Bell joins counterparts in passing on freight costs

Forced increase: Bell Micro announced last week that it would be increasing freight charges.

Resellers have expressed concern that the bulk of the UK’s major IT distributors have now passed on the rise in fuel costs in the form of higher freight charges.

Broadliner Bell Micro last week sent out letters to its UK managed accounts informing them of increases to its freight charges, following similar moves by Ingram Micro and Computer 2000.

Graeme Watt, worldwide distribution president at Bell Micro told CRN: “The economic reality is that freight is the third largest cost in our business outside of product and staff. It has gone up and it looks like it will stay up. We have to pass that on and fully expect our resellers to do the same.”

Watt also praised Ingram for being the first to make the move in July, paving the way for others to follow.
“Ingram took a brave risk. But the bulk of distributors have now reacted in the same way and are doing something that most industries did weeks ago,” he said.

However, Barry Dodhia, marketing manager at reseller Hemini, called on more distributors to shoulder the increase themselves, claiming it was difficult for resellers to pass on higher charges to customers.

“With existing customers, our delivery costs are fixed until the contract expires. I would rather the distributors put their product prices up so end users are paying for the increase,” he said.

Dodhia also claimed that resellers had not seen the benefit of the recent drop in fuel costs.

“They claim petrol prices have gone up, but they dropped a few weeks ago. People are sitting on that three or four pence decrease when it should have been passed on,” he said.

Mike Gammie, IT services development manager at VAR Misco, said the move was expected. “If Bell had done this in isolation it would have been tough for them.”