P2 Group Buy discussion

Jennyparis said:
Jan,

it has never been question to even thinking about such a thing.
Being grouped together, around our common interest, properly organized and structured is name a vanilla User Group, and we won't re-invent the wheel.

A User Group is a well-known structure to send a feedback to manufacturer, Panasonic, or others.
Someone representing 100/200/300/... customers with comments or request is worth listening, and studying a way to satisfy a well-grounded discount THROUGH THE USUAL DISTRIBUTION is something very common.

Why, where, who said we expect a direct sale from Panasonic?
Do you build your post on speculations?
Does my name is not visible enough for you to ask me any questions in respect of the work I try to do for the group?
Are you able of BUILDING A DIALOG with us, a group of loyal buyers/customers?

A dealer already initiated a constructed dialog with me by PM, can we expect a constructive dialog with you Panasonic?
Click to expand...

Jennyparis, while I applaud your efforts in trying to organize a group buy, I have to agree with Richard to a certain degree on this. Some of your posts do come across as confrontational. Just to quote from a few of your previous posts, it is obvious that you WERE trying to plan a direct buy, though you have changed your approach since talking to Jarred and Barry. So to reply to Jan (who is THE Panasonic rep for the HVX200 in the US and THE person that would most likely be the contact here) with the tone of your last post I think is unfair and uncalled for.

Jennyparis said:
Setting up an authorized Panasonic account with an entry purchase of 100k$ cash? Don't worry, it won't be so difficult. Our strength is to buy P2 (and other things later) the same way groceries are buying apples.

With 2 advantages for us:
1) Paying cash
2) Originality: Creating end-user/vendor shortcut.

to setup any group buy, through any constitued and legal form of association and/or "dealer like" to reach our goal of getting better price & info.
Click to expand...

While I am sure that Panasonic would welcome 100 people buying a couple of P2 cards through one of their dealers at one time, although significant, I dont think it would represent a huge purchase for them. Some of the major broadcasters here in the US have purchased P2 products through their dealer network and I would think that their purchases of P2 cameras and related products, ie. cards, P2 stores, P2 readers, P2 editors etc, runs into the millions of dollars.
As this is an open forum, you already have an ear at Panasonic in the U.S. as Jan frequently monitors this board and replies to questions on a regular basis.
 
Hi JennyParis,

I am not saying that you should not form a User Group. I am saying that it is not in our, Panasonic's, infrastructure to sell directly to such a group. My suggestion was to find a vendor that would cut the deal for you. Not sure where your questions are going but in reading this thread it sounded as if you were expecting the sale to be with Panasonic directly. If that is not the case then I am just going to stand back and watch the thread.

Good Luck,

Jan


Jennyparis said:
Jan,

it has never been question to even thinking about such a thing.
Being grouped together, around our common interest, properly organized and structured is name a vanilla User Group, and we won't re-invent the wheel.

A User Group is a well-known structure to send a feedback to manufacturer, Panasonic, or others.
Someone representing 100/200/300/... customers with comments or request is worth listening, and studying a way to satisfy a well-grounded discount THROUGH THE USUAL DISTRIBUTION is something very common.

Why, where, who said we expect a direct sale from Panasonic?
Do you build your post on speculations?
Does my name is not visible enough for you to ask me any questions in respect of the work I try to do for the group?
Are you able of BUILDING A DIALOG with us, a group of loyal buyers/customers?

A dealer already initiated a constructed dialog with me by PM, can we expect a constructive dialog with you Panasonic?
Click to expand...
 
The sad thing here is that Spec-Comm directly offered a discount for a group-buy in the other thread, but JennyParis' comments offended them enough to withdrawl the offer...

I'm all for lower prices. And the idea of a "user group" *might* (I stress "might") be worth a try. But I'm not "adding myself to the list" until I am convinced that this whole exercise isn't going to cause Jan and the nice folks at the Panasonic authorized dealers to cut us off... Alienating people helps no one.
 
TwistedLincoln said:
The sad thing here is that Spec-Comm directly offered a discount for a group-buy in the other thread, but JennyParis' comments offended them enough to withdrawl the offer...
Click to expand...

