At the outset, we would like to thank all our channel partners for their support to HP business. Channel partners are at the core of HP’s business model. HP is a pioneer in setting up retail channel in India with more than 1000 exclusive and non-exclusive retail stores and has also invested heavily in developing a network of over 5000 channel partners across 200 cities in India.
All our demand generation activities have consistently helped drive business for our channel partners. HP has also made investment in IT Hub activations, ATL/BTL activities with the sole purpose of driving sales growth for our traditional channel partners.HP has always followed transparent rules of engagement and clear governance processes which have helped us to overcome business challenges over the last 25 years.
Over the past months, we have seen a growing trend where unauthorized online/ecommerce sites deal in HP products at prices intended to disrupt market and to veer away customers. We are as concerned as our partner community about the loss leader tactics adopted by the e-commerce sites and have also received multiple representations and complaints from the channel partner community.
We see these disruptive practices as an industry wide issue impacting both the brand owners and the channel community and ought to be dealt appropriately in order to safeguard the interests of customers and partners. HP is constantly devising solutions to maintain balance in the ecosystem and for channel business to grow in a viable manner. A joint effort between partners and OEM’s is crucial to curb the practices of online sites which attempt to debilitate the channel.
As mentioned, we share the concerns of the channel partners and have taken several measures as outlined below to discourage the predatory discounts that are offered by the online market place sites.
HP has already issued a strong public advisory warning the customers of the risks of procuring from unauthorized online market place sites. As part of these ongoing efforts, we have already placed customer advisory on our official website www.hpshopping.in to create larger customer awareness of likely risks of purchasing from unauthorized online market place sites.
We have already announced that special end customer promotion offers are not valid for customer purchases from unauthorized on-line market place sites.We are also closely following the practices of the online sites to see if any of their actions infringe upon the Intellectual Property rights of HP.
We are also making attempts to engage online market place sites to impress upon them the advantages of working with HP authorized channel partners and being able to deliver superior customer experience while acting within the fold of HP recognized business model.We are already considering a differentiated product strategy through on-line sites to reduce channel conflict with traditional offline channel.
We are also in the process of putting in place a channel consequence management framework to discourage and deal with disruptive behavior of unauthorized channel partners who sell through online market place sites.
These efforts by HP will not yield the desired result without each one of you being vigilant of cases where some channel partners could be directly or indirectly selling through the unauthorized online sites. We call upon each one of you and your associations/federations to take steps against those members who clandestinely sell on online market place sites.
Please be informed that only those channel partners who have a valid partner contract with HP are authorized to sell HP products. In case you wish to sell HP products online, you need to take prior approval from HP, specifically informing about all the details pertaining to your sales plans and proposed online business.
Any deviation from this guideline could attract strong action from HP including losing program benefits or any other financial or marketing entitlements from HP.
We hope that you will follow the above guidelines strictly in the larger interest of overall business.
Regards
HP India Team
