Price for a entry level single quadrupole MS in USA

[yangz00g]

Anyone has idea of how much a entry level single quadrupole MS will cost at present in the USA market? Don't want to go through the hassal for a quote from sales. Agilent and Waters preferred. It will be LC add-on MS with both ESI and APCI ionizations. Senstivity is not an issue at all, so only the very basic model is needed. Thanks

[Ron]

LC or GC? What ionization mode? What detection limits are needed? Do you need the front end or is this an add on to an existing system?

There are a few dozen other questions to narrow down exactly what your needs are desires are. Your best bet is to contact the manufacturers of interest and request a quote on the type of system you need for your application.

Your request is very vague, almost like "How much does a new car cost?" We don't know what you need and what you are going to use it for, so it is a very difficult question to answer.

[yangz00g]

Ron, thanks for the answers and sorry for the vague description.

It will be LC add-on MS with both ESI and APCI ionization. Sensitivity is not an issue at all, so only the very basic model is needed. Prefer a Water or Agilent becasue we have both LC systems available to add the MS on, or we may consider a DART system.

The reason I am asking here is that I don't want to go through the hassal to get a manufacture quote because I am at a very early stage to assess the possibility.

Thanks again.

[lmh]

Seriously, go to your manufacturer's sales rep and tell them "I don't want a quote, I just need a ball-park figure without committment, in order to arrange for an internal manger/committee/etc. to decide whether we can budget for this.... if you can supply the figure, I would be grateful, otherwise I shall go to another manufacturer". In the current climate, the threat of another manufacturer should be enough to get them to come up with something. They know the ball-park price. They can tell you if they don't feel they're committing themselves.

Be honest about the purpose for which you need the figure. Reps are terrified of telling you a number in case it is undercut by their competitors. They want to tell you the biggest number they can get away with when it's a matter of asking funding bodies for cash (so the pot of cash will be big when it comes to the sale), but when they are trying to compete for a sale, they want to tell you a much smaller number.

If any reps are reading this, please, please understand our frustration that it is so very hard to get a straight answer for a straight question. Answers like "well, the list price is... but please don't take it seriously, we'll do something..." are unsatisfactory and vague. An answer like "the list price is currently X but we generally give organisations of your sort a Y% discount, and if you'd consider buying the following extra instrument we'd make it Z%" are helpful. Let's all cut to the chase and forget playing poker...

[yangz00g]

IMH, you hit right on the point.

I tried one manufature, but the price offered for a entry-level LC-MS is more expensive than an AP2000 LC-MS/MS we bought a year ago. As you said, without the hard money available,they are not willing to give a firm price. But using the figure they provided is unlikely to secure us a funding under current economic situation and uncertainty.

There is a missing link here in our instrument community. If ABI has a single Q MS, I probably just go with them. Thanks

[sassman]

Have you tried contacting a third party service company to see if they can supply you with a refurbished instrument. This way you could probably get a better instrument with warranty at the same cost as a less capable but new instrument. They will also be more willing to negotiate price, etc. I would suggest Research Scientific (www.resci.com). They sell Waters and Sciex systems and have very good service engineers. Good luck with your new purchase!

[CE Instruments]

As a Rep I would like to confirm the suggestion of lmh.

From a reps point of view you need to tell them what you want and why. It is no use asking a question like what is the entry level price for a GC/MS because there are so many options, before we even take into account , budgetary price, or price , cash in hand now

Too often we get these calls and the punter is just trying to hurt his favoured supplier or just fishing. Our time is valuable too and all too often wasted. We are trained to ask questions, qualify and sort every aspect of the sale BEFORE giving you the price so that you feel good about paying it. There are reasons to short cut this and a good rep will give you an answer to your question (but probably not in writing ) but first you have to sell him a good reason why he should.

Invest a little of your time, it should be rewarded no need for threats

[yangz00g]

Hehe, at last some Rep come out to make clarification, but further convinced my view of the hassal going through.

If the Rep can frankly tell me a close to real price, I am pretty Ok with that. But most of time, the price is inflated so big that you even lose the interest to negotiate.

