Price Gouging

[stoveguy13]

the dealer should be the one to eat the price just like i am doing on orders i took and are not shipping after the aug.4th cut off date it is not quads fault. i have held every price i gave and have not even called the consumer about the price called the cost of doing buisness.

 

[STOVEGUY11]

the dealer should be the one to eat the price just like i am doing on orders i took and are not shipping after the aug.4th cut off date it is not quads fault. i have held every price i gave and have not even called the consumer about the price called the cost of doing buisness.

I agree, the dealer should eat the cost. That does not always happen though. What stinks is someone shouldnt have to eat the cost. It hurts everyone.

 

[Henz]

supply and demand

 

[Rockey]

Sounds to me like the dealer is definitely trying to pull a quick one. I run an electric motor shop and we are current distributors for a few motor manufacturers, Siemens and Leeson among them. Whenever there is a price increase from these manufacturers they send literature out to all the distributors WELL in advance and a date and percentage is set. There are usually 1-2 price increases a year due to the continual increase for raw matrials- i.e copper, aluminum, steel. I'd be willing to bet that your dealer was well aware of when the price increase would take effect and either didn't place the orders early enough or would try to take advantage of buyers who now feel trapped by a bad situation.

 

[humpin iron]

Dealers were not made aware of the price increase until June. It stated that any stoves shipped after Aug. 4th would be adjusted. At that time things were happening so fast that orders were being pushed out until end of July. Avg. price increase was 9-14%. I would guess that you chose a cast stove therefore the 14% increase, more material.
In many cases the price increase is close to the dealers profit margin.

A year ago the raw metal that HHT bought was $625 a ton, as of May first this yr, that same metal was $1300 per ton. China and India will buy as much metal as they can and will out bid everyone they can on price, it's not all about us anymore. Buy steel stock, thats what I did.

If the dealer offered to absorb the cost what are you complaining about?

No one is pulling a quick one, dealer or mfg.

Life comes at you fast-deal with it

 

[Rockey]

Dealers were not made aware of the price increase until June. It stated that any stoves shipped after Aug. 4th would be adjusted. At that time things were happening so fast that orders were being pushed out until end of July. Avg. price increase was 9-14%. I would guess that you chose a cast stove therefore the 14% increase, more material.
In many cases the price increase is close to the dealers profit margin.

A year ago the raw metal that HHT bought was $625 a ton, as of May first this yr, that same metal was $1300 per ton. China and India will buy as much metal as they can and will out bid everyone they can on price, it's not all about us anymore. Buy steel stock, thats what I did.

If the dealer offered to absorb the cost what are you complaining about?

No one is pulling a quick one, dealer or mfg.

Life comes at you fast-deal with it

If the dealer was aware of the price increase in June, why did they wait Aug 21 to let "ltjc160" know of the price increase? You consider that good business? The onus was on the dealer to inform everyone that had placed an order that if it shipped after Aug 4th there would be a price increase.

 

[pelletfan]

The original poster complained about probable price gauging.
Let's stay on this subject.
As a Customer, I don't care about steel prices. Not interested! And the Dealer nor the Manufacturer should not involve me. Not my Business!

There seems some window washing going on in the favor of the Dealer as well as Manufacturer.
Please don't tell me that the offending stove Manufacturer is purchasing steel, like

look at a quotation from a steel supplier and you’ll see a line that states prices will reflect applicable material surcharges in effect at the time of shipment

Are we producing 10 stoves or a quantity in the neighborhood of 50,000 stoves or even more????

I'm not a big friend of Wal-Marts but one thing I admire, they know how to run their shop when doing business with Suppliers - smooth, efficient and penny wise.
Our offending Manufacturer would be already long out of business if they would have to buy steel like a fab shop. Puchasing power speaks here.

As I already said once:
The whole scope changes when the manufacturer one wants to increase productivity on a short notice/term......
That's exactly whats happening here. The market price becomes involved and of course higher costs from all sides and that's why we have our issue of "is it price gauging"

And I still recommend to the original bulletin member, walk away as it leaves a sour taste in your mouth and never goes away. There are many other nice choices of Stoves out there.
I did it and don't look back.

