jecasc - 6:58 pm on Nov 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

You should just check your motive on what you are doing. If your motive is really that the website could be mistaken as you - the manufacturer - then you might have a good reason to do something, because at some point other resellers might complain.

If your motive is however that you are beginning to see your resellers as competition yourself - then you've got a problem at hand.

I have seen this happen before - manufacturers that at some point thought they could get a piece of the internet pie for themselves - bypassing resellers and selling directly to consumers. And when it did not work out - because they did not have the expertise - they started to believe that the resellers must be using some "dirty tricks".

Usually this does not turn out so well. I had one manufacturer who sailed on this boat. In fact it was not our website - it was that we shipped within 24 hours, he within a week (ok for wholesalers but not for consumers). We gave lots of free samples. He exactly one with each order. He sold to consumers like he did to wholesalers - what is good for those must be good enough for the others. Didn't work out.