I am sure you are trained to ask questions, but I am also sure that you are trained to sell something unnecessay for more profit, make a simple quote ten pages long, and our time is also wasted in reading such a long quote and fingering out what is what.

I know there are good Reps, but not the majoriety. are you sure you are one of them?

[Ron]

Try buying from a rep that doesn't ask questions, and you will probably wind up buying something that doesn't meet your needs, and is probably a top of the line product. On the other hand, if all you tell the rep is a low ball price point you will get a low end system that may or may not meet your needs.

There are some bad reps, but a bad rep usually doesn't last too long in the instrument business. The market is relatively small, and people talk to each other. A rep who develops a bad reputation can't sell, and will soon be out of the business, or at least out of the company.

I am not currently in sales, I have been in the past. I always asked a lot of questions about current and anticipated future needs, did my best to match the instrument to what I was told, and sometimes walked away if the potential customer had unrealistic expectations I knew we would never be able to meet.

There are bad customers as well as bad reps. The purchase of a major piece of equipment requires communication on both sides of the deal. The customer has to clearly communicate needs and desires, and clearly prioritize what is essential. The sales rep has to take this information and match the instrument to the applications. Sometimes a lower end instrument is all that is needed, but if all that is said is that the instrument is needed for several applications without specifics then the safest thing for a rep to do is to sell the top of the line with all the bells and whistles so more applications can be done, and if it is overkill that is not the reps fault, he or she is simply trying to cover all the bases.

IF you are not clear about the time frame of the purchase the only thing a good rep will do is to give you a list price quote. If there is a special promotion going on and you say you are ready to purchase and you are given the promotional price, for the sake of this example $100,000, normal llist price $120,000, this is the information you pass on to your superiors in the company. This is put in the budget for the following year, and a request for bids is sent out. The promotion has expired, there has been a revised model released with a $5,000 price increase, and there is a 5% discount for a final price of $118750. The instrument you told you superiors would cost $100,000 ends up costing $118,750, and they are not likely to be happy with you. If you had given them a quote for $120,000 and the final price is less than that they will be much happier with you. If the potential customer doesn't have a budget for an istrument, if there is no approval to purchase an instrument, or if there is a significant time between the quote and the purchase the only safe thing for a rep to do is to provide a list price quotation. This is for your protection as much as yours.

[aldehyde]

I have definitely done installations for customers where what they bought was very stupidly put together. Diff pump MS systems that should have had a turbo, splitters that don't do what the customer wants them to do.

Sure, you might get a figure that is higher than the end result and it is complicated but if you get a good rep and tell them what you actually want and really work to get the right package put together you will be much happier with the end result.

[Don_Hilton]

yangz00g

Call the reps for the leading vendors and talk with them. If you make a purchase, you will have to do this anyhow. I have purchased instruments over the years and have worked for an instrument vendor. I read the above posts and begin to believe that you take sales people as some kind of evil breed. We all sell - sometimes we provide price quotes, other times we try to convince people who provide us with samples that the results DO represent the samples submitted. Or we publish papers to sell the conclusions to be drawn from our work. These sales folks are working folks, much like the rest of us. Most try to do an excellent job.

Two important things:

1) If you do not know what you want to purchase, they can not sell it to you! If you do know what you want to purchase, you provide specifications in a request for quotation. There is a saying by the late Yogi Bera: "If you don't know where you are going, you are likely to wind up somewhere else."

2) The sales guys will try to offer you what they think you need, immediately and throughout the life of the instrument. Even the honest sales representative may direct you to more than you are asking for if you do not seem to know what you want - because if you purchase less instrument than what you need, the instrument will not do the job and you will be unhappy.

Working with the sales representatives I gained a whole new perspective. I was amazed to travel with sales representatives and to learn that if you just wanted an instrument - they'd sell you one as fancy as you would want to order. But if you had specific objectives, they would prefer to walk away from a sale than to sell an instrument that would not do the job.

I look at Ron's comments above. I probably don't know him. But he is typical of the people I've worked with either as a customer or as applications support.