 

[fired-up]

i'm also one of the customers of this seekonk, ma dealer and was told yesterday the same story.... my take on this is that the dealer screwed up and misread and/or misunderstood the following correspondence that was issued by quadra-fire in early june :

"Dear Quadra-Fire Dealers:

As communicated to you on June 2nd, the Quadra-Fire brand continues to experience
significant increases in many raw material costs with a direct impact on all our
manufactured products. The most significant increases are in steel and cast iron. Our
commitment to lean manufacturing and rapid continuous improvement helps us offset some of those increases. However, it is impossible to offset all the increases.
Consequently, Quadra-Fire will be implementing a price increase effective on orders shipped August 4, 2008. The overall average increase for the brand equates to
9 percent. Here are the average increases by appliance category:
MSRP
Product Family Percentage Increase
Cast Wood Stoves 10.8%
Steel Wood Stoves 12.2%
Cast Gas Stoves 8.5%
Steel Gas Stoves 8.1%
Cast Pellet Stoves 14.5%
Steel Pellet Stoves 12.8%
Wood Inserts 4.6%
Pellet Inserts 13.2%
Gas Inserts 4.6%
EPA Fireplaces 5.4%
Gas Fireplaces 5.1%
Most accessories and service parts will increase by 5 percent. However, because
venting is primarily steel, these components will increase an average of 11 percent.
A comprehensive SKU list reflecting this price increase will be posted on the dealer
web site on June 16, 2008 and is available for you to download. The updated MSRP price book will be posted to the dealer web site on July 2. In addition, the week of
August 4, 2008, you will receive replacement books for the quantities you ordered
this past March.
Thank you for your continued support of the Quadra-Fire brand. We will continue
to develop and utilize our strong manufacturing expertise to control costs wherever
possible and provide you with competitively priced products.
If you have any questions concerning this price increase, please contact your
Quadra-Fire sales representative.
Regards,
Steve Tate, Alan J. Trusler
Quadra-Fire Brand Manager Senior VP - Sales/Manufacturing Segment"

i ordered my pellet stove at the end of june, as i was told by the dealer that i needed to order it from them by 7/1 to avoid the price increase that was going into effect. i believe that the dealer waited too long to place his orders to quadra-fire and did not read that the stoves needed to be SHIPPED by 8/4/08, not ordered.... and now they are trying to pass their mistake unto me, the customer.... i'm curious that they had indicated to you that they would eat the cost, because that was not my impression... and my fear is that if i try to fight them on the price increase, they will essentially ignore me until i decide to take my money back and go somewhere else so that they can sell my stove to the next guy....

 

[brewerpete]

Who is your dealer- my mother in law??
;-)

 

[pelletfan]

Ok we get a much clearer picture now.
Dealer got into trouble as they ordered too late. Did not read the fine print - has to ship by August 04/08. And it is probably up to the Dealer to check if his order is included in that time frame.

Nevertheless is shows that there is no retro-active price increase from Manufacturer, something I never believed in any way.
Maybe you should treat the dealer like

my mother in law??

- lol

 

[mranum]

I signed a purchase contract with my dealer and gave him $2000 down in June and there was a price increase 2 weeks later before it was installed. I was told that because we had a signed contract that I didn't need to worry about the increase. There was no fine print in the wording either one way or the other about a potential change in price. My dealer believes in the principal of gentlemans agreements and uses contracts as a safety net.


My .02 is that that dealer is one to definately keep an eye on when it comes to making sure you get everything you got coming. I've dealt with people like that too in the past and generally try to avoid them. The kind are willing to keep back a .50 item and charge you $3.00 for it later as a "special" order item.

 

[Spidey61]

They are not price gouging. In fact, their price increase does not reflect all the cost increases they have absorbed. They rely on lean manufacturing methods to maintain high quality yet contain costs that other manufacturers would have to pass on. If you follow the commodity markets you will know that raw materials such as steel and fuel have seen dramatic increases this year which end up getting passed on to the consumer. The whole hearth industry has has multiple significant price increases this year. In my twenty years in this business, these are the largest hikes I can recall.

On June 1st Hearth & Home Technologies announced a 7% to 15% price increase on its products (Quadrafire, Heat & Glo, Harman aand Heatilator) effective on all product shipped after August 1st. This gave the dealers a 60 day window to order products at the old price. However, a lot of larger distibutors and dealers around the country ordered large quantities of cast products to beat the price increase and to meet a suprisingly early demand that the Manufacturer could no longer keep up with demand.

I don't believe you are hearing the whole story. If a dealer orders a product from HHT they will get an order aknowledgement confirming the order and price. If they don't get an acknowledgemnt, then HHT has not confirmed that order, the delivery date or price. I'm in the same boat as other dealers with a lot of orders on backorder with a future delivery date "parked in the que" for June of 2009. This has cost me business as I am not able to provide a reasonable delivery date.

Unless you are in immediate need for a wood or pellet stove, I would wait until December to purchase. At that point the "panic buying" should be gone and manufacturers supply lines will have caught up to demand and you will have a better selection of products to purchase.