There are tons of claims in the metal buildings industry of sale prices, free freight, overrun or unclaimed steel buildings that typically are not true. This doesn’t mean you will necessarily receive a bad steel building but these are usually just deceptive sales practices that are unnecessary unless a company needs a gimmick to move their product. Something all customers would want to be aware of is, if a company or sales person has to lie about how they move their metal building then what other lies are you about to encounter.
Free Freight is a way to mislead a customer into believing that if they order within a specific time frame (typically a day or two) the steel buildings manufacturer will deliver it to you for free. This is a type of high pressure sales tactic to get you to commit quickly and take advantage of the free freight, so you (the customer) won’t continue to shop other steel building suppliers. What tends to happen 99 out of a 100 times is you can get the same deal from another steel building supplier for the same amount or less money and the freight is not free. Be aware that all they do is add the freight to the metal building price up front and call it free freight. The selling price has the freight built in, but the line item on the contract for freight will say free or 0.00. Again free freight is a myth.
10-50% off metal building sale is nothing but a gimmick, similar to a huge sale at a jewelry store in the mall. All the steel building company is doing is showing a higher retail price like a car dealership or jewelry store will do and the retailer then says you will get 20% off that inflated price. Once again if a customer checks steel building prices he will typically see that a normal selling price from several other companies is the same or a lot of times less than the so called ‘sale price’. Once again this doesn’t mean you are getting a bad steel building but it is again a deceptive sales practice which should make you concerned about whom you trust a large capital investment with.
Overrun or unclaimed buildings are one of the most common deceptive sales practices in the steel building industry and 99% of the time it is not true. A sales person will claim that he ‘happens’ to have a building in a similar size to which you need, it just so happens that it meets your local building codes (which is ridiculous because there are thousands of different codes and weather loads across the country) as well and usually you can still pick a color (color is typically a factory option). The gimmick behind this is they want you to believe the building was for example 20,000.00, and they are letting it go for 15,000.00 because the customer put down a partial deposit and had to walk away from it for some fill-in-the-blank reason. Again, this tactic is employed to make you move quick without doing any comparison shopping. The unscrupulous sales person attempts to lead you to believe it is such a great deal that the building will be gone in the next 24 to 48 hours. Don’t buy into it this high pressure sales tactic and shop around a little. You will discover you can buy the building for the same or better cost without the pressure and anxiety.
Prices are going up is another common approach but it may not always be a gimmick. Steel is a commodity and there are times it can go up in price as much as a couple of times each month. This is a tough one to decipher because sometimes it is for real and other times it is not. You can always check the internet to see what steel prices are doing yourself.
Bottom line is if a company can’t give you a price on a steel building and tell you how long the price is good for then chances are you are being pressured to make a decision that may not be wise.