The onus is on you to know what you want and to manage the acquisition process from your end. Do not hide from the vendors. The honest ones can not give you information and if you wait to close to time to purcase, the few unscrupulous ones will take advantage of the short purchase cycle to confuse the issue.

More than once I have sent out requests for quotations and have found vendors to offer me what I need – and things I don’t need. Typically the things I don’t need are listed as options. I’ve even had vendors return a quotation for what I asked for and for what they thought would be a better solution.

[lmh]

Thanks, Ron and CE Instruments for explaining things from a rep's eye viewpoint. You are so right: good communication is the key.

Please don't think I believe all reps are evil! No, reps are people who know an awful lot more than I do about MS instrumentation, and on whom I rely if I'm to get a decent deal. Unfortunately I often sit between them and finance managers who have a different aim in life: to get the lowest price possible, and best deal, irrespective of how much trouble this makes for the rep ("we're going to be spending $X,000,000 on them: they can jump through a few hoops!"). Personally, I try to be as up-front as I can with what we need, and what our situation is, and apologise when the goal posts keep moving. It's not my ideal, but that's life...

Personally I respect reps enormously as humans. I couldn't live with the low percentage success rate that they must inevitably endure on queries progressing to sales. I appreciate their friendly, positive attitude when faced with yet another question.

[yangz00g]

Thanks for all your replies.

Yes, as Don mentioned, I did call a few reps for quotes and told them if the price is unrealistic and I won't get the fund.

I knew what I was looking for and what I wanted the instrument to do. Price was the most important factor, because any LC-MS system on the market will do the job. Second was local service, I picked a few manufactures based on our experience with local service.

The outcome was not so good. For example ( sorry, I cannot mention the model), a mainstream HPLC system (no nano,no high pressure pump, no switching valve,etc) and an entry-model singel Q mass system with ESI and APCI sources were priced more than an Agilent 1200-API2000 we just bought in 2008. And more interesting, they were willing to sell me the system for 20K less without the software!!!!

Can you really believe that? No software. Clearly this won't get a nod from top management. Though I believe that I can eventually get a lower price, but if not, I will be in a very bad position.

I personally have no problem with sale Reps. and I do have a few good ones to work with here and there. I am just wondering why this business cannot be more open and honest, why selling instruments is like selling cars. Sorry, car sale is better, at least there is a MSRP and invoice price you can get without going through dealer quote. At least you know if a car is not within your budget, you just buy another one.

[Don_Hilton]

With quotes from the vendor in hand, you should be able to get from management what they are willing to spend - and in what time frame. Management needs to tell you just what they are willing to spend.

Once there is a set budget and timeframe for purchase, you may be able to get the vendor to work a deal. They may have a demo unit they can sell - or may know that one is coming on the market in a few weeks. Because of the timing issues, the vendor be less likely to put these on the table until you can actually go through the process of making the purchase.

And with budget and timing in hand, you can talk to the used instrument dealers. Again, timing is critical. A quote on an instrument that has sold by the time you are ready to purchase it is of limited value.

Having traveled with the sales guys and listened, there are many prospects who will spend years in the "early stages" talking and asking for budgetary quotes. They will even show you where they'll put it - when the project is funded. There are fewer who actually have money to make the purchase. And of those, fewer still who actually make the purchase. When you tell the vendor "I have a budget and a date by which I need this," you become more interesting.

And, if you find the instrument you want and a price above budget, it may work to have the sales representative meet with your manager. After a meeting, either or each may see an advantage to a change in position. I've watched a manger look at the sales representative and tell him that he understood the needs and benefits of the particular instrument - but the money just was not there. "What do you have in the way of financing?" began things moving again. The sales rep when home with word that the manager was ready to sign - just needed a way to do it. I think the vendor came back with a creative solution -- like try it for 90 days and if it does the job, pay us at that later date. While a deferred payment is not much, it is something.


Good luck.

[stb75]

Wow, long answers for a simple question. In terms of Agilent, list price for a 7890 GC with Split/Splitless and MS interface is about $18k. a 5975C MS bundle with diffusion pump is about $50k. Autosampler is about $13k incl 150 sample tray. Note that discounts are typically given so these should serve only as a guide.