper proof, one-time-use "modules". (Do they *really* think no one can supply distilled water to whatever degree of purity they claim to need??)

When does the customer start to *resent* the vendor because of this sort of practice?

(I used the printer ink analogy as it seems that customers are *finally* "getting wise" to that false economy -- $99 printer with $80 ink cartridges!)

I.e., what would a *rational*, *fair* set of criteria be for making this decision (vendor-side)? How do you *not* sound "pissy" when you disclaim the use of any "unapproved" supplies as voiding the warranty?

As a distinctly separate issue, how do you extend this reasoning into supporting third-party *service*?

In each case, keep in mind that it is increasingly easier to find "proprietary information" for just about anything. And, a garage shop, someplace, who will provide the services/supplies you want/need via an "unapproved" channel.

Reply to
Don Y
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I have a can of Ace Hardware "Extra-Strength Acetone."

--
John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com   
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Reply to
John Larkin

Unless they have a contractual relationship, other people's processes are not under the medical instrument supplier's control.

You have to look at the total cost of ownership. If you're willing to assume the risk of incompatibility, go for it.

In many printers, the technology has been pushed into the cartridge, while the printer itself is rather retarded. But the idea to sell the base unit cheaply while making money on the addons goes back to video game consoles/video games, Barbie dolls/Barbie doll clothing, and even safety razors/razor blades. And, in each case, you can't complain about the performance of the base unit when you are using someone else's addon, whether the blade doesn't shave, the clothes don't fit, or the video game doesn't load.

Demand that the vendor do compatibility testing with third-party supplied products or you won't buy it.

Even factory approved service has sucked in recent years.

Fine. Just don't go crying to the manufacturer that the reloaded cartridges don't print as good.

Reply to
spamtrap1888

Of course! But designing your instrument so that it will only *work* with "approved distilled water cartridges" seems a bit disingenuous. Deliberately making an excuse to charge people for a supply that they could otherwise get from any number of *reputable* suppliers.

[Like making harvesting sea-salt illegal to "protect" the spice trade]

That's what the *consumer* has to do. I'm interested in the vendor's outlook on the process. I.e., you tie a customer to your supplies ARTIFICIALLY and when do you think the customer will start resenting this?

To return to the printer ink analogy... sell *your* ink at prices comparable to the third-party suppliers and the customer no longer has a gripe with you. OTOH, sell yours at an artificially inflated price and the customer starts to resent his relationship with you!

In *some* printers, that is the case. In others, the only technology in the "tanks" is a metering device that ensures the tank will not be refillable. Extra cost put there *just* to ensure the user doesn't buy someone else's supplies.

toilet paper with proprietary dispensers, etc.

This is a *rational* explanation that a vendor can engage in. However, the customer can see it differently: you are *forcing* me to purchase these substandard supplies because you have artificially inflated the cost of "genuine" supplies.

As a vendor, you're foolish to reassure yourself with these sorts of rationalizations -- once your customers come to

*different* conclusions!

*We* are the vendor. We don't want customers pissing and moaning because they feel forced to buy something from us that, in their minds (or, in the minds of third parties INFLUENCING THEM), they should be able to purchase from other "less expensive" sources.

Validating third party suppliers just gives the customer another outlet for his cynicism: ("Of *course* they refuse to validate Bob's Discount Outlet -- because Bob's prices are *so* much lower than the other suppliers they've crawled in bed with!")

IMO, the "safest" approach is NOT to be in the supplies business at all. Are you selling printers or ink? Cameras or film? Assay equipment or distilled water?

But, that means you have to be able to *attract* someone to that business.

That doesn't address the question.

"Service is bad -- so let *anyone* service the kit?"

Reply to
Don Y

If you make it refillable, what's to keep the customer from using tap water? Tap water is the cheapest solution yet. Why not design your product to make distilled water unnecessary?

If you don't believe your control of the supplies adds any value, then price the instrument so you don't need to make your profit on the razor blades.

Do a FMEA review (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) of your product and supplies to determine what's critical to product function, reliability, etc., and what's not. Then you have an explanation for why certain items need to be controlled, either by you or a third party.

