Subject: ? RE: Vendor List Price with hidden service fees
5 replies (original message included at end)
(1) ----------------
From: Forrest Link <linkf_at_tcnj.edu>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2010 07:53:08 -0400 (EDT)
Patricia,
One must assume your reply from the vendor stated "..publisher does not extend the usual discount..."
Yes, this is standard practice. As one who has spent many years working for book vendors (Blackwell, Midwest), I can tell you that vendor margins are pretty slim. In cases like this, it is likely that the publisher gave little or no discount to the vendor and may have even charged them shipping. If you are uncomfortable paying these sort of charges, some vendors will allow you to have these orders returned to you unfilled. Also, your vendor rep should be glad to explain the amounts and circumstances for service charges.
If you go direct or to Amazon, remember that you are incurring other charges either for shipping or for the deviation from normal routines.
--Forrest
(2) ---------------
From: Arlene Sievers-Hill <axs23_at_case.edu>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 06:41:54 -0400
Dear Patricia,
I worked for a serial vendor and we often had to include the service fee on a net item in the cost of the subscription. WIth foreign titles there are sometimes bank fees as well. It is a standard practice with serial and book vendors. Vendors need to make some money on delivering a title and the charges are not exorbitant in cases I know. My suggestion is doing what you are doing and following up with your customer service representative or sales representative, that you need this cost, if it occurs again, separated from the cost of the book. You can also tell them to return the orders to you to place with another vendor. That way there will be the transparency you need. In my own situation it is best to work the price into the price of the book since funding is by college and there is no fund for separate fees.
Every customer has different needs.
Arlene Moore Sievers-Hill
Head Acquisitions Department
Case Western Reserve University
Kelvin Smith Library
10900 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44106
(216) 368-3328
(3) -----------------
From: Narda Tafuri <tafurin1_at_scranton.edu>
Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:11:30 -0400
I would say that this constitutes a questionable practice. All of the vendors that I deal with are very upfront about any service charges that they are imposing. The amounts as well as whatever percentages they are applying are separated out on the invoices that we receive.
Thanks,
Narda
(4) -----------------
From: gelleska_at_FARMINGDALE.EDU
Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:35:09 -0400
So funny you should ask this question today Patricia, as I am currently awaiting an answer from a vendor on the EXACT same question. Please excuse the detail below, but I am really burned about this, one dollar at a time.
Our acquisitions clerk recently noticed that one of our vendors (a company of some size) was showing list prices that were higher than those we quoted, usually only by a dollar or two. I ran a check of a few titles and found several that were MORE than list price (checked against Ebsco Book Index w/Rvws and at least one other source, such as publisher website or Amazon). The invoices from this vendor state the (elevated) list price, their standard discount to us on that title if any applies, based on a list of publishers they give discounts on, and our final price after that discount. The problem is, they are taking the discount off of the elevated list price, not the "true" list price.
I asked via email: Where do you get your list prices from, as our sources frequently state a lower amount?
I got reply via voice mail, and I quote, "I don't know what you mean, I'm a little confused as to why you think they are higher. Can you tell me a few order #s so we can check? List price should be the list price, same as where it is everywhere. ***Unless it's a book we get no discount on, then the unit price would show the marked up price because we don't get any discount on it, but all those that show a discount in the discount column, the list price shown should be THE list price."
I compiled a nice list of 18 titles recently ordered that had list price discrepancies. They all show a standard discount in the discount column on our invoice, therefore according to her theory above, the list prices should be the same.
***DO YOU SEE the pattern in the (elevated) vendor list prices below? They almost all end in $.25 cent increments, whereas the real list prices almost never do.
It appears as if they are raising the actual list price by adding to it in $.25 increments (or by an amount such as $1.30 that will bring the elevated list price to a $.25 cent increment), and in some cases they are raising the list price almost the same amount as our supposed discount! It became very easy to find these in our invoices, all we had to do was look for the $.25 cent increments.
So Patricia, I can't say whether this is standard practice or not, but it is DEFINITELY questionable, especially when I recall no agreement for them to charge us ABOVE list price on titles they (supposedly) don't get a discount on from the publishers.