If any vendor gets sufficiently offended at an on line poster's comment in a public forum to withdraw an offer to MAKE MONEY, then I certainly don't want to deal with that company if that is the reason. In this case, I don't think the company was making the offer to LOSE money.

People, we are customers!!!!

We should be encouraged to buy by companies so those companies can MAKE MONEY.

That's my approach as a consumer.
 
I think the particular point was, if it can't be win-win for both sides, Spec-Comm wasn't interested in participating. There's more to business than just money changing hands. Spec-Comm apparently felt they were having no luck properly communicating with Jennyfer, so they withdrew their offer to participate.

It should be noted that they were the first company to volunteer, yes?
 
I understand your point Barry.

But Jennifer doesn't represent me or anybody else. If Spec Comm wants to offer a group discount, offer it and people will sign up for it if they wish.

I get feeling that sometimes people tip toe around some companies so that the company won't be offended.

It's almost like "thank you for letting me buy something from you."

All of us appreciate good customer service. But we also have to remember that these companies aren't here just for the the fun of it.

Some are dedicated and helpful, but all won't survive unless they make make money.

Sometimes we all need to be reminded of that.
 
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I wouldn't buy a P2 card for $750 dollars without a dealers warrenty. Money is a better incentive for good customer service than good will is.

If a group buy happened and the purchase took place in another country wouldn't that make it a grey market purchase? DVXuser taught me too stay away from grey market and spend the extra money with an authorized dealer.
 
I am not welcomed here.
I won't argue anymore.
All speculate, no one asked me a simple question.
I was happy to report the VIDEOPLUS 550€ offer and withdrawn.

When people don't check their info, before posting they create GOSSIPs, or misunderstandings, or they could break down a generous project.

The latest 2 bad assumptions are here in the four last posts:

1) - Spec-Comm entered on stage, just too early, and some of us shared the idea to talk between end-users, FIRST, then, start INVOLVING DEALERS in this project.

2) - Jennyparis didn't offend Spec-Comm.
I said an ORGANIZED/STRUCTURED project with a TIMELINE.
It is readable by everyone that I visited/engaged discussion with VIDEOPLUS, as a DEALER for Europeans (and perhaps another one for some price competition)
So, from day one, I indicated I would do the same for the US part, that is, talking with one or two dealers.

THIS MADE & MAKE SENSE >> Who FANTASMED about bypassing dealers?

Apparently, am talking the same language as Videoplus & Spec-Comm:
1) Videoplus welcomed me in this P2 project.
2) Spec Comm understands very well my approach:

(Andrew, let me copy, word for word this recent PM)

Hello Jennyparis,

My name is Andrew. I have been looking through the posts here and have noticed that things may have started off kind of tense with our company. As was explained before, David is the Presidant of our company and is VERY busy. I'm sure that things are better now though.

Concidering Jan Crittenden's post, we would like to assist you on a P2 group buy deal through our company. We will handle all of the shipping and finacial things and we would be delighted if you would orginize such a task. You are really good at getting DVXUser's excited about things which I think is commendable.

Keep up the good work and let us know when you would like to get this started. :)

Best regards,

Andrew Hoffman
Senior Operations Manager
Specialized Communications Corp.
1-800-259-1858
www.spec-comm.com
andrewh@spec-comm.com

Everything is progressing well, not enough members yet, but dealers were about to be involved, it would have been a 3 parties talk (am sticking on a discount plan offered to users through dealers), and step by step, the quantity offered to dealers, and seen by Panasonic, would have meant an "interesting" message about pricing and user advantage.

I am deceived that the Panasonic guy did not try to even dialog, just assumptions, just business as usual, "we won't listen, we won't change".
Not even a comment about the VIDEOPLUS case and all what it means.
People are happy with this high price, why bother? Dealer have a HUGE margin, why bother?
We sell a monopolistic memory product (you can save Word & Excel on it) with the margin we want, till we introduce 16Gig, and you complaint about this?
What 100-200 P2 at the same time? pfff... Everyday, it is not a big deal.

Discussing with Buyer Group? boring. why bother?

Good luck with this project, at least my P2 threads showed a massive interest, and perhaps a real problem (seen from user perspective), and ideas emerged.