If you have a small, manageable number of customers, work with them to understand who their preferred suppliers are. Based on your analysis, you should be able to tell these suppliers what's important and why.

No -- if the vendor's blessing of the servicer is meaningless, then let the servicer stand or fall on his own reputation.

Reply to
spamtrap1888

A hospital wouldn't put tap water into an instrument designed to use *distilled* water.

You've missed the point of the example: distilled water is readily available in these settings to damn near *any* degree of "purity" you can ask for! Forcing the customer to purchase prepackaged distilled water, single-use "cartridges" is clearly an attempt to profit *after* the sale...

This is not what usually happens. There is far more ONGOING profit to be made from the supplies than the instrument itself.

I worked on the design of an instrument that had a *cost* of just about $300 (DM+DL). It was *priced* at $6,000. And, they were all GIVEN AWAY (expecting to make their money on supplies, instead).

Different markets have different (customer) expectations when it comes to supplies. A hospital may care very little as the supplies get passed on to the patient in some form. As long as the cost of the supplies doesn't exceed the amount that the hospital can recover from its customers, everyone is happy (with the possible exception of the insurance company/patient).

OTOH, marketing to The Unwashed Masses gives different results and expectations. (as the printer ink issue evidences)

Again, this ignores the issue. The distilled water does NOT need to be controlled any more than a typical hospital would control any of their other consumables. Yet, the manufacturer *chose* to control it TO EXTRACT ONGOING RETURNS from an existing customer base.

Aftermarkets for toner cartridges, ink refills, etc. clearly shows that Joe Computer User is very willing to find alternative suppliers for artificially priced consumables. Extra effort (and cost) added to the printer/cartridge's design to discourage/prevent this has an uphill battle convincing customers that they should *want* to use these supplies (instead of being FORCED to do so).

Since these artificial constraints are superficial, its only a matter of time before someone finds a work-around (a hospital wouldn't even *attempt* a work-around as it would expose them to liability claims).

I'm not advocating "blessing" anyone! Rather, saying "here is the information OTHERS would need to support the device" and letting The Market sort out the good from the bad (servicers). I.e., you bring your car in to some guy operating out of his back yard and you *may* get a great deal... or, you may get a royal screwing! In either case, it's not the car manufacturer's problem!

Reply to
Don Y

It could be for product liability reasons. For medical use you probably need not only that it is distilled but that it is also free from any bacterial contamination. The latter bacteria free condition is certainly

*NOT* met in many industrial scale distilled water plants.

You would be surprised what I have seen growing in sterile eye wash bottles and bulk ultra pure distilled water containers.

The suppliers marketing people have worked out that Job public is pretty stupid and will buy the cheapest printer without realising that a new set of inks cost more. It is a loss leader on the hardware.

Same is true for mobile phones - they damn near give the phone away to lock you into a long term contract.

Of course the inks have an artificially inflated price if they are single sourced and the no-clone technology works well enough. It is annoying if you don't need absolute premium quality. I try to find high quality printers where the ink/toner monopoly has been broken.

Incidentally does anyone know of Canon BCI-6 cartridge clones that actually work adequately?

There are plenty of sites selling third party inks and toners of varying degrees of reliability. If you don't mind the risk of gumming up the print head then you are free to try them. Some work some don't. CAVEAT EMPTOR

Printer ink on the street typically costs more per gramme than cocaine.

And there are ingenious third party vendors that have designed fake chips to defeat this mechanism for certain popular models. Do your homework or get ripped off it is your choice what you buy.

If you are daft enough to opt in to a single source lock-in then yes.

And they have a point. You as buyer have a choice of buying the product(s) that they offer for sale or something else.

Capitalism is red in tooth and claw. Their objective is to maximise income for their shareholders which pretty much means screwing every last penny out of you. If you don't do the sums for cost of ownership rather than headline price you deserve to be fleeced.

Why then do most people fall into exactly the same bear trap with every successive purchase of a new printer?

