Catalan hardware stores prepare a blacklist of “disloyal” manufacturers


In the midst of a pandemic, a war, skyrocketing inflation and an industry that is festering on several sides, what most worries the Catalan hardware store is the online trade of large multinationals. So much so that the sector works in a blacklist of manufacturers and suppliers who sell on their own digital platforms cheaper than what they offer the product to them. The Hardware Guild of Catalonia has prepared for the first time a barometer that analyzes the situation of the sector and that reflects that more than half of its small businessmen (52%) agree in pointing out this type of practice as one of the greatest dangers for their business.

They refer, above all, to the manufacturers of high-rotation products that supply a large part of the stock to these establishments and even recommend what prices to sell them at. “These manufacturers are creating industrial platforms in which they offer these same products to the end user with price reductions & rdquor ;, explains the president of this association, Andrew Maldonado. “In many cases, it is much more profitable for a hardware store to buy the material from Amazon than from its own headquarters & rdquor ;, he exemplifies.

Specifically, according to the institution in the report, some hardware stores would have to sell their products below the purchase price, that is, “they would not only run out of margin – the text points out – but they would lose money with each product, which would bring them to closure in weeks.”

This barometer indicates that a product can be up to 40% cheaper on one of these platforms (although the most common difference is between 11% and 20%), and that nine out of ten hardware stores cannot compete with this reduction.

“Europe controls and penalizes that it is not sold below the cost price, but the reality is that despite finding professional products on Amazon below our cost, we cannot demonstrate that whoever is offering it sells it below what they are offered. It has cost him & rdquor ;, Maldonado raises. In other words, there is no way to prove that one of these companies is breaking the rules.

Amazon excluded

Given this scenario, the Hardware Guild has decided to act independently. The association is already working on a vendor blacklist that sell below the market price, a measure endorsed by 75% of the entrepreneurs consulted. Maldonado makes little progress on the names that appear on this list, because making it public is part of the second phase of this strategy, but he does confess that Amazon is exempt: the problem, he justifies, is the company that sets the reference price.

“For about five years, we have heard from everywhere that local businesses have to prepare for omnichannel, so that the user has access to products in both a digital and physical environment,” says Maldonado. “But the true omnichannel, the one that generates value, is the one that does not relate the digital world with the ‘outlet’ or the best offer, but with comfort or the best access & rdquor ;, concludes this businessman, who defends tooth and nail that the sector is not afraid of technology or modernization and that what he criticizes is “the lack of loyalty & rdquor; of some multinationals that with this price war, he adds, “put customer confidence at risk with proximity trade & rdquor ;.

Financial situation

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The barometer also echoes, precisely, the economic situation of the local hardware store in Catalonia. According to their data, there are about 1,200 points of sale in the community (be they neighborhood establishments or something more industrial), which employ 13,000 people, and which, unlike other sectors, experienced a considerably sweet moment in 2020, which is now making water “The pandemic situation and confinement was a good year for half of the businesses in the sector, because repairs and home renovations multiplied,” the report justifies. In fact, the year of the arrival of covid was bad for only 25% of the sample, while about half make a good or even better assessment.

Instead, the picture worsens in 2021: only 26% of hardware stores are more than satisfied with their performance last year and the percentage of professionals who define it as a bad or very bad year rises 5 points. As for 2022, the reading is dual: there are fewer hardware stores that expect a good year (22%), but the number of pessimistic companies is also reduced, which stands at 20%.


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