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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Setting up GROUP BUY for batteries!

Kwan Khan said:
Hummm.... Interesting.... Its not mention on their site

Thank again for detail.
Click to expand...


They charge you for the SHIPPING not the taxes and duties assessed to enter the country being shipped to! I found that out the hard way when ordering from other European companies direct! So what they are saying is true... They will charge you the fee to ship... however, the shipping company acts as your customs broker and assess additional fees to compensate for their time, effort, paperwork/forms, taxes and other costs. Further, from what I've been told... those prices are truly aimed at the European customer.
 
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My name is Steve Manios; I am the owner of Manios Digital & Film, the U.S. distributor for PAG, my other products are Cartoni tripods, Vocas matte boxes and the LCDVF and LCDVFe electronic viewfinder. I have been in this industry since 1982 starting with Century Optics. Please forgive this long winded post.


I have been following this post for the last few days. To be honest, I am quite surprised at some of the negativity. Curt Pair visited my booth at NAB 2012. I introduced the new V mount battery to him. He liked them so much that he asked if he could do a video on it. I agreed to the video, to be clear that Curt did not receive any free batteries from my company. We do not give away products for reviews. Curt is buying his batteries and chargers from us.

Curt proposed to me a discount for RED User if they all buy at one time. I liked the idea since we needed a way to jump start this battery in the US. Curt worked with me on what we thought would be a fair price. Curt will be making a minimal commission on this deal since he is the person who introduced the product to you, the RED Users.

Now, it comes that the prices are a little less in Europe then the U.S. Also, while VAT is not charged to the U.S., you will most likely have to pay some duty/taxes when the product arrives, my guess would be around 3.5%. Also, some transit companies charge extra fees for filing customs forms. Chances are that these fees are not included in the initial shipping charges from PAG. I am sure that if I am wrong someone will post the numbers.

It seems to me that there are a few people who feel I am taking advantage or something by pricing the product higher then PAGs price. What this person may fail to understand that as a distributer, I get a certain discount from the factory. My cost here in the States include: A technician, service manager, along with several other employees. I also try and maintain inventory and have to deal with a fluctuating Pound. Most of you who have worked with me in the past should be able to testify to my company’s quality of service. That cost money.

In the end, we were hoping to provide an exciting new product at a great price to you the RED User. I really did not expect this negativity over prices.

Also, please be advised that as a distributor, I do not have to handle warranty issues on products that are purchased outside my territory. All service needs on products purchased from overseas will have to go back to the point of purchase.


If you have any questions or comments, please email me at steve@maniosdigial.com or call me at 818-760-8290


Sincerely,
Steven Manios
 
Steve - welcome to the forum. Your appearance here says a lot about the way you do business, i.e. your willingness to step up and discuss the issues honestly and openly. That is always a good way to conduct business and, IMO, it always comes back to you with the creation of good and lasting business relationships. Your specific explanation of this situation is helpful to our understanding of the constraints under which you have to structure this deal. Two things that have definitely been established by this situation is 1) there is now a lot of awareness among REDusers as to the quality and features of the PAG product, and 2) you are an honorable and straight-up business guy.

Even with your explanation, it still seems a little hard to understand the finances of the discounted deal. We have, presumably, disposed of the VAT issue now, but you also suggest that buying directly will add 3.5% or so in "fees" from the shipping company. Even if that is true, then isn't buying direct from PAG pretty much the same price?? To use the example above, The 2 batts and mobile charger come in at around $965 on the web site, so if you are saying we can expect to pay 3.5% more, that brings us to around $1000 (and they don't charge local sales taxes). Your pricing comes in at $948, to which we add shipping from LA and local taxes, where applicable. My guess is that they are somewhat equal. And, since warranty issues have to go back to PAG in either case, that's not a tie-breaker.

As far as the 3.5% - I can only say that I have recently bought items of some value from Asia and from Turkey, each time they were delivered by DHL and the shipping was around $60 total - no specific add-on fees, from each location. Perhaps batteries will be different, I have no idea.