You have to make sure then that your offering is better than that of the third parties. Once you have a department called "Customer Care" you know you are on a downward spiral - it rapidly becomes a highly profitable enterprise selling meaningless repair contracts on kit that will almost never go wrong. Ever noticed how disappointed the sales droids look when you fail to buy the extended guarantee at checkout?

Then it is up to you to try Bob's Discount but don't come back whinging if your printer has obviously gummed up with Bob's crappy ink.

If there is demand for something then someone will sell it. The tricky bit sometimes is persuading a manufacturer that the market is large enough to be worthwhile. There are for example some Japanese optical filters easily available in the US but not in the UK.

That route leads to very expensive faults if some incompetent nincompoop has a go at mending equipment they do not understand.

If you are seen to be way out of line with others in the same game then you will suffer either way - by being too expensive or too cheap.

Fred Laker's SkyTrain is the textbook example of the latter.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

Welcome to the evil side of consumerism.

Reply to
asdf

Look at the ethics from the extremes and see where the dark gray starts to become white enough to be acceptable.

For example there are third party replacements and then there are copies of the reverse engineered originals. One extreme would be a movie DVD from a street vendor.

w..

Reply to
Walter Banks

One argument that I have heard from consumers and suppliers is there is a benefit to having a single supplier for a product because part of the payoff is a single supplier is responsible for a products functioning correctly. In effect we have a consumer paying so someone else is responsible. This was IBM marking to company executives 40 years ago and some printer companies today.

W..

Reply to
Walter Banks

It *could* have been done for those reasons -- but it wasn't. In case I haven't been abundantly clear: it was made that way to generate an ongoing income stream. Period.

Replace "public" with "officer of large corporation" (responsible for making purchasing decisions). The vendor still has to consider how his customer will view the transaction.

The vendor can be uninspired and just try to nickel and dime every customer for every item/service.

The vendor can package everything in a one-time transaction.

The vendor can come up with some strategy that decides what supplies/services should be marketed to the customer, what should be handled by third parties, and what should be "hands off".

The first two of these scenarios are uninteresting as they don't require any fine degree of thought/evaluation. I am more concerned with criteria that the vendor can apply to making the decisions in the *third* scenario.

So, you are already demonstrating a resentment for the vendor(s) who've tried (unsuccessfully?) to lock you into a supply regime. I get perhaps a request every two weeks for a printer recommendation that "doesn't use expensive ink" -- so, people are aware of this (enough so to actively question about it).

But its not just printer ink. Or replacement battery packs. Or distilled water cartridges. Or...

Obviously, how the customer views the monetary outlay is a significant issue. If he thinks he can just pass it along to *his* customer, he probably doesn't give it a second thought (unless it becomes a significant portion of the charges that his customer incurs and threatens to motivate his customer to looking for alternate suppliers!)

Similarly, the potential "consequences" of the purchase decision weigh into it -- will this put some greater investment at jeopardy?

And, the relative cost/savings ("investment risk") as well. E.g., I'll often buy off-brand battery packs EXPECTING them to have shorter times between charges *and* operational life simply because I expect batteries to die often -- especially for low duty cycle devices.

This is less likely to be encountered in "distilled water cartridges" as the stakes are higher for the customer. Can a counterfeit cartridge cause the machine to break? What is the (lost) opportunity cost in that case? Can the counterfeit interfere with the accuracy of the results? etc.

OTOH, counterfeit memory cards carry little downside risk -- if the customer feels screwed by the product, chances are he'll never know FOR SURE who the actual manufacturer was.

Again, I think it matters who is making the decision and their relationship to the money/consequences. Being "given" thousands of dollars of capital equipment (free toilet paper dispensers) in return for being locked into a particular consumables supplier (toilet paper) lets you avoid the sticky issue of justifying the cost of all of that equipment (whereas the ongoing supplies just looks like a normal cost of doing business)

Correct. And a savvy vendor will consider the potential for lost sales and/or damage to reputation that ensues from this sort of behavior. E.g., people dislike (current) HP printers while, previously, their (laser) printers were respected and cherished.