But, arguing towards people even not responding, or "more than cold", no thank you.
Not asking a simple question, and warning others that I could be a threat robbing 100k$. Come on! Ha, ha, ha.

Thank you, all the nice members who motivated me on pushing this, but too much is too much.

Jennyfer.


 
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I don't think any ill will was intended by anyone. Jenny your efforts are commendable, the misunderstandings may have come from a slight language barrier.

The spec comm PM should now get this on track if we can put aside the misunderstandings. Lets move forward. We have spec comm saying they will set everything up. Money is protected. Lets get a new seperate list going and see who comes up with the best deal.

Any deal that gets us cheaper 8gig cards I'm in. if we stand together as a group we can negotiate the best deal from a variety of vendors. In America AVS, Full compass, Spec-comm, etc. can all be called and negotiated with if there is an incentive .

Jenny if you would like to start seperate threads, Euro and America, with who wants cards and how many, we can get an understanding of the amount we are dealing with. I would be willing to call some authorized suppliers in the US and give them the total amount of cards to be purchased and see who can come up with the best deal.
 
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I dare say the videoplus.fr pricing of 550 for 8 GB cards was pulled by Panasonic because of this forum here. Within days distribuors in Denmark, Germany, England and France were told pricepolitics by customers instad of the producer of the product. So Panasonic actually does "react" to usergroups. Why shouldn´t they react in a positive way also?
And maybe the market in the States is differnet (thanks to Jan), but in Europe Panasonic is on a lost island. Yes they do have good news every now and then selling to networks and studios, but they are not at all hitting a homerun with the P2 technology. BBC and other really big companies shoot DigiBeta, HDV (FZ1 and so on) and most independent houses use SONY or Canon. On top of that there are no rebates whatsoever here to speak off. Like 100 KATA bags for the WHOLE of Europe? When I read this it made me laugh. In Europe Panasonic needs to find ways to start selling and this group could be helping them.
Jan the ugly truth: Just today another customer asked me "Why do you shoot Panasonic? Isn´t SONY much higher quality? I thought you shoot on SONY." So in fact the bad rep Panasonic has over here (or probably the good rep SONY has) hurts my credibility. Since I love the Panasonic products I want to change that rather tan me changing brands.
Another truth is the fact that even filmstudents and productionhouses on a budget shoot HDV in any flavor BECAUSE the P2 pricing simply is out of order. It is not tapeless or such. That argument is dead. SONY and the others have long responded. Many use the FS-4 solution. P2 is superior, but not alone.
I totally understand if Panasonic doesn´t want to sell direct. I also don´t wanna buy through a user here, but a dealer. But if Panasonic in Europe is smart they will listen (as they did to the 550-price-demand; only they reacted the wrong way).
 
You are most certainly welcome here Jenny.

I agree with Mico that there is at times difficulty understanding you and what you intend or are doing because of the language issue.

I just don't see this going anywhere, but there is nothing personal with respect to you or your efforts.

Stay around, and remember that market forces sometimes do not prevail.

Try dealing with US cable companies, for example.
 
Hello everyone. I have been away and haven't followed this forum for a few days.

I'm glad that Andrew clarified things with Jenny. I just want to reiterate that we are not offended. There is no room for that. Barry Green is correct, in that after considering everything, things didn't look like a Win-Win for everybody. That's why I withdrew.

Andrew has my full support in working out whatever deal with the DVXUsers that is truly a Win-Win for everybody.

David
 
mico said:
Jenny if you would like to start seperate threads, Euro and America, with who wants cards and how many, we can get an understanding of the amount we are dealing with. I would be willing to call some authorized suppliers in the US and give them the total amount of cards to be purchased and see who can come up with the best deal.
Click to expand...

NO! No! Please dont start another thread. There is already about 4 different threads regarding this topic.
 
Okay, am back on track.

Perhaps, my too long posts, my way of writing can lead to some misunderstanding.

But please re-assure me that we wish to go in the same direction.
Before asserting anything, please ask me, have a pretty good idea for properly organizing this, submitted to you and with your help.