I don't know what the "answer" is as, clearly, you have constraints under which you have to work. Maybe one element lies in having PAG recognize the opportunity themselves and offer better pricing to you for this increase in volume. I know the numbers aren't that great under the current conditions but I wonder how much more robust the sale figure would be if it were closer to a "real" 20% discount from the PAG pricing? Maybe you and Curt could structure it like a Group-On deal and commit to certain discount levels when a certain volume is reached; put the pressure on the RED community to step up?

Anyway, the battery market is a competitive one and with RED Bricks and AB options out there, among others, all in the same pricing ballpark, price is often a motivating force. For some of us, the decision to change our entire battery platform (in my case from AB) is a larger one than just getting a good deal on a couple batteries.

Anyway, thanks for stepping up to discuss this. I hope I have been respectful, as I intend to be, in presenting you my thoughts. As I said, I don't believe the quality of your product is an issue at all and, now that we know you as well as Curt, that can only be a good thing for sales of PAG going forward.

Best regards,
Terry
 
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Thank you for the complement. I will do my best to explain how I work without giving up too much info that could upset my factories or just give away something that has taken me 20 years as a distributor to learn. My first 20 years were manufacturing based working at Century Optics, so I know both sides of the battle.


A very basic explanation regarding prices and how we get to them. The Europeans factories give us a discount off their list price. Let’s say most companies give between 30 and 40%. We have to factor in the exchange rate and how it fluctuates. Most of the time we break even on it based over a year of purchases. We need to work in shipping, Duty, and Fee’s. (I would like to hear what the final fees were for the shipment that has been ordered from the PAG UK). I have 8 people who work at my company, in that I supply a 401 K, full medical (their family included), vacations, along with the standard cost of workman’s comp, employee taxes and so on. We also have to factor in trade shows; NAB runs about $65 per square foot. Bottom line it takes quite a bit of money to run a small business these days.

After we figure out our mark up, which is not as much as everyone thinks, we depend on volume. We need to mark up x amount for the dealers. So if a dealer is giving you 15 to 20% off of a list price, you figure they have to make something. I will not go into what dealers pay or how they figure out their margins. Also, don’t forget we need to and try to keep an ample amount of inventory on the shelves.

In regards to shipping charges, As an individual I can honestly say that I have not purchased broadcast equipment from Europe; however as an company importing shipments we have duty, shipping charges and processing fees. As stated, I hope we hear what the shipment cost from gentleman who purchased these items.

You bring up a valid point of why PAG can’t give me a better price. There are several reasons.

  1. [FONT=&quot]They are giving me the best price possible; they have a minimal mark up. Believe me, they are making less than me. Obviously, they hope to make it up in quantity.[/FONT]
  2. [FONT=&quot]PAG is manufactured in the UK, not in China or some other country. The manufacturing cost is much higher in Europe. Example if Cartoni (manufactured in Italy) were to be manufactured in Costa Rica like Sachtler, Vinten and O’Conner our prices would be lower.[/FONT]
  3. [FONT=&quot]Let’s not forget how technically advanced these batteries really are. There is nothing out there that really competes, once you start stacking. [/FONT]

Anyway, the battery market is a competitive one and with RED Bricks and AB options out there, among others, all in the same pricing ballpark, price is often a motivating force. For some of us, the decision to change our entire battery platform (in my case from AB) is a larger one than just getting a good deal on a couple batteries.

I understand this statement; I have always said if you are happy with your current product and what it offers stick with it. What we are offering here is something completely new and revolutionary; it gives you the user options that our competitors do not offer. We also offer a 2 year warranty.
Since Curt has done all the key selling points, I will not re-list them again here.

I hope this helps a little bit,
[FONT=&quot]Steve Manios[/FONT]
 
Steve Manios said:
I am quite surprised at some of the negativity.
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagreed. Curt Pair is of course a valuable guy in REDuser community, again Thanks Curt for putting this together.

Now if anyone is making a confusion here is either Manios Digital & Film or PAGlink itself.

