We have suppliers in our channel who steadfastly ‘territory protect’ denying nearby retailers from accessing their products while they themselves, the suppliers, run a direct to consumer website that could sell to anyone, anywhere.
I’m all for ending territory protection. We are in a free market after all. Likewise, I am all for competing with anyone online, too. I say this as there is one supplier that required physical retailers to not offer products online.
All these restrictions are a real turn off dealing with some suppliers.
This is happening with Royal essence here in Australia. We’ve been a good customer of over 5 years. They have now shut off their wholesale website until further notice due to “supply issues”. This is despite the fact that they’ve just launched their Christmas range on their own websites, and also just expanded in to Europe. It used to all be made in SA, but all made in China now.
I’ve emailed them to express my real disappointment. They’ve apologised, but it’s really left a sour taste and I’m now no longer willing to give them any more of our hard earned cash. We would spend probably $20 to $30 thousand with them per year.
We’re giving royal essence’s prime spot in our store over to another Aussie company that actually still manufactures here.