Just Say 'Yes' To Gray

By nearly all accounts, vendors have chosen not to take on the gray market or these unauthorized distributors. One distribution executive, who did not want to be identified, told CRN: “Where we do discover someone else out there, selling below the cost [of] what we buy product [for], we report them back to the vendor. Typically, they&'re receptive when you give it to them, but it&'s hard to get any follow-up on what you gave them.”

Follow-up indeed. Vendors are turning a blind eye to this activity. They are interested in moving as many products as possible and have no interest in shutting down this unauthorized distribution. Often, the vendors with the most products in the gray market have the most overzealous direct salespeople (who, yes, wind up getting comped on gray market product moved sideways by customers or others).

Adding insult to injury, vendors have had the audacity to go after the solution provider the way drug enforcement officials go after the crack addict in the street rather than the big cartel suppliers. The vendors are actively promoting the gray market to make their quarterly numbers. They used to stuff the channel by dumping products on authorized distributors. Now they dump them on the open market and watch them make their way through the system.

The feigned vendor cries of gray market foul are laughable. It&'s reminiscent of former First Lady Nancy Reagan&'s cries of ‘Just Say No To Drugs.&' Maybe the vendors should use some of their gray market enforcement monies to peddle buttons to VARs proclaiming: ‘Just Say No To The Gray Market.&'

What do you think of the gray market? Let me know at (781) 839-1221 or via e-mail at [email protected].