In a bid to educate
channel partners on the prevalence of parallel importers, who are
allegedly spoiling the market of genuine channel partners of
href="https://www.dqweek.com/dell-bolsters-smb-business-in-india">Dell
India, the company has identified, and issued names of 11 partners,
who were found indulging in parallel imports, grey market and
refurbished products.
The vendor has sent out an
official emailer to its channel partners. In the email, a copy of
which is with The DQ Week, Dell has written that some partners
have been identified indulging in sales of Dell products which have
not been procured from Dell. These products have been secured from an
unauthorized channel, by way of parallel imports, but being sold in
the Indian market, which is totally unacceptable to Dell. The company
will not take the responsibility of any kind of service support for
the grey market, imported, refurbished products sold through these
partners.
While informing about the
steps taken against parallel importing, Sanjay Yadav, country head,
sales and distribution, CSMB, Dell India said, “We are
investigating the issue currently, and the intention of the
communication to the channel was to ensure that the larger interest
of the channel market is maintained and we are able to keep our
partners informed and updated about the situation and on the
repercussions of participating in the grey market.”
The purpose was to educate
partners on the advantages of buying Dell India products and the
disadvantages for partners participating in the grey market. The
channel partner is an important point of contact for our consumer
market and confusion among the channel ultimately affects customer
satisfaction, as the partner is unable to offer the customer the
benefits communicated through Dell.
Yadav also added, “From
the channel perspective, their participation in the grey market
affects their partnership with Dell as they will not be able to offer
customers the benefit of warranties and value-added-services like
'CompleteCover', and customer solutions like Dell Stage, Seventymm
and Healthhiway which are available only on Dell India consumer
products. The channel will also lose out on the benefit of
participating in channel schemes like Dell Gainz and Dell Empower.
This helps protect our partners from buying grey products
unknowingly.”
According to Delhi-based
Ashok Taneja, owner, Softech Computers Delhi, a distributor for
Dell's laptop and desktop, “Parallel import has come down over the
years, but still there are some partners who get opportunistic
pricing from other countries and dump the material in the Indian
market. Parallel import is not an ethical affair, as it does not
cover the warranty support. Dell is coming out with full support with
its genuine partners and taking corrective action against parallel
importing.”
While contacting the
parallel importers, whose name have been identified by Dell, The
DQ Week has learned that one of the Mumbai-based parallel
importer is taking a legal advice on parallel importing against Dell
and the matter has been subjugated.
As per an industry
insider, parallel importing is not an illegal activity in India, as
these importer buy products in bulk from overseas location and sell
them in the Indian market after duly paying all import duties and
local taxes. As these products are cheaper overseas, it helps the
partner in maintaining healthy profit margin. However, most vendors
deny local warranty support on these products.
In the words of Magdoom,
director, Geeyess Imports & Exports, “We have been importing
Dell's laptop from Dell's Kuala Lumpur-based authorized distributor.
Beside this, we are also importing other IT products like laptop,
RAM, DVD writer and pen drives etc.”
According to PN Prasad,
adviser, Confed-ITA, “Parallel import exists due to huge markup of
products in India.”
Few partners involved in
parallel imports, grey market, refurbished products are:
· Champion Computers
· Momentum Technologies
· Linkworld
· ProDot Computers
· Venktron Digital
Systems
· Topmark Technologies
· Geeyess Imports &
Exports
· Shiltron Digital
Systems
· Peegee Sales
· P GEE Sales Corporation
· E Life
Source: Dell India