Ricoh Changes - Direct operations

ty for posting this!  I'm right there with you!

I think Ricoh leaving its loyal small and medium sized dealers out of the loop on this was a huge mistake.  They've given a handful of large dealers an instant market share in smaller markets without even the courtesy of the opportunity to the local small and medium sized dealers.  Very not cool.  Hopefully these bigger dealers will fumble the football and the small and mid-sized guys can pick up the pieces.

I think the handling of this could drive some loyal dealers to shift their business to other manufacturers.

Time will tell.

Fisher, i hadn't even thought about that! I am sure the smaller dealers will feel left out now more than ever. We had been single lone Ricoh for about 15 years before adding more lines. The only reason we added more lines was because of Ricoh's love with the direct business and we guessed that the damage they did to us over a couple years was around 200k of revenue. We got tired of hearing the same old BS from them about how we were important and they would do anything to keep us happy etc. 

we finally got fed up and brought on Samsung, followed by canon. Then Ricoh would always come in and ask us when we were dropping our other lines. When we dropped Ricoh we added muratec to have the Konica boxes and we haven't missed Ricoh yet. Our clients have jumped on the canon train and never looked back with us. 

In our case we have been loyal to Ricoh for nearly two decades and all of the accounts in our area went to a dealer nearly 2 hours drive away.  We didn't even get the opportunity.  Stop and think about that.

On the plus side we know that these customers will get poor service simply due to distance and logistics so perhaps there will be an opportunity after they fumble.

That's nuts! This is going to blow up in their face just like HP buying Samsung.

Surprised there isn't more conversation on this one.

I think that many are just lurkers, they read, they take, and they don't share

I think people are scared to talk about their manufacturers most of the time out of some kind of fear. I remember a meeting several years ago where we got so mad at Ricoh my father about went over the desk on our DSM and reminded him we don't work for Ricoh and our pay checks didn't say Ricoh on them. 

This is great news for the Independent Ricoh Dealers. I wish Canon would do the same thing. But I don't see that coming.

As far as HP buying Samsung, HP is saying all the right things to the large Samsung Dealers. We are encouraged. But the proof will be in the pudding!

 

Vince

Just out of curiosity is there a list out there of the 20 or so dealers that will be getting Ricoh's MIF?

I have not seen any list yet. My guess is press releases will start going out soon from the companies that bought them.

I have not seen a list either, heard from a dealer principal that ive known for years

In Peoria Il. kinda think that GFI Digital would be the one that would get the Ricoh MIF

My thoughts are - Ray Morgan, documation, Milner, RJ Young, applied imaging, Atlantic, systel, pacific office automation, all copy, nova copy. 

Those are ones I can think of that are huge or the biggest in their markets. 

I have already spoken to a dealer who bought a ton of Ricoh MIF. It was sold off very cheap according to them and they have already heard from the other Ricoh dealers in the markets they compete who are upset with how it all went down.

Stratix in eastern pa

Art, I meant to ask you the other day when we spoke if you all had acquired any?

Well, I got squat. I am in the NJ market with corp being in Reading, PA.  Stratix bought all SMB in Eastern, PA, except the Phili Market.  Atlantic took Phili, cause it was too much to handle for us. Atlantic all of NJ and Manhattan and TGI all the other NY Boroughs and possible Long Island.  I believe that's how it went down here in the East. 

Milner appears to have won the Athens GA market.  Still waiting to hear about Augusta GA.