Small paranormal equipment business being bullied by large manufacturers
As a small paranormal equipment business, over the years I have seen many things that large manufacturers are doing to stay greedy. Let me explain and I’ll let you the reader decide. When I first started I was just reselling items for manufacturers, this is when it started as I was told what I could and couldn’t do, and where I could and couldn’t sell the equipment. As I had just started I went along with it. I had manufacturer after manufacturer turn me down because I wasn’t large enough or selling enough. I found a manufacturer that was willing to deal with me, and everything was going good.
They soon after expanded and started shipping things to other countries, and it took months to get my product. I was selling out of the equipment and couldn’t get more in. Since I made numerous contacts with the large manufacturers and nobody still would deal with me, I teamed up with someone that was able to get the products from the large manufacturers.
It was then that I started to notice how greedy they were, they weren’t making equipment that would help the paranormal community, but they were just taking advantage. They were using TV shows and the popularity of the paranormal to make money. It was all becoming clear, especially when I found a couple internet sites that sold the exact item that was being marketed and sold by one of these large manufacturers for not two times the wholesale cost, not three times, not even four times but seven times the wholesale cost that’s right they bought in China for $10 a unit and sold over here for $70. It wasn’t anything that would help the paranormal community, but the so called pro paranormal investigators on TV uses them, and once the public sees them used on the paranormal shows, they will by them by the millions, and that’s just one of the products this company sells. The paranormal TV shows charge up to $5000 to have them use your piece of equipment on TV.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against getting my products on TV, but I would never pay to get them aired and defiantly not by someone that is more of an actor than a paranormal investigator. I make tools for paranormal investigating, not for entertainment purposes. Thanks to paranormal TV shows and these large manufactures putting out electronic toys, the equipment that actually helps the paranormal community is taken as second string, or thought to not work. Paranormal TV, greedy manufacturers and fake evidence on the internet has hurt the paranormal community more than it has helped it.
Anyway I’m ranting off topic, now that I have been around awhile I have been told I can sell things at a certain price when these same manufacturers put up websites and sell the items retail, cheaper than the resellers get them. The tools that could actually help the community are either going to the wayside or being lost in the paranormal TV shows hype, because they don’t use them. Other manufacturers say don’t sell our products on Ebay, as they set up fake seller ID’s and sell the products.
As a reseller I have had it with the large manufacturers, I am building my own line of equipment (tools of the paranormal investigating trade) and getting away from all the drama and greed. I don’t need a seven times markup on a piece of equipment and charge $15 for shipping when it actually cost $3 - $5. I admit at first I did carry some equipment that was popular on TV, but I needed to get the attention of the public so they could see that there was equipment out there that would actually help them in the paranormal field. In my opinion the paranormal field got distorted by TV and the internet. Like matrixing if you look at something long enough you start to believe something is there. In the current paranormal community, if you see a piece of equipment long enough on TV and long enough on the internet and hear stories about it, it starts to become a professional tool of the trade. I’m all for helping the paranormal community, but profiting from it to? Most of us don’t charge clients to investigate we shouldn’t have to pay an extreme amount for the equipment also.