MSM

Philosophy On Price And Terms Being Published

B & B International
Exclusive Agents For
The United States
And Canada

Representing a Factory
Capable of producing 5,000+ tons of MSM per annum

Quantities up to one ton
Immediately Available From Inventory
In California

Call
800 225-2308
or eMail

You will hardly ever find public and published information on prices and terms for any bulk product such as you find on this web site.  I hope that we can start a new "standard" for web marketing of bulk materials.

Traditionally a manufacturer will be willing to sell ONLY to "honestly" true stocking, warehouse wholesalers.  If a retail customer wanted to buy from the factory they wouldn't even find the name or address of that factory without considerable effort.

For instance, there are only two manufacturers of MSM within the United States.  One of them has a web page but provides no information about MSM -- just a means of contacting them.  The other manufacturer cannot even be found on the Internet.

Then, the wholesaler (or a non-stocking broker) will sell to packagers (people who put stuff in capsules and tablets).  Again, a prospective retail customer, even one willing to buy bulk quantities, would never be able to deal with a wholesaler.  (Click here for a much more detailed description of the structure of this industry.)

The wholesaler will gladly sell a one KG bag of MSM to a packager.  The packager might need one KG of MSM to be mixed with 100 KG of other stuff.  From the wholesaler's viewpoint, they have a legitimate customer, even though the purchase may be as small as one KG.  The wholesaler also expects to sell lots of other stuff to this packager.

And, when that supplier sells a single kilogram to a good customer he will often give that customer the price as if he were buying 100 KG.  We have decided to do something similar, but our policy on this is very open to all.

If ANYONE purchases 100 KG, or more, at one time, they will then have permanently qualified for the price of that purchase volume.  Any future purchases of 10 KG or more will be priced, for them, at the lower price to which they are entitled.  [Announcement of this policy is dated February 20, 1999.]

We are going for large volume users with very low prices.  We will resist giving those same low prices to buyers who just "promise" to become large volume buyers.

Finally, the packager sells to a distribution company.  Vibrant Life, for instance, deals directly with several packagers.  But, the distribution company could be a large one which, in turn, sells to health food stores.  Health food stores hardly ever deal with packagers.  Health food stores carry more than a thousand different products and would never be in a position to purchase the minimum order from a packager.  Packagers like to deal in quantities of thousands of bottles, not a dozen or so.

I could go on about this industry, but I assure you that the vitamin, or food additive, industry is quite rigid in structure.  Click here for a more detailed description of the industry.

When I was doing research on MSM, several months ago, I couldn't even find the name of an actual manufacturer -- a place that buys raw materials and processes them into a finished form, like MSM.  I finally found one -- Cardinal in Washington, even though they didn't have a web site.  You will often find web sites that say "manufacturer" but they are not -- they may be nothing more than a guy with knowledge of how to publish a web site -- nothing else.  When I got a valid price quotation from Cardinal, I promptly reduced the prices on my price list.  It is not even easy to find out what these manufacturers are willing to sell for.  They are often very secretive and don't want to publish their prices.

I have now finally gotten an official sample from the second manufacturer in the US -- at least the only other manufacturer I know about yet.  I think I know the US industry fairly well now.

Once you start seeing the structure of an industry -- from manufacturer, through brokers and wholesalers, to packagers, to distribution companies, you also realize that NONE of them really want to deal with the consumer who wants ONE bottle of something.  Oh, occasionally some distribution company will try to create a mail-order company, or a web site, which offers one bottle to the public while they still sell to retail health food stores, etc.

When you start violating these traditional lines you can run into trouble.

For instance, look at our page with prices.  We offer a one-kilogram bag and we also offer 10 tons -- all offered on the same page.  I had to think long and hard about those prices.  We have set the standard for prices in the world.  Right now the great majority of MSM sales are taking place at prices that are extremely high compared to our price for one kilogram. 

Obviously it isn't completely logical to compare the cost of a bottle with 100 capsules, each containing 750 mg of MSM with a bag containing one kilogram.  The bottle contains 75 grams, total, and the bag contains 1,000 grams.  But, when that bottle sells for $20 and the bag sells for $45, some people are going to start objecting to paying that enormous difference for the convenience of the capsule.

The other side of that problem is that the guy making those capsules is more likely to buy from me than the consumer buying the bottle -- so I have to be concerned with antagonizing the small retail seller.  I am competing with him, of course, and I would rather have him as my customer.

But, my basic purpose is that more people use more MSM.  I've found that this is a product where the results are better when you take larger quantities (I take about 20 grams per day) and I truly believe that the $20 bottle is holding the market down.  So, yes, there is an intention here to drive the price down for this product to what I consider "fair."

But, I still have to publish a price range that allows others in this industry to buy from me and make a profit.  That is a tight-rope I try to walk.

When the single kilogram bag is $45 that just about forces the guy selling the bottle to a price not too much higher.  My lowest published price, at $14 per KG means that the largest user of MSM could buy at $14, put the stuff in capsules and probably sell it for the equivalent of about $80 per KG.   That is the price range which I may be attempting to force on the industry.

I compare this with the current range where some of those capsules are selling at the equivalent of $300 per KG!   That price level makes an enormous profit for that company, but I don't think it increases the consumption of MSM.