Example;
Confusion #1:
Curt Pair said:
I'm assured by PAG that the price wouldn't be as low as these customers are speculating. I'm told shipping alone, with all the duties could run as high as $250 (possibly more) for the two PL95e and micro charger kit.
Click to expand...

Who ever forward this to Steve is not true. After steve's post I contact PAGlink Directly;

My Email to PAGlink;


Hey,
I am interested in 2 x PL96e Batteries & Micro Charger Package.
My total is;
391675_10151470999903084_696454582_n.jpg


Just trying to confirm that if there any hidden charges or any other fee to ship above item to NYC, US

cheers

few hour ago I received an email from Paglink.
For legal purposes I can't copy and paste their reply but I can tell you that;

They thanks me for my enquiry and confirmed that there isn't any hidden charges and no extra fees for their end on above order.
The only charge that wouldn’t be any import duties and request me to check online Duty calculator http://www.dutycalculator.com/new-import-duty-and-tax-calculation/
They also confirmed that it can't be $250+

I Calculate above order and my Total import duty & taxes due: US$36.


Now Again Welcome to REDUSER steve.

Without any doubt, PAGlink has feature driven Quality Engineering team and I am really glad to give them THANKS
But SALE team is so far very poor and I like to request them, Please come out with fair solution & give us a chance to say thanks to your Sales team as well.

Cheers
 
Steve - of course, we appreciate the constraints you work under. You provide good products and a valuable service. I don't wish to be argumentative or disrespectful. I think a lot of the issue here came from the high expectations we had that couldn't be met. A "20% discount" was presumed to be from the only pricing we knew - that on the PAG site.

As to the constraints that PAG has, that you mention in your post - points 2 and 3 apply to the pricing on their web site as well. And I am very sympathetic about the costs you have in running your business. Having operated in both the retail and wholesale realm in my past, I get the issues of a financially constrained supply chain. I think the opportunity for you and PAG here was to acquire new customers at a relatively low cost and, as we know, the cost of getting new customers is usually substantially higher than selling to existing ones; particularly in the case where an "infrastructure" (i.e., chargers and mounts) investment is required and can serve as a "barrier to entry" for new customers. In case like this, the later sales are the profitable ones, not the initial sales.

It seems like the opportunity lost for PAG and you, is getting these batteries out in the marketplace - even if it was with little or no profit margin - with the idea that you now have "names and faces" of people (influential, opinionated people) in your network, who are loyal to you product.

OK - I promise I'll go back to my corner now. Again, thanks for participating fully in this discussion.
 
Hello Kwan,
Maybe, the word negative was wrong, so I apologize.

I am sorry if there is confusion here. As I mentioned in my post, I have not personally purchased products from Europe. I believe PAG charges you for the shipping charges only from their door to yours. As extra cost your duty and taxes sound about right. What I would like to know when you get your delivery if there is a processing fee from the shipping company. I was not trying to put something past this group. Curt and I had a discussion a few days ago and it seems my calculations were off (quite a bit) based on what it cost to import individual orders.

Without any doubt, PAGlink has feature driven Quality Engineering team and I am really glad to give them THANKS
But SALE team is so far very poor and I like to request them, Please come out with fair solution & give us a chance to say thanks to your Sales team as well

I am confused, are you talking about the PAG UK sales team or U.S. sales. Since I am now jumping into this discussion I hope I can change your mind about the sales team.
I will be in NYC mid-day Nov. 11[SUP]th[/SUP] through Nov. 13[SUP]th[/SUP]. I have time in the evening to meet with you and any Red User group members. Just email me at steve@maniosdigital.com or call 818.760.8290, so we can set up a time if you guys are interested.

In regards to a fair solution, I am not sure what you mean. Europe is Europe; the factory sells at list price on line. I get a discount off of that price. From that discount I have to mark up. I totally understand the confusion. The belief is that the UK list price should be the same as the U.S. list price. Most items being imported and selling though a dealer network will carry a higher price them the Euro list.

