WTF is Up With Argon?

We have a Matheson Gas where I am, and they are wonderful. Praxair was okay, but they would be out of Argon quite frequently.
 
We have quite a few suppliers around here, and I've dealt with almost all of them at some point it seems. The LWS closest to me doesn't fill their own bottles and uses two different suppliers depending upon which gas/mix. I have two bottles of 100% argon with the LWS's name on them, and another from the place they use to fill their 100% argon bottles. Buying from the LWS costs me $20 per bottle less than going to the place that actually fills them! I pretty much only use the ones with the LWS name on them and keep the other as a spare or as a temporary when one of the other two needs to be filled....so I've only had to fill that one once in the past couple of years.

The crazy thing is the LWS is making a profit at the price they charge so the actual supplier is gouging for even more when you go direct.
 
It is common for the manufacturer or in this case the bottle filler to charge full MSRP to walk in customers. This is usually spelled out in the agreements with their dealers. If they sold to you at the same price as they sell to the LWS or even the same price that the LWS sells to you, they would be in competition with the LWS and would lose the LWS as a volume customer, and gain you as a once in a while customer.

This is true in many industries, Yes the manufacturer is making a killing when you buy direct, but they would rather have the volume sales to the distribution chain, much less paperwork.
 
Very interesting. I hate paying for gas. All the welding stores around here have that Silicon Valley entitled mindset, and you can feel the vibe as soon as you walk in. There once was a cool place that was owned by a blacksmith living up in the hills. He gave fellow 'smiths a discount, but ended up selling out to Praxair.
 
Our local Matheson place is really easy to deal with. I didn't realize how easy until I read here about how some places can be difficult when it comes to user-owned tanks. Here, they just exchange them for a full tank, no questions asked. It does make me wonder a bit about how out-of-cal tanks are handled, as in who pays for the inspection, but I guess that's rolled into the price behind the scenes. The one quirky thing is how the price of argon seems to vary by about 100% ($35-70 for a 125-cf refill), without any clear reason why.
 
Flyinfool said:
It is common for the manufacturer or in this case the bottle filler to charge full MSRP to walk in customers. This is usually spelled out in the agreements with their dealers. If they sold to you at the same price as they sell to the LWS or even the same price that the LWS sells to you, they would be in competition with the LWS and would lose the LWS as a volume customer, and gain you as a once in a while customer.

This is true in many industries, Yes the manufacturer is making a killing when you buy direct, but they would rather have the volume sales to the distribution chain, much less paperwork.
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The first part makes sense, and I wouldn't expect the filler to sell to me for the same price that they sell to the LWS...that's pretty clear.

The second part doesn't really make sense to me. The LWS could easily charge the same that the filler does if they wanted, and that would put them in competition with the filler. It's not like the filler is going to mandate in a contract that the LWS offer a lower price, much less try to coordinate that as prices change, etc.

The filler I'm talking about is pretty large locally, but not a national chain. They do a lot of individual sales, and don't discourage individual owners the way the big chains sometimes will. You can walk right in and buy any size bottle, any gas, and they're happy to have your business. They are great to deal with, incredibly helpful, and their prices are actually quite a bit better than Airgas, Praxair, Baker's Gas and one or two others I can think of that are local names. They really are more like a typical LWS than the big chains.

My LWS is a small shop with one full-time employee, so their overhead is low, but even the owner (we're friends) was shocked when we talked about what the filler charges for a direct sale. I don't recall the exact math, but I think the filler charged me $85 to swap a bottle and the LWS charged me $60 for the same size....something in that ballpark.
 
kb58 said:
Our local Matheson place is really easy to deal with. I didn't realize how easy until I read here about how some places can be difficult when it comes to user-owned tanks. Here, they just exchange them for a full tank, no questions asked. It does make me wonder a bit about how out-of-cal tanks are handled, as in who pays for the inspection, but I guess that's rolled into the price behind the scenes. The one quirky thing is how the price of argon seems to vary by about 100% ($35-70 for a 125-cf refill), without any clear reason why.
Click to expand...
I checked on the owner bottle issue here before I bought mine off CL. I was told that as long as the bottle didn't say Rental on the neck ring they would just swap it out. I believe the pressure testing is just amortized into the cost of gas. Some dealers are funny about owner bottles, probably because the income from bottle rentals is not insignificant. As more users have discovered that you don't have to rent bottles, policies are (sometimes) changing
 
G-ManBart said:
The first part makes sense, and I wouldn't expect the filler to sell to me for the same price that they sell to the LWS...that's pretty clear.

The second part doesn't really make sense to me. The LWS could easily charge the same that the filler does if they wanted, and that would put them in competition with the filler. It's not like the filler is going to mandate in a contract that the LWS offer a lower price, much less try to coordinate that as prices change, etc.

The filler I'm talking about is pretty large locally, but not a national chain. They do a lot of individual sales, and don't discourage individual owners the way the big chains sometimes will. You can walk right in and buy any size bottle, any gas, and they're happy to have your business. They are great to deal with, incredibly helpful, and their prices are actually quite a bit better than Airgas, Praxair, Baker's Gas and one or two others I can think of that are local names. They really are more like a typical LWS than the big chains.

My LWS is a small shop with one full-time employee, so their overhead is low, but even the owner (we're friends) was shocked when we talked about what the filler charges for a direct sale. I don't recall the exact math, but I think the filler charged me $85 to swap a bottle and the LWS charged me $60 for the same size....something in that ballpark.
Click to expand...
There are some plases that have a MAP (Minimum Advertized Price). these are items that will say to put item in cart to see the price because the manufacturer has set a minimum for the advertized price to try to keep pricing consistant every where. Most places do not care what the LWS would sell for, But if the LWS raised their price to match the filler, they would lose a lot of business on gas AND the other things that get bought just cuz you are there. I do not believe it is legal for a manufacturer or distributor to set a minimum price on a product, they can only set a minimum advertised price. Best Buy is good for selling below map price, there are a lot of items you have to put in the cart and start the checkout procedure to see the real price.
 
My dad was a regional manager for Praxair, covering gas and welding alloys. I used to get cylinders for close to nothing, and it was good. Then I got stuff at cost or a great discount. Eventually, like now, I have to walk in the front door and plunk down my credit card like any other schmoe. I own a lot of gas cylinders, and some of them sting more than others (Ar/CO2/O2 mix), but its not all that bad. Larger tanks save more money and go dry less often, if you can fit them on your cart (and in the back of your compact Hyundai to get them home).
 
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