scan source vs. tech data vs. bluestar

Bluestar gives me amazing customer service. As long as they are competitive on pricing I will give them my business

I agree with Greg; Blue Star has always been very helpful to me.

Richard

"Greg Williams" wrote:

We've used ScanSource for a long time (probably 7 years or more, before my time anyways). Their pricing seems about the same as Blue Star - sometimes one item is higher, then another item is cheaper. The service at ScanSource can sometimes be a problem when a sales rep occasionally screws up an order ("oops, I shipped the wrong one, even though you gave me the part number" or "oops, I sent it Overnight Air, even though you told me just Regular Ground") or tells you the wrong thing (don't ever ask a sales rep for product info, make sure you ask tech support, although that's a given almost anywhere), but they usually make up for it. They give us excellent credit terms and free ground shipping, so overall we're quite happy with ScanSource.

How about someone's opinion from the Tech Data side?

I ask because the ScanSource customer service has been mediocre. The sales guys don't even pretend to know what they're talking about, and the tech support staff seems to jump to conclusions too often, and they make wavering disclaimers like "we at Scansource don't know anything about Windows Server and SQL, so you need to ask Microsoft why your offline database. . . yadda yadda yadda"

I have to echo Jason Hunt's review. The Overnight Shipping charge happened a few times when it was supposed to be free 2-day ground. If orders are above $1,000, you get free overnight, but if items are backordered, which happens all the time, you get piecemeal shipments that total < $1000. . . so you end up paying $40 for shipping.

I think my credit line so far is around $50k net 30, so that's decent.

What do other have to say?

David

"Greg Williams" wrote:

We purchase all of our server/workstation hardware, server operating system software, etc. through Tech Data. I wouldn't purchase POS equipment from them if they were the only vendor on the planet. The POS team knows very little about RMS. And, that's if you can find someone at TechData who actually knows they sell RMS.

We purchase all POS equipment through Scan Source. Everybody screws up an order once in a while, but at least Scan Source knows they sell RMS. For us, Scan Source has been a good partner, and so far has been right on in recommending known good hardware configurations for us.

I have no experience with Blue Star.

Why would you be asking ScanSource tech support about databases? :) My questions are usually "does X product have Y feature" or "will X work with Y when doing Z". 90% of the time the ScanSource reps have no clue, so these days I just spend the time doing all my own product research and will call the manufacturer's sales/tech #'s if I have to. I don't trust the tech support people at any of our distributors anymore. There are a few good tech supoprt guys at ScanSource, but they are the exception.

As for their shipping mis-haps, I think some of the sales reps are just careless. There's a few in particular that I refuse to talk to, but now I've come across a couple of good reps that I call directly instead of the general sales extension.