Check out spa at one dealer, buy from another?

[Altazi]

Hello Dealers,

I plan on putting in a spa at my vacation home in Central Oregon.  My primary residence is about 180 miles away.  It would be easiest for me to check out the spas at dealers close to my primary residence, but easiest to buy the spa from a dealer closer to my vacation home.

How should I handle this?  What do you do in situations like this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Altazi

[Tman122]

Are we talking the same brand at both dealers. Because if that's the case I see a way to save some money here. Decide at your local to your home dealer which model is perfect for you. And then call the local to your cabin dealer and tell him all he has to do is write it up and not spent any time selling it to you, so that should garner a discount. Do it over the phone with the local to the cabin dealer.

Oh ohh....the dealers here are going to scorn me.

[gturn]

Hello Dealers,

I plan on putting in a spa at my vacation home in Central Oregon.  My primary residence is about 180 miles away.  It would be easiest for me to check out the spas at dealers close to my primary residence, but easiest to buy the spa from a dealer closer to my vacation home.

How should I handle this?  What do you do in situations like this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Altazi

I would shop around close to your home and decide on the model you want and get a quote, delivered and set up at your vacation home.  Then I would compare the prices at the closer dealer.  Buy it from who ever will give you the best delivered price.  The dealer close to you will want to try and compete for your business and may give you a better price if he knows he is competing against a closer dealer.

[anne]

What about if/when down the road you need service? It seems it would be better to buy from someone near where the tub will be.

I would first find out what dealers were near the vacation home. Then do some brief shopping and wet testing of those brands near your permanent home to narrow down your choices. Once you have it down to 2-3 tubs, arrange to do second wet tests and shop around near the vacation home. You'll save some time having gotten probably 80% of your reseaching done near home, and not take up an unreasonable amount of their time. Then in your final shopping, you can hopefully establish a good relationship with someone nearer to the tub's future home. If for some reason a dealer near your permanent house has a deal that just cant be beat, and he's willing to service a tub 180 miles away, then I suppose there is no reason to bother shopping near the vacation house, Or maybe the selection of tubs will be that much better near home.

[sledjunkie]

Find the spa you want, shop around for price. Don't worry about the service part. Most likely nothing will happen during the warrenty period anyway.

[MarKee]

Whoever takes the time to sell you on the product deserves your business but that doesn't mean you can't get service from the local dealer if you were to ever have a warranty issue arise.

[Spatech_tuo]

Find the spa you want, shop around for price. Don't worry about the service part. Most likely nothing will happen during the warrenty period anyway.

Don't worry about the service? I disagree (what a shocker). If you are looking at two dealers where one is close and the other is far away and they sell the same product, you are MUCH better off with the closer dealer unless circumstances say otherwise (faith in dealer, BIG price difference, etc.). If you are aware of a problem do you really want to have to rely on the dealer who is 150 or 180 miles away to get out there in a timely manner to fix it as opposed to a dealer who is 5, 10 or 20 miles away? We'd all like to think that the spa will operate perfectly and you won't need any help but that is being shortsighted.

Now I'm NOT saying that by default you should buy from the closest dealer, but you do want one that is fairly local and I wouldn't call 180 miles away "fairly local". BTW, some dealers charge a "trip fee" for service (yes, even warranty service). Find this out when shopping and get the answer in writing.

[Spiderman]

Buy it from the dealer closest to your cabin.  I'm not sure if your dealer in your home town will drive 180 miles one way for delivery, without charging you so much per mile beyond a certain radius.  Some dealers are binded by the company (Caldera, D1, whomever)  to service the tubs they sell.  

[hottub.pool_boy]

Be upfront. The other dealer should be happy to accomodate you.

[Altazi]

Thanks to all of you who have replied.

I would imagine that I would be looking at the exact same spa at both the local (main home) and remote (vacation home) dealers.  All things considered, I'd like to be fair to all parties involved - including myself!

Have any of you dealers experienced a situation like this?  If so, how did you deal with it?

I would like to purchase the spa from a dealer close to my vacation home for ease and speed of service. I'd like to do most of my spa research at dealers close to my primary home for convenience.  I just want to do right by them.  As long as we are talking about the same manufacturer & model number, do the dealers do some kind of split?  Would this be appropriate?  (This happens in the semiconductor business all the time - a local rep does all the up-front design support, but production quantities are bought overseas.)

Regards,

Altazi

[hottub.pool_boy]

It does happen..split. Depends on the relationship of the dealers. It happens with us...we don't mind, and don't look for any extra.

[MarKee]

Altazi:  We deal with this a lot at the Marquis factory store I work at in Tigard.  We gets lots of customers with primary residences in the Portland area and a second home in the Central Oregon / Bend area.  Being a factory store, we tend to have a little bit better of pricing than the Marquis dealer in Bend so a lot of people will buy here and we will deliver the spa to Bend.  If you spend time shopping in the Portland area, I would let the dealer know what your situation is and they should be able to work something out to make sure you get the best deal and you can be serviced down the road if you should need it.

[Altazi]

Hi MarKee,

Is the Tigard store the only factory store?  Are the other dealerships privately owned?  Do the dealers ever get their feathers ruffled by competition with the factory store?

I would assume that I would get most of my service from the dealer close to the vacation home.  If I bought the spa in the Portland area, would the remote dealer be grumpy about it?

Thanks again for all of the information.  I have studied it and also visited the Marquis website several times.  I must admit that I was hoping for more content on the DVD than was actually there.  I lost track of how many times the phrase "sparkling clean water" was used  

The Marquis spas are definitely on my short list.

Regards,

Altazi

[MarKee]

Marquis has 3 stores in Tigard, Clackamas, and Salem that are basically a division of the factory aka Marquis Casual Living aka Your Back Yard.  There are approximately 300 other dealers across the country that carry Marquis Spas but they are independent businesses that choose to carry the Marquis product.  Marquis also has international distribution in Canada and nearly every country in Europe.  

[wmccall]

I haven't read your other replies yet, but I'll add, just be up front about it and take your time if another customer comes in, let the salesman take care of them.  As moderator of this forum, I'm always stopping in different dealers around here and chatting while looking at the new models and sometimes buying something.  Spa salespeople are use to "looky-lues" and can always hope they turn into a future sale.