I'm not seeing that. I've seen people walking away from printers (especially color/photo printers) completely and opting for simple B&W printers. Want a photo printed? Go to your local office supply store and have it printed while you wait for *less* than the costs of supplies "at home" (and without having to worry about dried out cartridges, clogged heads, poor color accuracy, etc.)

I.e., IME, people are learning the printer lesson (which is why it was such a good example). It's *their* money (not their employers'). They run out of ink and price the new supplies... and decide to discard the printer!

I'd prefer to simply make the "what sort of business are you in" decision and, unless there is some *really* strong motivation for being in the "supplies business", delegate that activity to some third party.

But, you have to make it attractive enough for that third party to *want* to take on that business (for some commitment period). And, have to ensure that you don't then compete with them (e.g., let *them* make all of the supplies and *you* purchase them from them for the folks who insist on buying "from the OEM")

Why is it the vendor's job to do this? Do auto manufacturers validate proper operation of their vehicles with fuel from different vendors FOR THE REASSURANCE OF THEIR CUSTOMERS? You buy fuel from Bob's Discount Gas Station and end up with water in your tank and it's *your* problem.

Exactly. And, to reassure them that you won't be undercutting "their" market.

OTOH, you need some reassurances from them that they *will* continue to support these supplies for some period of time. Otherwise, your customers complain because they can't get supplies for the device they purchased FROM YOU!

But, what obligation does the vendor have to prevent this? I.e., they can hide all service information to make it difficult for "unapproved" firms to attempt repairs -- though that doesn't PREVENT someone from trying!

Does that sort of "monopoly" aggravate customers who feel trapped into using "factory service" (at inflated rates)? I.e., just like forcing them to buy ink from the manufacturer...

Again, what is the thinking that a *rational* firm should undertake in making these decisions?

I know some larger companies that are very methodical about evaluating new product offerings -- in terms of their expected impact on sales of other, existing products. But, I think they have "big numbers" to fall back on -- lots of history in their markets and a good feel for how their customers are likely to react to new offerings.

I'm not sure how they would address something like this "artificial dependence" as it seems to have two edges to it (whereas a new product is just a cost-benefit analysis in the customer's mind).

Reply to
Don Y

OK.

So were they cross subsidising the initial hardware or design and development cost against the long term sales of consumables? That is a partly legitimate thing to do to get expensive capital kit into the market. The other common model is to sell very expensive units to the early adopters or people who absolutely need maximum performance at any price and amortise most of the development costs on them.

They tend to whinge a bit if the price falls too steeply, but have usually forgotten before the 5 year renewal cycle comes around. This sort of assumes that your new kit is sufficiently interesting.

Sometimes you have to wonder how many liquid lunches and free overnight golf sessions some of these executives had from corporate hospitality before signing off on insanely expensive lock-in deals.

Unless you have approved third party suppliers then you are open to your customers using cheap dodgy ones and then complaining bitterly when it breaks their kit. People installing dodgy addins on PCs that are configured to run expensive scientific instruments is the sort of thing that really annoys me. It doesn't take much to tip it over the edge.

Even something as humdrum as engine oil you get manufacturers endorsing one particular brand for their engines. And if you are daft enough you can buy even BMW branded screenwash...

I have a pretty good idea what it should cost.

But not enough of them to really matter.

Yes.

Hmm! I have a stash of batteries that have failed in high current drain applications waiting to be used in clocks and low drain applications. I made a cute but incredibly inefficient bistable voltage multiplier that will only just light a white LED if the cell is half decent. Any that can still light the LED do not get thrown out.

If we are talking about analytical equipment here then it is common for larger companies to prefer to buy consumables from the OEM manufacturer even if they could shop around and get the same range of things slightly cheaper from 10-20 other companies. There is a cost to raise and process invoices that can make it better to pay a bit more and know you are getting approved consumables that preserve the warrantee.

In the same way that buying from RS or Digikey might not always (ever?) be the cheapest source but you don't waste any time getting the part.

This sounds like another clueless MBA trick where they shout look how much money I have saved in the short term before the chickens come home to roost and the long term costs of a lock in contract become apparent. Such people have always moved onwards and upwards before the insanity of their decisions becomes apparent.