Let me give you guys a rough example here.Let’s start a new distribution company:

Product A is 1000 pounds ($1600) list price on UK web site. We get 40% of that product. Our cost would be 600 pounds ($960).
Experience will tell us that it will cost 10% shipping, duty, taxes and transport to our office. We must have inventory so we buy in quantity. Our shipment will need to be trucked to our office that cost extra.

Product A now cost us $1,056 just to get to our door.

The Dealer is giving the customer 20% off of list price of $1600; So customer cost is $1,280.
Now the dealer needs to make some money. If he is giving 20% off of list he will want a 35% discount making it $1040 net cost to the dealer.

Our cost was $1,056. We just lost $16 on the deal.

That is the basics of how distribution works.

Have a great weekend,

Steve
 
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I understand and I do not see you as being argumentative. I just want to point out what is cost us as a distributor to run a business, such as a lot of you guys know what it takes to run a small business. This group salea new idea to us and we thought "wow" what a great opportunity to get us out there. We are all making very little money on this. PAG can go no lower then what they are charging us. If you check out a lot of the Euro made products are less in Europe then they are in the states.
Terry and all others, if you have any questions or prefer to talk, please feel free to call me or email me direct. Due to my schedule, I am not a big forms guy and may miss the postings.

Have a great weekend,

Steve
 
Here's my position...

I thank you guys for trying to get a great price for the group. Stand up guys for going out and trying to make this happen.

But - we live in a global economy with overnight next day shipping, with tumbling trade barriers and online ordering. As such it's just about the same price landed on my doorstep if I buy from PAG UK or the group buy put together here from Manios.

I'm in Canada, so it may be slightly different than what you guys in the States may find; but:
-There are no duties charged on these batteries being imported to Canada
-Taxes are the same wether I import from the UK or the US.
-Shipping cost from UK & L.A. is essentially the same.
-Air shipping FedEx to Canada includes any 'Broker' paperwork charges in the shipping cost (works out to $10 for paperwork)
-I can order tonight and get the batteries in my studio next week…
-Canadian $ is strong on the international currency markets, and I have £ Sterling and $US accounts so transactions are a non issue.

Sounded great - but
 
Glen Powell said:
Here's my position...

I thank you guys for trying to get a great price for the group. Stand up guys for going out and trying to make this happen.

But - we live in a global economy with overnight next day shipping, with tumbling trade barriers and online ordering. As such it's just about the same price landed on my doorstep if I buy from PAG UK or the group buy put together here from Manios.

I'm in Canada, so it may be slightly different than what you guys in the States may find; but:
-There are no duties charged on these batteries being imported to Canada
-Taxes are the same wether I import from the UK or the US.
-Shipping cost from UK & L.A. is essentially the same.
-Air shipping FedEx to Canada includes any 'Broker' paperwork charges in the shipping cost (works out to $10 for paperwork)
-I can order tonight and get the batteries in my studio next week…
-Canadian $ is strong on the international currency markets, and I have £ Sterling and $US accounts so transactions are a non issue.

Sounded great - but
Click to expand...

Sad, but seemingly true. :frown:
 
If I can slip this question in while there is a focus on V-mounts... does anyone know of an extension power cable for the Epic/Scarlet mounts? Thanks.
 
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What is the end price of these batteries FOB LA ? i think that's the point.....can we get clarification on this, i think really the only issue. I'll bet most of us here are familiar with running a business and the ups/downs as well as a brick and mortar store....not sure how anyone does this anymore---especially in california.

Prices FOB LA bottom line - please.
(with no question marks about what we might see once they land--brokerage fees etc...) Would seem that this could be figured out by dealing with your shipper and customs codes to find out fees in advance.
 
Johnny Friday said:
What is the end price of these batteries FOB LA ? i think that's the point.....can we get clarification on this, i think really the only issue. I'll bet most of us here are familiar with running a business and the ups/downs as well as a brick and mortar store....not sure how anyone does this anymore---especially in california.

