Where & Who We Buy Parts, Cable & Equipment

so I'm holding in my hand a piece of network cable that is grounded and shielded so this is shielded twisted-pair cable and here is what's left of a spool of it now I want to ranch for a second here and that's what this video is about is where do we get all our stuff from and why do we buy so much from Amazon I just people keep coming up with this discussion a lot of oh you need to build these vendor relationships and then you get a good thing going with them blah blah blah there's a reason I don't care and this is the perfect rant because it's just happened the other day so this box of spool was purchased by one of our clients they knew what cable they wanted we do kind of an outside IT for them they have an IT team that's remote so we work in collaboration with them because they have like internal IT for this rather large company so they ship this cable to the location and we did the physical part and did the running of the cable so you infrastructure now we've seen the part number it's on here of this cable blah blah I've got all turned over to the side here so I can read it but it tells me the exact part number and where they got it from so they said hey we ran out of it we want more and they said can you guys just buy it I said sure that's not a problem we call up the company they bought it from and the first two emails were awful because they somehow assumed I didn't want a thousand-foot spool they thought I wanted a thousand thousand feet spools so that turned into phone call email back and forth and then confusing emails back when I corrected them they also changed the pricing on it and then finally we agreed ok we'll get another one customer approved you know knew how much it cost this is more expensive when you get this shielded cable so customer how much it cost and boom we want to order it well then they're like fill this form out fill this form up give me your tax ID then we're three emails in and I said I didn't fill something out right we're trying to get the account created and I said why didn't I look on Amazon I go look on Amazon they want for this cable this is cat 5e customers fine with cat 5e shield it because of what this is it's going just to a site-to-site system and over some equipment that so speed isn't really an issue it's connecting to just a wireless bridge so they were fine with cat five e360 six dollars a box is what this company want to charge us but we never got to that part because the forum wasn't right and oh yeah by the way when they sent me the forum it's not like some online forum I got to fill out they like sent me a PDF that I'm supposed to print right scan back send to them you can see how stupid this process is here in 2018 this is a big company I'm not gonna say their names I don't want to just badmouth supposedly the company I would because this is not just this company this is how we deal with a lot of these vendors here's stupid forms here's fill this out you missed something you got to wait for approval from our department and I'm like you're I'm not even getting credit I am paying with my credit card which means you directly get the money I get the product end of story well I got aggravated very quickly what on Amazon found it so we went from three hundred sixty six dollars for this to getting it from Amazon but it was a slightly different cable it was shielded twisted-pair for $179 Wow what's the difference well one of the difference is it's actually not cat five it's cat six so we've got a better cable for 179 I spoke to no one I found the part number I click to order I didn't pay any shipping and it's here done and this is the common experience we have of the level of aggravation we did this when we had to buy some one-off equipment when we were doing one of the other projects we didn't realize it was on Amazon so we started talking to the vendor they gave us a list it was expensive they're like oh you need to become a partner program to do this and so there's more paperwork which I loathe paperwork and it's always stupid PDFs that I'm told to scan and talk to the sales rep but I went and found the part number turns out that's on Amazon too and same thing I had it in prime I had it before I would have got approved they already arrived at our building and this is how Amazon is killing it it's not it's these guys really had to stop and think it just put a Google Form together or something something better than what you have and putting a bunch of salespeople to talk to me who just get things wrong what value did they provide to the process I didn't talk to a single person at Amazon now some people say well I don't have a good return relationship if you use Amazon exactly the opposite I won't lie the two companies that have amazing returns is we do still buy stuff from new egg new egg is they got it figured out I like new egg and we price shop new egg in Amazon and the same with Amazon we've had problems a product we just know what is good this product was not right Amazon just what a couple times who it's confusing about Amazon they told us to keep the product and he just sent us another one they didn't even want it back we're like oh well that's cool so I've had a great relationship with the customer service from Amazon it's been wonderful model price I've got a weird relationship with them so they're another vendor we'll buy direct from but we've learned with monoprice and this is now they bent me over twice on this we needed stuff kind of in a hurry because sometimes customers are in a hurry so they said we want this done right away can you get it oh no problem so we paid for overnight shipping I have no problem with this customer approved alright it's gonna be this much to ship the cable it's gonna be you know $300 we're gonna get it over there real quick no problem we paid it they charge my account this is we ordered I don't know like ten boxes of kale or whatever it was from them what they had done though is we also got some little patch cables a couple miscellaneous things like yeah we'll get those at the same time just weights all in one order well they were out of stock on one color of patch cable so they delayed an entire overnight order and her excuse was and this happened twice they did this and we we've learned a little bit more about how monoprice works that they didn't have the one in stock so they held the entire order and we're like why is that reasonable you had the cable in stock yeah but we didn't have that we thought we'd have it a stock the next day I'm like put you charging for actually shipping oh yeah we'll be shipping next day when it ships but it didn't ship it I'm like what's already been 24 hours now I'm behind these are a little aggravation we have with them turns out though interesting thing about monoprice if monoprice says out of stock on Amazon they can't sell it this is the amazon's internal policy if you don't have the product in stock they have to give you