Dell partners against unethical parallel importers

Reacting heavily and criticizing the unethical stand of parallel importers on Dell products, Dell partners call the enforcement drive taken against parallel importers most desirable and timely; despite the fact that the Mumbai Customs department has directed Dell India to compensate the three importers by paying demurrage and warehousing charges.

When The DQ Week contacted Delhi based stock and sell Dell distributor, Ashok Taneja of Softech Computers, he said, "Dell India has taken a desirable and ethical stand against importers who are not only damaging the image of Dell brand and its partners, but also cheating, misguiding and misrepresent customers with products brought in from other countries, which are not adequately supported by warranties. This causes serious inconvenience and loss to our customers and endangers the brand reputation."

He continued, "Very often we have come across such complainants, where the importers have sold the material with the goods with non English keyboards, which eventually damages customer relationship. Today, customer is not aware from where they are getting the material whether from importers or dealers, they trust the brand and its channels."

Echoing same sentiments, Madhur Madhav of Vidur and Co said, "As the Dell brand has grown in the country, we have seen an increasing number of cases where many customers who bought their Dell products from unauthorized sellers came to us for service and support issues. We have tried to support customers despite lack of warranty but given the high incidence of such cases, we find it difficult to offer the right degree of service. Therefore, we are happy that Dell India is so responsible for its partners and its profitability."

In contrast, Mumbai based Satish Bathija, director, Mx Information System said, "We don't see parallel imports as a threat for Dell partners, after all these importers import only hot-selling SKUs of Dell and in small quantity. As long as importers are not cheating on customers and keeping transparency on warranty, we don't see that as a competition."

Moreover, some of Dell partners also want, that Dell India should look back into its pricing and make it more affordable for customers. According to Surat based Hiten Shah of Media House, "Price gap is a big problem which is encouraging such importers to capture the customer's mind share. In many instances, customer argue why we sell Dell products at a high price, when it is available at a much cheaper rate. In such cases, it is difficult to make the customer understand and eventually we loose out on the business. Additionally, Dell India maintains a one model number policy on its notebooks across the globe, wherein other vendors have India specific model number. Hence, this policy of Dell gives an edge to these importers to easily import Dell products."

Moreover Shah said, "Dell India has a very liberal on-site warranty policy in place. We want Dell to tightens its warranty, so that importers do not mislead customers. Also, Dell should provide optional warranty on the products to the customers, so that we can negotiate on the price."

When The DQ Week approached Mahesh Bhalla, executive director and GM, consumer and SMB, Dell India on partners feedback related to pricing and warranty, he asserted, "Yes, it is true that we don't have an optional warranty when a customer buys through retailer, but in case when a customer buys directly from Dell India, we have an optional warranty."

On the price gap, Bhalla said, "The price gap exist as there are variations in product configurations between countries with regard to the same product in terms of hard disk capacity and processor specification which affect the cost of the product as well as differences in levels of services offered or associated with the products (on-site service and complete cover offered as default with most products sold in India ) and accessories offered with the products itself (back-pack, HDMI cable, etc)."

When asked for Dell's stand after the Custom order, Bhalla said, "Our legal team is looking into the matter and we are taking a legal recourse."