Obviously the guy in the public, the consumer, can buy one bag from us.  That would last him a few months, I suppose.  He might then buy another.

Then, along comes a animal feed supplement distributor.  He is not a manufacturer of animal food supplements, but he buys this type of stuff in 100 pound bags, breeders and ranchers will buy 100 pounds of MSM and add it to 2,000 pounds of animal food which they buy from their "regular" sources.  They mix that MSM in with the regular feed for their animals.

That distributor of animal feed, perhaps also "manufacturing" bags of feed, will probably still buy MSM from a supplier who sells it in 100 pound bags to be mixed by himself, or others.

The industry is highly fragmented with most people in it not having a great deal of knowledge about all the other parts of it.  I intend to change all that!

For sure you could look for years and eventually find hundreds of web sites where MSM is included amongst their offerings, but you will NEVER find such a full display of prices and purchase quantities as you find on this site.

We had to have a philosophy about this -- and do.

I think that web commerce is moving extremely rapidly, and evolving.  It is harder and harder for manufacturers to hide their selling prices to the wholesalers.  It is harder and harder for a distribution chain to hide from its customers what the distribution chain, itself, pays for the products which it sells.

Most of the players in this party feel that they don't want their customers to know how much profit they are making.  Most of them worry that if their customer knows their costs, the customer will demand a better deal.  I believe that the internet is the wave of the future and the marketing concepts you are reading here are on the crest of that wave.  I am intrigued by the possibility of changing the entire tradition of bulk marketing of nutrients.  I am intrigued enough to do it!

So, then you get into "negotiated prices." Those are also very common in this industry.  You can get a printed price list, but if you tell the right story you will get a discount off that printed price list.

These little tricky techniques have worked for decades.

I see Web Commerce as making it harder and harder for this traditional approach to remain in force.

So, we have taken the bold step.  We offer MSM in quantities of 500 tons if you can use that much.  That demonstrates our ability to provide product to ANY user.  Since our factory capacity is much larger than 500 tons per year, we are not even bound by the 500 tons.

Yet, we also offer MSM in one-kilogram bags.  That is small enough that a serious consumer can buy from us for his personal consumption.  I will not offer MSM in capsules or tablets because I don't own such machinery and feel that there is need for great variety of combinations of ingredients, using MSM, that I would never try to provide.  That is where the real creativity belongs -- putting combinations of things together and adding valuable educational information to that package.

What we have to do, in order to cover such a broad range of prospective buyers, with a sane set of policies, is to create a very broad range of prices.

They guy who pays us $45 for one kilogram of MSM can see, for sure, that if he were buying 100 KG, his price per KG would drop to $17 per KG.  But, if all this information is openly and honestly published, the guy who wants one bag can't feel too bad about the fact that someone else gets the stuff at less than half of what he pays.

This open pricing policy also does something else -- it puts pressure on retail sellers of MSM, or products which contain MSM, to keep their prices somewhat in line with reality.

On this web site, amongst the competitive prices quoted, you can find, for instance the following on my web site, at:  http://www.oralchelation.com/methyl/competition/compete.htm

That blue link is probably still active.  But, when the Kombucha people realize that their customers can see that they are paying almost $300 per KG, and that on THIS web site they can buy ONE Bag for  $45, there is bound to come some change in this industry.  That change will be in the direction of what I call "rationality."

Currently many health products are sold almost entirely on the basis of hype.  The Kombucha stuff, at $300 per KG, cannot be any different than our stuff at $45.

I mentioned above that I have an analysis (click here) that shows you that the Vitamin C from Acerola Cherries sold by one of the most well-known vitamin companies in the world is being priced out at about $7,000 per KG.  This is for the very popular Amway Bio-C Plus formula.  I do not fault  Amway for getting $7,500 for this vitamin C, but I do suggest that as the internet evolves there will be more and more people who will refuse to pay these inflated prices and that the vitamin industry will get better because of that.

What we will see more and more of, on the Web, is honest pricing and good value for money paid.  It may take years, but I think we are, here at B&B, making some substantial progress toward bringing ONE product, MSM, out into the open where there are no hidden deals and no surprises.

You get a price that relates to your ability to use various quantities.  If you are a little guy with big ideas you won't get any special price here -- when you can buy a ton, you get the price for one ton.  I am not into rewarding victims!

It may be that I should raise the price of one bag -- we'll see about that, but at the large quantity end of things, competition is alive and working well.  Why shouldn't it at the retail level also?

It is also in keeping with forcing retail outlets to quit riding on the coattails of others who do the research and publish (as we do) hundreds of pages of technical and educational information.

So, write and tell me what you think of our pricing philosophy.

Some number of people will never find this page and will continue to buy from Kombucha, just as many thousands of people still buy that very expensive Vitamin C from Amway.

But, gradually, depending on how successful we are, the entire industry of MSM will move toward lower prices.  That will be a victory for the consumer, indeed.  It will be a victory for MSM too -- putting the stuff more in reach of the public.

That is my philosophy!

I am in favor of fair prices for well-proven purity of product.

                                This page is copyright © May 10, 2012 12:06 AM by B&B International.  All rights are reserved.

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