ASCII Secures Volume Pricing, Dedicated Customer Support From SED International

SED, Tucker, Ga., will offer dedicated customer service, promotions and vendor access to ASCII members, said Doug Young, vice president of distribution programs at ASCII.

"As we have learned more and more, pricing is important but customer service has become just as important. Our members want more help with total solutions," Young said.

SED has assigned a customer service representative to each ASCII member, even if the ASCII member is currently not an SED customer, said Rob Kalman, director of sales at SED.

"We've always thought of ourselves as very service-oriented and focused on people we work with. That will be true of The ASCII Group too," Kalman said.

In addition, Bethesda, Md.-based ASCII negotiated contracts for volume discount pricing for members, regardless of their individual volume.

For example, one manufacturer is offering 1,000-unit pricing to ASCII customers that only buy one unit through SED, Kalman said.

The group is able to negotiate the pricing because its members collectively sold more than $11 billion to end users in 2002, according to ASCII executives.

ASCII also has partnerships with distributors Ingram Micro, D&H Distributing, Synnex Information Technologies, Merisel, Azerty, Tessco Technologies, MPD, Black Box and ScanSource as well as Dell Computer.