Rectron alternatives

[lowriderza]

Hi,
Is there an alternative to Rectron where I can purchase computer parts for my online website store?
Rectron refused my application because I wasn't a registered IT Reseller.

Any info will be appreciated, Thanks.

There are plenty. I usually search for [product/ brand] [distributor] South Africa and find a lot of suppliers that way. Despite what everybody here is saying, there are many distributors who don't mind if you trade as a Sole Proprietor as long as you ask for a cash account. Credit will be different.

I would be really careful with this type of business, margins in any format of IT Retail are super low.

 

[WAslayer]

There are plenty. I usually search for [product/ brand] [distributor] South Africa and find a lot of suppliers that way. Despite what everybody here is saying, there are many distributors who don't mind if you trade as a Sole Proprietor as long as you ask for a cash account. Credit will be different.

I would be really careful with this type of business, margins in any format of IT Retail are super low.

Pinnacle, Frontosa, Esquire are the ones who open sole prop accounts.. haven't found any others willing to do so, even if just a cash account..

 

[lowriderza]

Pinnacle, Frontosa, Esquire are the ones who open sole prop accounts.. haven't found any others willing to do so, even if just a cash account..

Eurobyte, Syntech, Tarsus, Uniterm Direct, Corex and Miro also allows it. Except if they've changed things in the last year or so.

 

[ld13]

The CC route was relatively painless IIRC

No more CC registrations being done, but you can buy one off the shelf or from someone else

 

[Thor]

Anyone have Hikvision pricing for me?

 

[nulkoel]

No more CC registrations being done, but you can buy one off the shelf or from someone else

Oh. Wow. I'm terribly outdated when it comes to these things but that is interesting. At risk of going very OT, I'll go Google to see why

 

[TheMightyQuin]

Hi,
Is there an alternative to Rectron where I can purchase computer parts for my online website store?
Rectron refused my application because I wasn't a registered IT Reseller.

Any info will be appreciated, Thanks.

Pinnacle, Syntech, Frontosa, Mustek, Sonic there are more whose names I can't get to now..

Edit:
Scoop if you want some networking stuff like mikrotik and ubiquity..

Pinnacle, Mustek and Rectron will not open an account for you, if you cannot prove that you are a real VAR in the ICT channel.

So they want to see proof of a company registration, business bank account, website etc.

This way they try and protect the channel so that VAR's can also make a living and it is the proper way of doing it.

Otherwise buy from the places that buy from those distributors that I mentioned...so go to Frontosa, MIRO and all the other 3rd tier resellers.

 

[TheMightyQuin]

What is the definition, according to them, of a "registered IT Reseller"?

Have no clue.

So what did they say when after you were rejected, you asked them "why?'.

What advice did you ask from them as to how you can move forward and then get an account with them?

 

[WAslayer]

Pinnacle, Mustek and Rectron will not open an account for you, if you cannot prove that you are a real VAR in the ICT channel.

So they want to see proof of a company registration, business bank account, website etc.

This way they try and protect the channel so that VAR's can also make a living and it is the proper way of doing it.

Otherwise buy from the places that buy from those distributors that I mentioned...so go to Frontosa, MIRO and all the other 3rd tier resellers.

Have a sole prop cash account with Pinnacle.. opened years ago though.. not sure if it's still active though, been a while since I used it..

 

[WalkWithMe]

Oh. Wow. I'm terribly outdated when it comes to these things but that is interesting. At risk of going very OT, I'll go Google to see why

CC's haven't been available for decade...

 

[TheMightyQuin]

Have a sole prop cash account with Pinnacle.. opened years ago though.. not sure if it's still active though, been a while since I used it..

It will not be active. I have been buying from Pinnacle for 15 years...and during COVID technically had to re-apply.

My 30 day Terms and Credit were also re-evaluate due to COVID financial "fears" and cut dramatically. Now that is a huge PIA...

 

[WAslayer]

It will not be active. I have been buying from Pinnacle for 15 years...and during COVID technically had to re-apply.

My 30 day Terms and Credit were also re-evaluate due to COVID financial "fears" and cut dramatically. Now that is a huge PIA...

End of 2020 or beginning 2021 I went to buy some hikvision stuff.. they couldn't find my account.. just vanished.. they were also in the middle of moving systems of some kind and have had a number of accounts gone missing apparently..