Prices FOB LA bottom line - please.
(with no question marks about what we might see once they land--brokerage fees etc...) Would seem that this could be figured out by dealing with your shipper and customs codes to find out fees in advance.
Click to expand...


Johnny,

Sorry brother, I don't know what FOB means... not that hip. (Being ex-military... I'm thinking "Forward Operating Base.")

The pricing is simple:

$399 PL96e Battery per unit
$500 PL96T Battery per unit
$545 PL 16 Charge per unit
$545 Cube Charger per unit
$150 PowerHub per unit
$150 Micro Charger per unit

California and Arizona residents pay sales tax.

If you pick them up at the distributor in LA... you don't have to pay for shipping. If you need them shipped in the US. There are flat rates. The distributor will have all pricing info for this on Monday. Apparently they ship so much in the US, that they have arrangements on a weight basis only, not to the destination. Therefore, the shipping is dependent upon what the order consists of... if you buy 2 batteries and a charger is should equal a particular weight and therefore EVERYONE who orders that particular combination, pays the same shipping fee. If you order 4 batteries and a charger... same thing applies. And so on, and so on...

Full US warranty applies. On the remote chance there is ever a problem, the US Distributor will take care of us. Everything will be dealt with in Los Angeles, not the UK.

If you're interested please email me your name, address, phone, email address (for confirmations), and the quantities on the particular items you're purchasing. You'll be contacted for payment arrangements, and notified of shipping dates. Please use this email address: curt@picturethisproductions.net

Thanks for participating. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
 
Or could mean fresh off the boat....but Steve emailed and i think i got it all. I wont go into fob since it can mean many things depending on international or domestic shipping. Anyway, awaiting final pricing from Steve.....thanks for putting it all together Curt.
 
To All, This will be my last post on the subject. I appreciate all of your comments. First and foremost I hope all of you on the East Coast are safe and doing well.
While I agree that you can save some money buying from the UK, you can also be sacrificing a lot. Those on the East Coast can call us up until 6:30pm EST and we would be able to ship an order. We can solve an issue up to around 8:00pm EST.



That being said, almost all manufactures in our industry use a distribution network, while we have gotten some flack for the PAG prices being higher here then in the UK. I found out my American competitors prices are higher in the UK on at least one web site then the US.
Creative Video UK

Dionic 90 HC US List: $575 to UK on line sale price: 396 GBP plus 79 GBP VAT

or ($632 plus $126 for VAT)

The point is that that manufactures hire companies like us because they cannot afford to or want to open offices in every country. A distributor’s job is to open up new markets, go to the broadcasters, rental houses, trade shows and dealer networks to promote their line. Most of us have sales and service team ready to help when needed.

As an example how we opened new doors is this Group Buy, a few of you might never have even thought of PAG as an option if we did not do NAB, and had met Curt Pair allowing him to demo our products for a month.

While some users may not mind dealing with an overseas company and can find a little better deal, our other customers like broadcasters, rental houses,large production companies and dealers prefer to deal with a company based in the U.S.



In regards to the email regarding shipping charges, I cannot verify either way about additional charges unless I place an order myself, however I did speak with the factory and they have no record of answering an email regarding shipping charges from the U.S. over the last 10 days. Nor have they received any orders from the U.S. or Canada. They also said that there would be no confidentiality on the email and it can be posted.


Depending on the situation in NYC, my offer is still open to get together with you guys. I have the evenings of the 11[SUP]th[/SUP], 12[SUP]th[/SUP] and 13[SUP]th[/SUP] open, contact me. I would love to meet some of you guys and the first few rounds will be on me.



I wish everyone the best and I am always open to any calls or emails.


Steve Manios
Manios Digital & Film
 
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Steve Manios said:
however I did speak with the factory and they have no record of answering an email regarding shipping charges from the U.S. over the last 10 days. Nor have they received any orders from the U.S. or Canada. They also said that there would be no confidentiality on the email and it can be posted.
Click to expand...

Now we both know that above statement is incorrect and reply was sent to me was confidential (lol).
 
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