Some confusion coming from false assertions may have lost some members who could wish to participate.
Could DVXuser moderators could give us a little help to put this project on the "right light"?
You understand now that, of course dealers are to be involved, and believe me, we can get a dialog with the 2 Panasonic (US & Europe), even if you are Divid & Goliath.
In the history, remember the Wiesenthal & Klarsfield, individual persons, who managed ALONE with FAITH and WORK, to bring war criminals to justice.
So, don't yhink we are too small and that they are too big for us.

Please, just increase this list, this is not sufficient to proceed.
If you have a doubt, please PM the well-known here.
I can't act worthingly with too few members.

The cable companies? You mean media using Panasonic for ENG crews?
 
I really don't understand what you are trying to do?

A buying consortium?

A negotiated group buy from Panasonic?

What and how
 
1) Federating users to negociate "group buy" or "simultaneous buy".
2) With being a significative User/Buyer Group, we can establish a dialog with Pana US and Pan Europe.
> Not only for asking a special P2 discount operation with their dealers (because the main part of the margin is at Panasonic)
> But, as a general purpose User Group, for other and future requests.

The group buy is not a one shot, but can be run several times, and will be useful for upcoming capacities 16/32/64/128 Gig (Asking an introductory price in the future P2 releases?)

It's free.
Nothing to lose.
If we don't ask, we'll never know... and possibly get something.

Spec-Comm understands very well this approach.
 
It seems that dealing directly with Panasonic even as a group is not an option from what Jan has said.

So it seems the only approach is to go through a dealer hoping that they can get a significant discount from Panasonic for a large order of cards.

I believe this is worth trying. Panasonic might be offering significant discounts to dealers depending on the quantity of their orders. Negotiating a discount deal with panasonic might be worthwhile for dealers as there profit margin for selling just a few cards would be offset by a large group buy for a cheaper price.

If dealers can come back to us, after negotiating with Panasonic, with the best price of cards and the amount of cards that would need to be purchased and if the group would be willing to pay that price it would seem that the dealer would need a guarantee from the group, if it is a huge amount, for the quantity of cards to be sold so they will not be left with a lot of unsold cards.

If spec-comm offered to set up the buying process others could too. Maybe they can set up a small downpayment option so they are guaranteed all cards in the group buy will be purchased.

As much as some people do not want another thread I believe then a sticky is needed of the total amount of cards the group would like to buy is necessary, it would give the dealers some idea so they have the ability to negotiate the best deal.

Different dealers can then come back to us with their offers.

Maybe Panasonic doesn't even offer discounts for large buys but I agree with Jenny that if we don't ask we will never know.

Or we can just wait for the 16g cards to come out and then take advantage of the 8g price drop. I keep reading diffrent dates for that and when they do come out this same situation will come up again.
 
My only concern was the idea of some individual holding wads of our members' money. That part we were not comfortable with; as long as the users will be making their transactions directly with an authorized dealer for the product then what's not to love? As far as members organizing to attempt to increase their bargaining strength, that's fine and dandy, and more power to you.
 
mico,

I have a contact name at Panasonic Europe for talking about this, and this does not mean that dealers are not involved.

A structured User/Buyer Group with one voice talking with a manufacturer, this is not new. You need to be identified as a whole if you wish to be heard.

User/Buyer Group first goal is a P2 discount plan through dealers.

The first thing to do is to be a number of members, first!
Please add your name.

Barry, thank you for your input. (Please, help us make the list growing - All will benefits from it).
 
Jennyparis said:
mico,

I have a contact name at Panasonic Europe for talking about this, and this does not mean that dealers are not involved.

A structured User/Buyer Group with one voice talking with a manufacturer, this is not new. You need to be identified as a whole if you wish to be heard.

User/Buyer Group first goal is a P2 discount plan through dealers.

The first thing to do is to be a number of members, first!
Please add your name.

Barry, thank you for your input. (Please, help us make the list growing - All will benefits from it).
Click to expand...


Jenny I think i understand but from the vibe I'm getting talking to Panasonic as a group will not be as productive as having dealers talk to them for the group. Still one voice but through dealers.

The Company / Dealer relationship may be something Panasonic will never disrupt.

I will add my name but I believe this thread is too disorganized for a dealer or Pansonic , and me, to get clear numbers/voice of the people invloved.
 
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