Planar on WOOT: What Do You Think?

I cannot tell if this looks just like a mortgage backed security or a credit default swap

Hey, when you appear to be circling the drain, any port in a storm. Desperate times breed desperate measures. The appearance of hypocrisy is raised by the cute little disparagement of Planar’s existing dealers by woot (see the dialog in the info tab in the woot ad. So if this did not start out like an insult, woot and Planar sure rubbed enough salt in the wound by including this crummy attack on the ones that have displays, buy inventory and invest in training their own staff in selling Planar’s stuff.
They could have offered this deal to their former distributors or direct dealers rather than choose this liquidator.

Glen O’Brien

gobrien, did they not?

Not as low as $599,
Not nearly, by a long shot, as low as $599, not with $5 freight.

I’d say this was a really substantial lowball.

As far as needing them to be viable? That is their job to be viable and relevant in the CI/CE channel. There is too much good competition to have to suffer along with the incompetents. Darwin and capitalism have it right this time-The strongest survive. No bailout for Wall Street or Planar!

Been dealing Planar for a few years.  This is an absolute slap in the face.  Planar comes in and says they don’t sell online and will not tolerate anyone else too. 

They should have offered it to their dealers first for the 500 dollar range at a very minimum, instead they offered their 7130 to dealers for a price more than double what they are willing to sell it to woot for?

Thanks for the instant de-valuation of our showroom model.

Tom,

It is you who are the fool.  Julie has been an outspoken advocate and tireless champion of our industry for longer than most of us have been in the business.  Her understanding goes far beyond the simple field installation or the wiremap that you forgot to include in your last project.  It plumbs the depths of the heart of the industry itself, not just in what wire goes where, but in how that wire got to that installation in the first place… who invented it, who manufactured it, who sold it, who certified it, and all of the whys of the reasons it is there in the first place.  For you to pass such judgment is beyond understanding.  Just because you can do an installation gives you no right what so ever to impune those who have worked for years in building this industry to what it is today.  I defy you or anyone else to name a person who has contributed more to this industry than Julie.  I do not work for EH, so don’t bother accusing me of patronage, I am just one of the people who aspires to promote our industry, alongside giants such as Julie.

Avi (and you now know who i am, have the courage of your convictions and sign your posts)

I am in agreement with Gifford, as I to listened numerous presentations by PLANAR’s sales and marketing staff and became a Dealer also. Our demonstrations rooms that touted their LCD’s and inventory became worthless overnight and it looks like the same thing will apply soon with their front projection product. This Company wined us, dined us, and then stuck it to us.

Avi, thanks for the love. Tom, I appreciate the feedback; however I would love to hear some more insightful comments such as those provided by Steve,  Gobrien and Gifford.

This is an important topic that is worthy of discussion:

How does a company get a fresh start without “whoring” out products en masse? Could Planar have sold that many pieces of stock so quickly to its real channel?

How could they have mitigated the obvious fallout from their reps/dealers?

Or do you think that Planar is pulling out of the consumer market altogether, so they just don’t care?

My understanding is that they did offer product to their original distribution market, and they purchased it, unfortunately for them, as PLANAR failed to mention that they were dropping the LCD line before the transaction took place, and stuck them with a lot of useless product also.

Perhaps the “Planar” branded products are going to be opened up for walmart/costco type distribution and the Runco branding will be the custom line.  Other wise they are just cutting themselves off at the knee’s. 

Another likely scenerio.  They didn’t think many integrators or their clients would notice.  Our line of work is service based and most of our products and services can’t be found online.In that light maybe they thought it would have minimal impact.  The problem is that we are internet savvey, and so are our clients and to see something you paid more that double for (both dealer and client) a few months ago online makes you feel ripped off.

I don’t envy Planar trying to sell custom line display products in a market where most of their competitors have turned it into a comodity and dropped their margins.  They should take note however that the really successful custom manufacturers would never do this… (Ie Crestron)

With moves like this I’d think twice about becoming a Runco dealer as well.

I heard that they plan on making Runco a profitable Company and then sell them off, which is probably in the best interest to the Runco brand. Hey, if they could do it to their own, they can certainly do it to the acquired.

I don’t know. Woot isn’t an online retailer, and it’s a one day thing, not a “market value” site like eBay or something. I’d much rather them dump all their product through a one day sale like this than sell it through Costco or Sam’s Club like Sony and Pioneer do.

You can’t feel “ripped off” when you buy something for more than Woot sells it. Woot is a different kind of animal. You don’t get price matching from their site, it’s a one-day sale, and limited to stock on hand only.

Still, it would have been better had they sold it to dealers instead. I know if they offered it to me I would have bought one for my house.

What happens with woot is all the ebayer buy them up and re-sell for 649 on ebay for months at a time.

Sony, Pioneer etc. are commodity products sold everywhere.  Planar billed themselves completely different with limited distribution. 

So I again the story they sold distributors and dealers was the ripoff.  More so than the actual price they sold their product to the public for.

Please let me know how any of this has affected you.

Reps, have you heard from your dealers? Dealers have you heard from your clients?

How does this affect your existing planar stock.

Would your customers even KNOW that there was a one-day selloff online?

thanks

Sony XBR and Pioneer Elite are not commodity products. When Tweeter collapsed, Pioneer sold off a lot of Elite product to Costco because Tweeter was the biggest Pioneer dealer and they weren’t paying their bills.

Year-old XBR models made their way to Costco and Sam’s Club.

I don’t think we can expect discontinued product to have the same distribution as current product.