I thought at the time, the more likely explanation is probably my account having had been deactivated.. lucky they gave me the order on one of their accounts while investigating what happened to my account.. haven't heard back on that but, I also have no need for my accounts at any of these places anymore, so just not bothered with following up..

 

[TheMightyQuin]

End of 2020 or beginning 2021 I went to buy some hikvision stuff.. they couldn't find my account.. just vanished.. they were also in the middle of moving systems of some kind and have had a number of accounts gone missing apparently..

I thought at the time, the more likely explanation is probably my account having had been deactivated.. lucky they gave me the order on one of their accounts while investigating what happened to my account.. haven't heard back on that but, I also have no need for my accounts at any of these places anymore, so just not bothered with following up..

Normally Pinnacle does not close inactive accounts...Mustek on the other hand....fuk me.

Luckily they quickly learned their lesson.

 

[zll]

The CC route was relatively painless IIRC, and none of the suppliers required more than that. Except one or two, who at the time wanted to see that you're already registered at other suppliers :-|

When I was in matric a couple of friends and I got together and registered a closed corp. I didn't do any of the paperwork but chipped in towards the costs. I just used it to buy cheap hardware from rectron but my mates actually used to sell some hardware at a slight markup to some people we know.

 

[nulkoel]

When I was in matric a couple of friends and I got together and registered a closed corp. I didn't do any of the paperwork but chipped in towards the costs. I just used it to buy cheap hardware from rectron but my mates actually used to sell some hardware at a slight markup to some people we know.

Sounds familiar! I got out after 3 years when we had to buy a vehicle and rent a space to work from and store stock. My Beetle and our parents’ living rooms did not scale well

Obviously the PC landscape looked very different back then…

 

[Thor]

Have a sole prop cash account with Pinnacle.. opened years ago though.. not sure if it's still active though, been a while since I used it..

Check if it is?

They have stuff I need but I want to see pricing first

 

[WAslayer]

Check if it is?

They have stuff I need but I want to see pricing first

Sorry, looks like it's gone.. can't login to the website nor am I getting any password reset emails for my registered email address..

 

[Progenix Oj101]

I suspect they have cheaper prices for the bigger players.

Not sure if it is still the same, but years ago some of the suppliers had different pricing levels. Moving to a higher level for better pricing made it slightly easier to be competitive.

It's still the same - I've changed pricing tiers at a few more than once. It also helps to make friends with the PMs, as they'll let you run special pricing quite regularly.

Doesn't work like that...

If you want your online store to actually have a chance of surviving, you need to have accounts with most of the major distributors, you can't just be a reseller for one distributor... your potential customers will just go elsewhere that has a better range, and consequently better pricing.

More than just the big ones. I have accounts with more than 20 distis and suppliers, and the list is still growing by the month.

The other issue is many brands are covered by more than one supplier, and pricing/availability can swap between them at the drop of a hat. Intel, Gigabyte, AMD, Asus, MSI - these are just some of the brands where I check products daily and swap between suppliers according to who has stock at the best price at the time. If you try to stick to a single supplier, you could find that you are as much as double the price at times. Asus is a prime example, where LGA1700 boards were up to 100% more expensive at a different supplier.

There are plenty. I usually search for [product/ brand] [distributor] South Africa and find a lot of suppliers that way. Despite what everybody here is saying, there are many distributors who don't mind if you trade as a Sole Proprietor as long as you ask for a cash account. Credit will be different.

Not anymore, the barrier for entry has been raised. Suppliers are closing accounts left, right and centre based on low sales volumes, and not allowing new accounts very easily. I've been established for nearly two years now with revenue close to R 7 million in the first year, and it took more nearly two months to get an account with a supplier in December (applied 14 December, got rejected and took until 10 Feb to finally be approved. Reason for rejection? "Not big enough."

I would be really careful with this type of business, margins in any format of IT Retail are super low.

Normally sub 4.5% gross margins. You need large volumes to make anything, and if you try doing it part time your service will suffer and people will go elsewhere.

Pinnacle, Mustek and Rectron will not open an account for you, if you cannot prove that you are a real VAR in the ICT channel.

So they want to see proof of a company registration, business bank account, website etc.