ISBN
VENDOR invoice list price
Ebsco Book Index list price
difference
% increase
9781568814766
$44.50
$39.00
$5.50
14.10%
9780230229280
$91.00
$90.00
$1.00
1.11%
9781403976345
$81.00
$80.00
$1.00
1.25%
978156663841
$27.25
$26.00
$1.25
4.81%
9781566638241
$26.25
$24.95
$1.30
5.21%
9780742561717
$41.25
$39.95
$1.30
3.25%
9781442200241
$71.25
$70.00
$1.25
1.79%
9781558497412
$41.95
$39.95
$2.00
5.01%
9780812241945
$37.25
$34.95
$2.30
6.58%
9781438427782
$21.50
$19.95
$1.55
7.77%
9781591027508
$27.25
$26.00
$1.25
4.81%
9780195968330
$19.95
$17.95
$2.00
11.14%
9780253221377
$28.25
$24.95
$3.30
13.23%
9781616141813
$31.25
$27.00
$4.25
15.74%
9781591027508
$27.25
$26.00
$1.25
4.81%
9781442600614
$39.50
$34.95
$4.55
13.02%
9780295989570
$41.75
$40.00
$1.75
4.38%
9780691127118
$40.75
$39.50
$1.25
3.16%
On another note, our invoices also still show a “carrier fuel surcharge” of approx $.30 per shipment. When asked about this during the time when gas prices were sky high a few years back, I was told that UPS had imposed a shipping surcharge, and they were just passing it on to us. Anyone else get this still? Haven’t fuel prices been lower for a long time now?
Karen Gelles
Head, Acquisitions
Greenley Library
Farmingdale State College
(5) ---------------------
From: "Lonergan, Lynn A Civ USAF AETC AUL/LTSA" <Lynn.Lonergan_at_MAXWELL.AF.MIL>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 14:38:16 -0500
I have found something similar with an audio book vendor we use. When I search a title, the price comes up as $##.##. Only when checking out do I find that, depending on the title, I have to pay $8-11 extra for library packaging. That makes it hard for me because I have to compare prices from several vendors for every non-book item I purchase.
We had one vendor who bid on our book contract who wanted to charge us different rates depending on the amount of discount they were, or were not, offered. We passed on them because we would not have been able to predict how much any particular order would cost. If they had set a standard discount for certain list of suppliers, we could have managed it. But they were planning to apply the discount on a title by title basis.
We also had a book contract vendor who charged a fuel surcharge after gas prices went up several years ago. It took them months to understand that it had to be billed as a separate line on each invoice because it came from a different pot of money.
Lynn A Lonergan
Document Acquisitions Librarian
Fairchild Research Information Center AUL/LTSA
600 Chennault Circle
Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6010
Comm: 334-953-2509 | Fax: 334-953-5130
(If your message to me does not go through, please try sending it to lonerganla_at_gmail.com .)
----- Original Message, Forwarded Fri, Sep 3 ----
From: "Patricia Pettijohn" <ppettijohn_at_nelson.usf.edu>
Subject: ? RE: Vendor List Price with hidden service fees
I had an unusual communication with a vendor and was hoping to get the opinions of others. In an nutshell I received an invoice with a list price for one item that was higher than the list price given in three locations: the vendors own database, the publishers website online, and Amazon. When I asked the vendor about this discrepancy, I received this explanation:
“ Service fees are applied when the vendor does not extend the usual discount on a particular title to X (the vendor)”
I responded:
“If you charge a service fee it should be a separate charge, which would then be paid on our end from a different account, i.e. service charges. And frankly, in the case of a service charge, I would prefer to be given the opportunity to move the order direct to the publisher, or to Amazon. To simply call $X the list price on the invoice lacks transparency in a way that makes me uncomfortable.”
So, what say my colleagues? Standard practice or questionable?
Patricia Pettijohn
Head, Collection Development & Technical Services
Nelson Poynter Memorial Library
University of South Florida St. Petersburg
140 7th Ave. South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
727-873-4407
ppettijohn_at_nelson.usf.edu
_______________________________________________
ACQNET-L mailing list
ACQNET-L_at_lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/acqnet-l
Received on Mon Sep 13 2010 - 01:52:00 EDT