If we find a supplier’s price isn’t competitive, we try to get that price to where it needs to be for you. For that negotiation, we need your help. Our Darren Maclaren explains how it makes a big difference and saves you money.
Every year your AF team procures hundreds of thousands of products from over 2,000 suppliers for your farming and land-based businesses.
Managing relationships with our suppliers includes keeping an eye on their prices, either compared to other AF suppliers or prices in the wider marketplace.
If we find a supplier’s price isn’t competitive, we try to get the price to where it needs to be.
Negotiating the price to you down
Negotiations with suppliers are always more successful if we provide evidence of like-for-like price comparisons - whether for something we’ve priced up, or that a Member has shared with us.
How does this information help?
Recently, a Member showed us an online promotion for an iPhone from a retail supplier. We used this evidence to challenge our key iPhone supplier. They investigated immediately and found that Apple had decided to give extra discounts to retail suppliers to instigate consumer spending on models they wanted to increase sales of.
This gave retail suppliers an advantage over Apple’s approved supplier channels (including the one we purchase from) and were even cheaper than Apple were selling the same phones for on their own website!
Our supplier was due to be offered a discounted price which would beat the cheap prices the Member had found, but not for a few weeks. Apple was challenged, citing the example AF provided, and Apple brought forward the special offer so it was available for AF Members immediately. This means our AF prices are now even better than the retail promotional prices.
In a co-operative like AF, co-operation is key. With your help we can continue to get best prices for you and every other Member. We’re here to help. Join our price match mission.