The latter were made by an entirely different company. "HP" is all that remains of a once great brandname for scientific instruments and computers - the good bits are now called "Agilent".

I reckon some people are just there to be ripped off and the trick of marketing and salesmen is to separate them from as much of their cash as is inhumanly possible for as few of the companies goods. If you have ever looked at their bonus schemes you will understand why.

That can be a viable strategem if you buy certain models in the refurb aftermarket with two sets of toner/ink cartridges. Not exactly very eco friendly though. It annoys me that I can get a better price on Gillette razor cartridges by buying a complete new razor Xmas special offer pack than buying the consumables separately so that is exactly what I do.

It is worth asking your customers what they want. Larger companies do to some extent prefer to buy everything from the OEM unless you really transparently are ripping them off.

If a customer puts unauthorised ink in their printer and it fouls up they have no comeback on the manufacturer.

Surely in that case it is Bob's problem since the goods he sold were not of merchandiseable quality and he will be paying for your vehicle recovery, warned by trading standards and eventually closed down for repeat offences.

That is why larger companies prefer to get consumables from the OEM.

We just charge extra when the thing has obviously been savaged by a moron. Our suppliers used to do it to us too. It was not uncommon to return a unit to them that had multiple faults constructed of swapped dead boards out of several units. Fault finding is a lot harder when there are multiple unrelated faults present...

What we had was a service contract with various response times, parts and labour as and when we can fit you in or nothing. AT&T & IBM went for premium service whereas academic research groups would usually ring up only after they had inflicted further damage with a soldering iron.

Unfortunately, customers do not necessarily tell you the truth even in well controlled expensive marketing surveys. Worse still executives ignore the warning signs when $$$ signs flash in their eyes.

As a supplier if you can secure a worthwhile long term revenue stream then it makes sense to do it. This is especially true if you can use it provide some perceived added value to your customers in the process (ie sell them other bits an pieces, upgrades, addons, new kit whatever).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

If by cost you mean "bill of materials" you may be missing a lot. When I investigated this years ago, the biggest item in the cost of an aluminum ladder was liability insurance, to cover the claims of people who either fell off or leaned it against a power line. (Apparently many people still do not realize that aluminum is a good conductor of electricity.)

Further, a for-profit company may prefer the expensive consumable model if it minimizes the capital cost of the equipment. For tax reasons, the equipment must be amortized over a period of years, while the cost of consumables can be immediately deducted from profits. Think of leasing a car (expense) vs. buying a car (capital cost).

y
n

Have you ever been in an actual hospital? Some workers are brain dead and some have brain farts. There will come a time when one of them will put tap water in your instrument -- you can bet on it. Does it matter to your instrument? If not, not. If it does, then maybe putting DI water in a sealed container of proprietary design is the only rational choice -- even the brain dead cannot put a square peg in a round hole.

Reply to
spamtrap1888

No. Just looking to make *more* money. It's possible they didn't have any real "design pipeline" to rely on for continued revenue and opted to "sell water" to keep paying the bills. If that's the case, then woe to the customers who purchased the soon-to-be-unsupported device! :< (I've no idea what became of the company or its products)

Again, I think they looked at it in terms of costs that could be PASSED ON. E.g., if a printer ink cartridge effectively sets the price per printed page at $0.10/page/color, Joe Consumer sees that as expensive -- even if he is only printing a dozen pages a week.

OTOH, spending $0.10 on *water* to run a clinical assay and doing hundreds per week can be seen as inconsequential -- if each of those $0.10 are passed along to different patients, etc. as part of the cost of the test.

[The issue then becomes one of keeping the cost of the test low enough that you can still make money at it given negotiated rates with insurers, etc.]

I have to try hard not to let cynicism overwhelm reason here... :>

but, I think it boils down to "it's not their money". And, there is enough obfuscation in the process that they aren't easily "blamed" for these decisions.

I was talking with a guy responsible for a few hundred $M expansion project at a local hospital and listened to some of the decisions that had been made with growing incredulity. When he was done, I simply stated, "if this was *your* money, is this how you would 'invest' it?". He couldn't even look me in the eyes *or* respond. Yet, he showed no compunction in board meetings when he actively advocated this approach.

