Ladderlieu said:
I'd be willing to bet the Okie's aren't $239 for the 1.3 ton pallet. Last year they were priced like that, by the ton, but sold by the 1.3 ton pallet bringing the price up a bit higher. Kind of confusing...
Okies are only shipped on pallets of 65 bags per. That is 1.3 tons. We price them to ALL dealer by the ton, not by the pallet, so if you bought a full pallet at $239 per ton, that would equal $310.70 for the full pallet. If you find a pallet of Okies that is only 50 bags, or 1 ton then that particular dealer did that themselves as far as repackaging it.
Squiers just because of their physical location has an advantage, because our MA warehouse is located right across the street from Squier's storage yard. They could literally drive their forklift to go get product, thus have just about no additional freight to get our product to their yard. Most dealers within 50 miles of the warehouse will usually pick them up themselves, which certainly is cheaper than using a commercial trucking company, but there is still added freight. The farther the dealer is from our warehouse, generally the more expensive their landed cost. This pretty much works the same with all pellets, which is why pellets are so much cheaper out west and in the mid-west than New England.
Squier's did have Okies in the spring for $219 and that was some produce that was not fair to be sold as "fresh". They were totally upfront with what someone was buying, they were NOT trying to pull the rug over on anyone and all the pallets had been re-stacked and any product that wasn't saleable was removed. IF someone wasn't happy with the product, Squier's would have replaced it. That was a ONE TIME event and (trust me when I say this) it will not be repeated ......period. Great deal for Squiers and anyone that got some of them...not so great for the mill...
Their current stock is totally fresh and has been for months as ALL of our current dealer stock is...All of the stuff that was selling for $219 was sold months ago... I'm not here to bang the drum for any one dealer, but I don't want anyone to think they have 2nd rate stock either....
As a manufacture, we do NOT set retail pricing...that is totally up to the dealer and some will pay more than others depending on how far from the warehouses they are that we currently use, but that has to do with additional freight to get it to them. We also use a warehouse just across the Canadian border to service our northern NY, NH, VT and ME clients as we can be more competitive than bringing it into MA and then shipping "up" to those states....Hopefully this might clear some misinformation that seems to be floating around.
If I can ever find a trucker that will work for free…then every dealer in New England would probably have the same price, but until then, prices will vary depending on location………
