Dear Maurizio, Thank you so much for being the industry's "keeper", your work will help the stone industry and consumer achieve a fair and good relationship and so everyone will have something to gain. My question relates to the industry practice in quoting prices. How come all of the stone distributors and fabricators refuse to quote me a price at the time of my visit to their yard? They all want me to have my kitchen designer send them the "specs" first. When I visit a stone yard there's never any price tags? Am I setting myself up for them to cheat me? I really wish I could tell them to stop taking me for an "idiot" and to start using good competitive business practices. Other than not doing business with them what are some of the recourses for a consumer to take to prevent being taken?

 

Dear Mary:

This is a tough one indeed.

Stone yards don't like to sell directly to consumer.

Why?

Because then the fabrication shops that gives them lots of business would see their profits dramatically reduced.

When there's some other parties involved (GC, Interior Decorator, etc.) everybody wants a slice of the pie, and the fees of thse kinds of “intermediaries” are not the same all the time.

At that point, the stone yard is between a rock and a hard place, if you know what I mean. So, they ask for “specs” from the specifiers first, which translates into “I have to find out how much they want.”

They're not treating you like an idiot: they're treating you as a consumer.

This is not typical of the stone industry, however. Any wholesaler of any material that needs to be processed by some factory or shop does like that.

It's a free country based on free enterprise, and you'd probably do that, too… J

I really don't see it as a problem. Or at least as a problem typical of the stone industry.

The industry is indeed virtually unregulated and lots of wrong things must be made right, but establishing pricing standards is not one of them.

Now, if you want us to keep being the industry “keepers”, may I ask you now to please read and e-sign our Statement of Purpose at: http://www.marblecleaning.org/purpose.htm?

Ciao and good luck,

Mauri zio Bertoli

 

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