[I'm not savvy enough on accounting trickery to claim to understand why its "better" to do things less efficiently... :< ]

I think if the "fault"/failure is obviously tied to their actions, this is easier to deal with. I.e., use bad ink and printhead needs to be replaced. They can piss and moan that it costs so much to *replace* the printhead. But, they know that it is *their* action that resulted in the damage.

OTOH, imagine the ink use resulting in a power supply failure (insane... that being the point of the example!). The customer would find it harder to accept that his use of off-brand ink could have anything to do with the power supply's failure.

*Then*, it looks like you are blaming *your* defect on something the customer did that is not actually causal. (even if there *is* some way that the power supply could fail as a result of ink usage).

Even if you *don't* know what it "should" cost, you can evaluate the cost of the *capability* and its actual value to you! E.g., using an all-in-one printer as a cheap photocopier might make a $0.10/page copy-cost acceptable if the alternative is a trip out to a store (and a comparable $0.10/copy fee!). OTOH, spending $10.00 on ink costs to print a 100pp document might exceed your tolerance for waste!

[I keep several different printers with different costs-per-page to address this convenience-vs-economics tradeoff]

Perhaps not to the printer manufacturers. OTOH, I can say that I know of only one household in the neighborhood that still uses an inkjet printer -- the woman running the HOA uses it to print flyers (again, it's not *her* money that she's spending on supplies! :-/ )

I dislike battery powered devices that don't see regular use -- simply because the batteries end up *flat* when you "need" it. Another PMP just bit the dust yesterday (integrated battery refusing to take a charge).

But the instrument could simply have used available (bulk) water supplies in the lab. Why not artificially make the device battery powered and then go in the battery sales business? :<

The point of my question is to try to identify criteria that

*could* be used to make the to-supply or not-to-supply decision. Then, wrap each with an honest appraisal as to whether it is a simple "rationalization" or a "valid issue".

Consider portable glucometers. The patient bases his lifestyle (and the doctor bases his treatment regimen) on the results reported by the glucometer. Use an "off brand" test strip and the glucometer has no way (?) or knowing/recording that. And, the patient doesn't *retain* used test strips! So, you rely completely on the records from the glucometer to base these treatment/lifestyle decisions. *Surely* this argues in favor of tying the supplies to a particular manufacturer (even if it is not the same manufacturer that produced the glucometer).

[even moreso when the cost of the supplies is often paid by an insurer, etc.]

OTOH, toilet paper for "proprietary" TP dispensers have pretty much the same constraints. The dispenser has no way of recording which TP was used to wipe In the same way that buying from RS or Digikey might not always (ever?)

Yup. But that doesn't stop them from making those decisions! People who lease automobiles, etc. It's not uncommon for firms (governments!) to sell off property and turn around and LEASE it back! With lease terms that make it clear that they are handing the proceeds of the sale *back* to the buyer! (would you do the same with your home?)

Accounting rules distort the decision making process.

Yup. Makes you wonder what Bill H and Dave P think of the situation.

I suspect much of the marketing is geared to exploit laziness/inertia in the buyer. I.e., easier to buy more supplies for something you

*have* than to start on the tedious process of making a new purchase decision.

E.g., I will gladly repair TV's, appliances, etc. around the house to save myself the chore of having to look for a suitable replacement (which, sooner or later, will *also* need to be replaced/repaired).

Yup. I rescue printer discards *if* they come with adequate "supplies". When the supplies are exhausted, I discard the printer. Since the printer was already headed for the tip when I rescued it, I've not made matters any worse than they would otherwise have been.

OTOH, it does take up a fair bit of room to store spare toner cartridges, imaging units, fusers, etc. in anticipation of future failures! :< (though I don't spend for anything other than paper!)

I buy the 52-packs of disposables. :>

IME, customers rarely know what they *want*. Rather, they know what they *don't* want -- AFTER you give it to them! :< I think you have to understand their businesses and get inside their head if you want to make a truly "informed" decision. Otherwise, its just guesswork.