This way they try and protect the channel so that VAR's can also make a living and it is the proper way of doing it.

Otherwise buy from the places that buy from those distributors that I mentioned...so go to Frontosa, MIRO and all the other 3rd tier resellers.

This is key. They don't want people opening an account for upgrading their office equipment once-off. Many suppliers have minimum monthly requirements to ensure you are in the retail industry and not self-service.

Rectron - Minimum R 30k ex VAT for the first three months, with annual review.
Frontosa - minimum R 300k incl VAT over a constant rolling three month window for full access to the stock feed.
Mustek - minimum one order every two months with review based on value; you can't keep your account open by buying a 16GB flash drive every other month. More on this below.
Corex - since being acquired by an international conglomerate, a confidential minimum six month spend. You will be warned if you drop below this amount, I have had high enough volumes to not be able to guess what the amount is.

Normally Pinnacle does not close inactive accounts...Mustek on the other hand....fuk me.

Luckily they quickly learned their lesson.

Mustek didn't really learn their lesson. I still get bi-monthly mails from them about account inactivity, which is mainly due to their atrocious lack of anything remotely interesting to sell.

Their first mail to me:

Dear Client

This is a friendly reminder that your dealer account will automatically be deactivated in 30 days time. This is due to no activity on your account for the past 2 months.

To avoid deactivation, kindly contact your sales representative for assistance.

Best Regards,

Mustek Team

My reply:

Hi,

I take great issue with the above email for several reasons.

1. Nobody has shown ANY interest whatsoever in assisting me or every finding out what the company does. Out of R 6.7 million in sales last year, only R 2,000 was from Mustek. That's around 0.03%. Each of the other dozen+ distributors I'm registered with has either phoned or emailed me introducing themselves, recommended some items, and helped in whatever way they can - be it via emails with today's/this week's specials/top sellers, the occasional phone call, or various other means. Some examples, I am one of Rectron's fastest growing accounts of 2020, I am Corex's fastest growing account of 2020, I am one of Frontosa's fastest growing accounts of 2020. Imagine where I could have been with Mustek, who is larger than all of the above, had some effort been put into my account?

1.2. Furthermore, you have sent me an email threatening to deactivate my account due to inactivity, did my salesperson (who has, to date, NEVER contacted me - in fact, I can't even tell you the person's name) also get threatened with action within the next 30 days for failing to grow my account?

2. Of the 9,606 items on your XML feed, 8,310 have a quantity of ZERO. That's 86.5% being out of stock. I know stock has become difficult to get with the shortages caused by Covid, etc, but it is not my issue that you are mostly out of stock. Of the remaining 1,296 items, a further 189 have a quantity of one, 99 have a quantity of two, and 170 have a quantity of five or less. That ultimately leaves only 838 items out of 9,606 (less than 9%) of items that are at least "decently" stocked. Almost all of these are consumables, with nearly no components available. Pray tell how I'm supposed to make sales when so little is available? MSI, close to nothing. Asus, close to nothing. ADATA, not even on the XML anymore. A call or email telling me "brand XYZ is being dropped, but you should have a look at brand 123 - let me tell you about it" would go a very long way.

3. Before registering an account, I had a look at what brands you sell. Asus and MSI were among those listed, yet there is never stock of either. Those are two brands which are very easy to sell (sales on them account for around 10% of my sales for the last year).

4. I had a sale for a Samsung Odyssee G7 32" lined up and confirmed until pricing was made available at R 13,069 ex VAT. That comes to R 15,029.35 incl VAT, but the Samsung store sold direct to my customer for R 14,950 including VAT and delivery. Samsung had stock at a lower price, while I am still waiting for an ETA to this day, four months later. Even if you had the stock, I'd have to sell at a loss to the customer.

With the above in mind, how am I supposed to sell your products when a) the majority is out of stock, b) zero effort (and I mean ZERO) has been put into growing my account from your side, and c) I never get feedback on something as simple as an ETA?

I have put in as much effort as possible to sell Mustek stock, but when the VAST majority isn't available it becomes impossible.

Please advise and rethink the email that was sent to me.

Their reply:

Dear Client

This is a friendly reminder that your dealer account will automatically be deactivated in 28 days time. This is due to no activity on your account for the past 2 months.

To avoid deactivation, kindly contact your sales representative for assistance.

