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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (17828)	12/30/2000 12:43:59 PM
From: Ausdauer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

When you negotiate with a mass retailer, it's always a fine line situation, they have the big stick, which is going to another vendor, and subtracting millions in sales and profits from your company going forward. John, About toeing a fine line... I got the sense that SanDisk is in an uncomfortable position where they are trying not to undercut "brick-and-mortar" retailers with bargain basement pricing on "click-and-order" e-tailing sites. This is also a mine field where you need to tread carefully. My opinion is that the brand identify signal is much clearer if you dominate an end cap at BestBuy or some other national electronics chain compared to having an on-line fire sale in order to match a competitor. On the other hand, most people buying flash memory cards are pretty Internet savvy and are willing to hunt around for a good deal. You would hate to miss out on that opportunity, although brand loyalty likely takes a back seat to pricing in this instance. Either way it would appear that consumers stand to win. Regarding branding, as I mentioned earlier it would appear that Viking has also paid for banners, links, the "Memory Finder" calculator and other knick-knacks in order to boost their brand presence on Amazon. I find it a bit odd that SanDisk would agree to play second fiddle to Viking given the fact that SNDK has had more stock made available to Amazon customers. OK, if both companies have heavy inventories I can imagine a price war, but not in a situation where there are upto 2 week (or more) delays in product availability. Aus