Tomorrow I might go into Woodcraft and buy some Festool stuff using my credit card.  I'll make sure I bring cash as a backup, just in case my credit card gets refused because it has a reward program.

The other day I asked my grandfather to give me some money so I could by some more Festools.  He said "I'm afraid I can't do that.  Festool doesn't want a third party to 'lower' your cost and affect the value of their brand.  They won't sell to you if there is the potential that a third party subsidized your purchase.  It doesn't even matter that you will be paying the dealer the full price.   If you receive any type of break then you just don't want those tools badly enough.  Sorry, but Festool requires you to want those tools so badly that you pay full price with absolutely no break or subsidy."  I didn't want the tools that badly, so I didn't buy any.

This week I had considered buying some tools that I wanted, but really didn't need.  I checked my preferred sales channel to see if they were available.  They weren't.  Economics effects behavior.  I'm not going to buy them now, mainly out of principle.  Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. 

To the Festool USA employees - I would venture a guess that you do not set pricing policy, and you have to receive dictates from the headquarters in Germany.  I know that you are in a precarious and dangerous position to try to present data and influence the policies of a company that seems to like absolute control.  As Americans, it must be tough to constantly field the pricing questions and the free-market-economy-related questions while presenting the company line.  My sympathy goes out to you.

Oh, wait!  I forgot something!  Business who purchase your tools receive government subsidies in the form of tax deductions, depreciation costs and the like.  I think that in order to consistently enforce your policy, you must prohibit any purchases from companies.  Tax subsidies, Bing subsidy, what's the difference?

Madness.

 

What a GREAT smiley!!!!!!

 

When did nickao move to NC? 

Warner et al , maybe you can enlighten me and direct me to the official announcement Festool made regarding prohibiting dealers from selling on ebay. I must have missed it.

 Authorized Festool dealers have been selling officially, on ebay, for some time now. Within the last few days all of the merchandise was pulled from ebay by the authorized dealers. Posing the question of whether this was a change of official Festool policy did not seem that far off base. Thousands of people have purchased Festool merchandise from authorized dealers on ebay and to put an abrupt end to this popular retail avenue without an announcement seems strange.

 If I missed the announcement, I apologize for asking a question I did not know the answer to. If, however, Festool reversed its policy of allowing dealers to sell on ebay then I think a one sentence statement stating that a major change in its retail policy has been made would have been welcome by the many customers who bought or intended on buying from ebay. By the way, I have not purchased any of my Festool items from dealers on ebay.

Sorry op, I know nothing about the bing thing.
Once pricing and or some sort of discount was mentioned,
the thread took a left turn.

I did enjoy the new smiley though.