Best Regards,

Mustek Team

Like seriously... Not even the decency to reply to a single point raised. I'm getting to the point where I want to tell them to shove their account.

@Tezzo Do you have anything that sets you apart from the other tens of thousands of resellers? What is your USP? People think you make a site and people will buy, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[lowriderza]

It's still the same - I've changed pricing tiers at a few more than once. It also helps to make friends with the PMs, as they'll let you run special pricing quite regularly.


More than just the big ones. I have accounts with more than 20 distis and suppliers, and the list is still growing by the month.

The other issue is many brands are covered by more than one supplier, and pricing/availability can swap between them at the drop of a hat. Intel, Gigabyte, AMD, Asus, MSI - these are just some of the brands where I check products daily and swap between suppliers according to who has stock at the best price at the time. If you try to stick to a single supplier, you could find that you are as much as double the price at times. Asus is a prime example, where LGA1700 boards were up to 100% more expensive at a different supplier.


Not anymore, the barrier for entry has been raised. Suppliers are closing accounts left, right and centre based on low sales volumes, and not allowing new accounts very easily. I've been established for nearly two years now with revenue close to R 7 million in the first year, and it took more nearly two months to get an account with a supplier in December (applied 14 December, got rejected and took until 10 Feb to finally be approved. Reason for rejection? "Not big enough."


Normally sub 4.5% gross margins. You need large volumes to make anything, and if you try doing it part time your service will suffer and people will go elsewhere.


This is key. They don't want people opening an account for upgrading their office equipment once-off. Many suppliers have minimum monthly requirements to ensure you are in the retail industry and not self-service.

Rectron - Minimum R 30k ex VAT for the first three months, with annual review.
Frontosa - minimum R 300k incl VAT over a constant rolling three month window for full access to the stock feed.
Mustek - minimum one order every two months with review based on value; you can't keep your account open by buying a 16GB flash drive every other month. More on this below.
Corex - since being acquired by an international conglomerate, a confidential minimum six month spend. You will be warned if you drop below this amount, I have had high enough volumes to not be able to guess what the amount is.


Mustek didn't really learn their lesson. I still get bi-monthly mails from them about account inactivity, which is mainly due to their atrocious lack of anything remotely interesting to sell.

Their first mail to me:



My reply:



Their reply:



Like seriously... Not even the decency to reply to a single point raised. I'm getting to the point where I want to tell them to shove their account.

@Tezzo Do you have anything that sets you apart from the other tens of thousands of resellers? What is your USP? People think you make a site and people will buy, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Man that sucks if that's the experience new entrants are having. I probably only spend 60k a year at Frontosa for example and they've never made me jump through hoops. Guess being their customer since forever helps.

 

[Progenix Oj101]

Man that sucks if that's the experience new entrants are having. I probably only spend 60k a year at Frontosa for example and they've never made me jump through hoops. Guess being their customer since forever helps.

What quantities do you see on their portal? I'm guessing the maximum you see is 3, 5 or 10, which makes running an online store impossible (eg, you can't accept an order for 100 flash drives if your site doesn't know that there are more than 5 available).

BTW, even as a Pty Ltd (I never traded as a sole prop) Frontosa rejected my account until I had references elsewhere. I'd been dealing with Frontosa at previous places of employment and my dad's account since the very early 2000s and that wasn't enough.

I started with Corex and Rectron - I have a friends at both who got me in. Rectron had a condition that I meet their trade requirements for the first three months, which at times meant selling at or below cost as items were available elsewhere at lower prices and I was not able to be competitive by adding anything to their price.

What I have learnt is that a solid business plan, no longer than one page but outlying your plans for growth and what will make you successful, financial predictions, your advertising and marketing avenues, your potential market size, your target market, a market analysis addressing your competition and what sets you apart from everyone else, supporting documents if available, etc gets you a LONG way.

Being a semi-decent reseller is something that takes a good 80+ hours per week. I'm working in the background as I type this reply, which is a typical weekend for me Thankfully I have an understanding wife.

A few other things that may count in your favour are:

References from other suppliers
A proven track record - be this reviews on Hello Peter, a Facebook following, etc
VAT certificate
Reseller TV license
BEE certificate (this has been and will continue to be a major stumbling block for me)