Memo from Mann
The Ups and Downs of the Industry
If you’ve ever looked at the fine print of your cable bill, all sorts of unusual line items pop up. What are these “broadcast fees” about?
As BillFixers puts it:
“Broadcast TV Fee: What is it anyway? The short answer? Nothing.”
And yet, as we see month-after-month, those fees add up. They’re extra fees ⏤ exotic things like “Broadcast TV Fee” and “Regional Sports Fee” and “Franchise Fee” ⏤ that companies add to our “regular” rates. As in: while the advertised rate may stay the same (for X number of months), those other rates add to the base profits for those companies.
By definition, a surcharge is “an extra fee, charge, or tax that is added on to the cost of a good or service, beyond the initially quoted price…The charge could reflect a locality’s need to collect money for extra services [or] a hike to defray the cost of increased commodity pricing.”
The Yard Ramp Guy’s business is with people buying steel in the form of mobile and stationary inclined planes. We’re not a manufacturer of yard ramps; we’re a seller, a buyer, a renter. As such, like our valued customers, we’re subject to the rate fluctuations and steel surcharges of the industry.
On the other hand, the steel surcharge that we and our customers have been experiencing for some months now is quite transparent:
With the volatility in the steel industry since last year, our factories have been passing through to us that “steel surcharge” on new yard ramps. We, in turn, will pass through this charge to our customers. And we do this without markup.
We do believe this is a temporary condition. Economists continue to predict that the demand for steel will continue to significantly outpace supply for some time.
Our position as the #1 dealer for each of the three reputable, top-tier factories we represent means the factors we use to determine our steel surcharge is considerably more favorable than that of our competitors.
Our commitment: We will continue to sell yard ramps at pricing lower than our competitors and lower than our factories will sell directly to end users.
Thank you for your understanding as we all navigate these continued strange times.
Jeff Mann
Founder and President
From The Ramp Rules Blog:
This week, our man McCoy Fields only thinks he’s sailing his schooner off the edge of the earth.
Click HERE to make sure he’s honoring maritime law.
