Dealers all over the country are looking forward to meetings both with MP’s and Ofcom the regulator.  For the first time despite dealers asking time and again for the networks to talk to them, and indeed the IMPDA has asked numerous times for a constructive dialog with networks which up to now has been ignored, but now the regulator itself is to hear the views and suggestions of the people who generate the majority of phone sales in this country  “the dealers!”

It is the networks loss which is a shame.  We ourselves have called on the networks many times to work with dealers, to get their input and discuss issues so we can all have a bright future for the industry.  Even at this stage we would still invite the networks to contact us to either singly or collectively to arrange a meeting with a selection of dealers. You as a network talk to Ofcom, and to many other organisations and distributors, perhaps now in 2007/8 you will agree to talk direct with the dealers and have constructive talks.

With the cashback issue continuing, rumours abound of other companies which are finding it difficult to pay customers, but have not yet gone into administration.  In fact we can see more of these going down.  Why? Simple, take the 60% of customers who before may have forgotten to claim, but now with the issue highlighted by the media and MP’s, means more are reminded they are owed cashback and are making efforts to claim it.   

Of course with more customers now aware of the cashback issue claiming, this can only mean that more people are going to claim, which is going to have a snowball effect and put great strain on those companies who still  operate this model.  Only time will tell how many go down, but it’s the distributors I feel sorry for because it’s those that the networks will clawback.  You might speculate that this may mean that some distributors may be forced to merge or may indeed go bust, it depends on the financial stability of the distributor. Dextra has been hit more than once, but how much more can distributors take.

Well done to Ofcom, with porting being brought down to 2 hours will be great for the customer and hopefully make life a bit easier for dealers.  It has seemed crazy over the years for porting of numbers to take anything from 5-7 days

With the festive season only weeks away, the networks need to support dealers more than ever and give them something extra to promote sales.  The hype on the iphone and the lack of O2 to allow still their own authorised dealers to sell this especially on the run up to Christmas is disgraceful and shows how little O2 values its dealers.

Finally, the votes are in and counted, and the winners of the first IMPDA awards are known. Votes received by dealers to the IMPDA, and the Phone Dealer forum were:-

Best Distributor for 2007                      winner Hugh Symons

Best Network for 2007                        winner Orange

Best Mobile magazine for 2007 winner Mobile News