If you can come up with an *honest*, rational set of criteria for making the supplies decision, then I think you have a chance of rationally presenting that to the customer and getting their buy-in. But it can't be hand-waving or smoke-and-mirrors.

Everyone *knows* (even if they don't consciously admit it) that you are in business to make money. By extension, that the product they are purchasing wouldn't exist if not for this fact! What I think they object to is you making too *much* money -- OFF OF THEM! (especially if there is no obvious value added to justify that profit)

I think that can be a slippery slope. Who makes that decision? Who decides how *much* extra to charge?

Yes. When you're in business, you are often at the mercy of your customers. I've worked in businesses where they would go to significant lengths to discourage any sort of tampering (repairs). Conformal coating, full custom chips, etc. And, you'd still come across cases where someone *thought* they were smarter than they actually are! :<

I think you can set service policy to cover those costs -- even if you treat the products as "disposable" (I see many printers where this design seems to be de rigeur -- as if you can just see the service depot pulling the logic board off the unit and tossing the entire mechanism into the trash!)

Exactly. It's too easy for a customer to be "lead" -- especially in focus groups, etc. I think most customers truly don't know what they want. They have some general idea. But, can rarely put it into concrete terms.

OTOH, *hand* them something and they can tell you what they

*don't* want (about it!).

That last bit is the trick. If it looks like you've just "got 'em by the b*lls", I think you breed resentment.

Reply to
Don Y

Do you believe that profit is unethical? Would be silly to try to compete selling a razor that used someone else's blades.

That "chip" in your printer ink cartridge does little to improve the quality of your printouts, but it goes a long way toward putting gas in the CEO's private jet. And greed is what makes the world go 'round.

Reply to
mike

That;s what I've been trying to do, systematically. I've tried to identify common products that have "ongoing" supplies streams. Then, making an objective (?) assessment of how the nature of that stream might have been (or currently be) justified as "closed" -- as well as how well it has *remained* "closed"!

I've also tried to identify cases where vendors *could* have closed their supplies off and didn't -- was that because they felt no need to do so? Or, had more business than they could handle (and risked losing their primary product market if they couldn't keep up with demand for "supplies")

Yup. I interviewed with a company decades ago whose business model was blatantly copying other products ("work-alikes"). Didn't seem like a very rewarding way to base a career! :<

Reply to
Don Y

Gee, sounds like SodaStream: They "lease" you a CO2 cartridge, and there's a very strongly-worded contract you have to sign stipulating that you won't refill the cartridge... since of course they charge something like 10x per refill as a regular gas vendor would.

They have a custom nozzle, but you can find adapters to standard nozzles on the Internet. One company selling them was sued out of business by SodaStream, so now the guy(s?) left selling them have these big disclaimers about how to purchase their products you're agreeing that you own the CO2 cartridges and are in no way attempting to violate SodaStream's contract with you. :-)

It is pretty ridiculous overall and this sort of marketing really turns me off, but there's so much choice in soda pop (and printers) that I just choose to shop for other models. I do wish more people would realize the artificial costs of choosing such proprietary vendors, though...

You do see an occasional vendor trying to gain business by bucking the trend as well, which is good -- Kodak was betting its printer business largely on a "cheap ink" campaign, it seemed, and I've seen ads on TV for mops that have washable/re-usable pads and refillable (with any detergent you want) reservoirs to compete with the one where these items are single use and proprietary.

---Joel

Reply to
Joel Koltner

You are kidding yourself. The very concept applies ONLY to a "market" in which "full knowledge" is readily available.

Primarily a con job.

Reply to
josephkk

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fit,

Let me throw a curve ball into the mix: =20 Suppose that we are dealing with a medical device that _must_ function safely and the same way, not only in America, but in Europe, Mexico, = South America, Austrailia, India and Asia. The prepackaged distilled water makes a lot more sense in this scenario. The ethics gets a whole lot = more mixed in this case. Not at all the same as inkjet or laser printer supplies.

Just an alternate line of thought.

Reply to
josephkk

I have someone to ask. I'll let you know.

Reply to
josephkk

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