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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hlpinout who wrote (50260)	2/27/1999 7:41:00 AM
From: Mao II	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

HIO: Just bought a presario laptop from Onsale at cost. Great price, great little machine. The day my order was shipped, they stopped offering it. M2

To: hlpinout who wrote (50260)	2/27/1999 8:12:00 AM
From: rupert1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

hio: Yes, but. It is not surprisng that the No.1 manufacturer of PC's should become the target of cowboy outfits, offering the product at cost or below cost, as a loss-leader, or without adequate follow-up support and service. Not surprising that CPQ has to deal with it first of all the non-DELL companies. But all the others will also have to deal with it eventually. (DELL had to deal with it, too, in the past, but now DELL is so well organised as its own e-commerce company, it is less of a problem.) But this not a problem confined to the computer industry. It will affect all products sold by e-commerce retailers. From the UK point-of-view manufacturers will have to be careful not to "restrain trade" of "fix prices", and I think one way to do that is to make the support and service an integral part of the product, covered by the sales price. The retailer would be legally bound to provide it directly or by outsourcing. Preventing sales at cost or below cost would be more difficult here - although the US might have the retail equivalent of an "anti-dumping" law. One possible control that CPQ could use would be to give the regular retailers a discount to the price sold to the e-commerce people.