As regular readers may know, I contribute to various other industry publications, including Independent Dealer magazine www.idealercentral.com, a publication for the office products dealer channel.
My latest assignment for Independent Dealer’s April issue is a short piece about the impact on the office products channel of HP’s new authorized distributor policy that went into effect Nov. 1, 2013.
You would have thought I was Mike Wallace from 60 Minutes doing one of his investigative journalist exposés the way two of the office products channels biggest wholesalers reacted to my requests for interviews. Both decided the story was too sensitive to comment on even though the idea for the article came directly from one of the wholesalers. In fairness to the wholesalers, a couple of distributors declined to comment as well.
My questions weren’t all that controversial, but still I couldn’t even get a neutral or an off-the-record comment. As one of the wholesaler contacts replied, “Our executives don’t feel that there’s any upside for us to participate in this.”
Fortunately, one major distributor was willing to offer their opinion as well as a couple of dealers and an analyst so I ended up with a decent article anyway.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but am I missing something here? Since when did HP become a company that strikes fear into the hearts of reputable wholesalers and distributors?
To liberally paraphrase the filmmaker John Waters from his book of essays, Crackpot, The Obsessions of John Waters, “I wish I were a distributor so I could sell compatibles rather than HP OEM product.”
Next time you see me, ask me what John Waters really said in his essay “Hatchet Piece (101 Things I Hate).” I laugh out loud every time I read that essay, especially that line I’m paraphrasing.
Thanks for reading.