delivery dates that are real and amazon enforces that turns out mana price will say everything's in stock we've learned this after doing with them a few times and they'll ship it when it gets in stock so you can just order it and then but if we buy model price via amazon one is cheaper i don't know why maybe he said i think it's used this shipping i save a couple dollars they're not much it's very close in price but i get the product or he tells me it's out of stock and we've learned if we try to order something that shows stock on Amazon we call them directly they'll let us order it but it seems to take like a week or two to get it and this has been a problem we've run into several times of them they've refund the money on the we've had to cancel orders when we order direct but if we order mana priced via Amazon it works the reason I have the unified boxes unify actually is great they have an easy online ordering system and I do I direct from unified the only challenge we run to them they're products that get in high demand for example right now here in July of 2018 is their cameras are in high demand I think it's August 1st of 2018 whatever day it is its 2018 their cameras are in really high demand so sometimes you're out of stock on them but they won't let you order things that are out of stock so I'll tell you it's out of stock or they'll give you no delivery dates that are out there unified direct is good unify and Amazon is wonderful a matter of fact a lot of times unify in Amazon for reasons that I may not completely understand are a whole lot less they go on sale and I can get them for really a prices so back to the Amazon again now same problems if you've ever had any issues in Amazon and with you a hurdler boxes but they just send you another one they're so easy to deal with they have taken the P no it's not that I'm trying to be a fanboy of Amazon I have a business to run my business is not ordering products my business is installing products getting things delivered to customers and providing solutions so if I have to spend a lot of time filling out forms dealing with sales reps you get things wrong waiting for approvals while customers wait for something to get installed this is all non value add to my day and what so I can save two dollars for some vendor I'll give you a deal and clearly they didn't when you're talking 366 versus $179 for the almost the same product except for the one I'm getting from Amazon being cat6 not cat5 which is a better product I got nothing I I have a fishin c-curve that I'm trying to work on and Amazon really kind of fits that now if you're a company and you're watching this think about doing things better I don't like a monoculture of we just order everything here Amazon this is why I mention Newegg we do still order especially when it comes to like PC parts and things like that Buick has great deals and as a great over the years I mean we've had our new Waker copper years they have been the most trouble free just like Amazon both of them now Amazon has weird issues with when they use their delivery carrier people that's been a delivery dates on them they try they tried to deliver a few times when they first started their local one here that we have a distribution center about a mile from here and they would try to deliver things at 6:30 in the morning we never understood we're like you know no one's here at 6:30 a.m. we're not a house where a business and why are you not going to door then we finally got established business hours so it's been a couple delivery issues when we use the local Amazon carriage but when they use UPS and FedEx or your standard popular carriers Postal Service smooth as silk they deliver because those people know when we're open and they get a process amazon's we're working on that so I won't lie there's some issues there but like anyway now one other company water direct from is people ask well where do you get the like the pfSense our firewalls we buy it from net gate direct there's another company that you go online clean ordering system just like unify I can order direct I'll have to talk to anyone on the phone and this is kind of a hiccup - I don't really want to call sales or up find my rep and son a phone with them I I just want the parts I know what I want we're very where IT installers we install the same things a lot specially when it comes to cabling I need this cable I need that connector we know exactly which one of these I don't need a sales rep - you know Babylon over you know I got this one on sale I can get your followers off on it I'm like but that's not that what I want and this is just this round problem we have with all these value-added reseller companies and things like that their processes are archaic they can be very difficult to deal with they almost sort of a barrier I just want to use online forums it's 2018 let me just buy directly online best of all the reasons we buy so much from Amazon we buy a lot from Newegg was especially like the PC repair parts and when we can i love companies that sell direct and have a clear process so if you're a company thinking about selling direct please do look at the way unify doesn't look at the way the folks over at net gate /pf cents do it there are a couple examples of direct buy vendors that we like a lot because their processes I I've actually never had to speak with anyone at either company in terms of purchasing their products I already know what I wanted they have it on their website I click buy I can create an account really quickly with just my email address and password no filling out long credit forms when you're gonna direct charge me this company they want my credit card but they won't I want to fill out forms in your business and tax ad I don't mind giving all that please put it in a form don't send me a PDF and scan it back you realize this I have other things to do and filling out paperwork is stupid in 2018 so end of rant that's just my thoughts on this so if I'm gonna share this video what everyone asked me the question where do you buy all your stuff from owning a business and IT and things like that and I'm like how I Amazon it's just it's not like I said do price shop Amazon especially if you can reorder sometimes they raise prices back and forth so you may get a better deal on somewhere else like you know new egg or someone the other directbuy websites the same with the unifies sometimes you're chill Essen unify sometimes there are more than unify do price check it but boy if you're a company and you can make it as simple as they have that's the key it's not that we Amazon's just some large company they just make things simple make things simple and we'll buy from you it's that's pretty much the formula for it so I can get back to work which I'm gonna do now thanks

Channel: Lawrence Systems

Views: 58,950

Keywords: var, netowrk cable, unifi, direct buy

Id: N5rUJeIUJzM

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 01 2018