Authorized Partners

[officevision]

I am in need of purchasing several switches to sell to a school. I have looked at pricing through my usual sources (Ingram, TechData, DandH etc.) to get an idea of what switch will fit the bill best. I sometimes look at 3rd party sites as well to see what might be available from places like Amazon or Newegg. In this case, there is a seller on Amazon selling the switches for almost $200 less than the big distributors. They are listed as new in sealed boxes from Cisco and the seller says they are an Authorized Cisco Partner. I cannot find them listed through the Partner Locator site.

I have two questions;

1) What is the risk of purchasing from a reseller that is not an authorized partner so long as the equipment is new in sealed boxes from the manufacturer?

2) If a reseller says they are authorized but cannot be found in the Partner Locator, how can I tell for sure if they are authorized or not?

Thanks for your help.

Fred

[Dan Lukes]

So you are asking how to recognize for sure someone is (not) cheater ?

No way to be sure. Some risk is part of every business.

Not only your peer may lie he is authorized reseller while he isn't. He may claim name of true authorized partner while he have nothing to do with claimed company. I have no personal experience with such kind of true cheating and I consider it rather rare.

IMHO, that primary question is - can I trust *this* particular seller ? Will he provide support to me ? Will he replace damaged box if necessary ? Or will just kick me "such model is obsolete/no longer available, you need to buy new box from me" ?

Forget free lunches. There's nothing like it. I have not so good experience with true authorized partners. Remember - business partner is not your friend. He is interested to sell you, not to help you.

Your primary interest is to buy from trusted partner. According my experience, authorized doesn't mean trusted. Moreover, there's no direct relationship between current box price and future willingness of seller.