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Natural Balance Pet Food

Monday, August 24, 2009 |

We were blessed with a visit from our Natural Balance Pet Food representative today. He even bought our buyers lunch. We figured the visit was for a specific reason and not just to thank us for the tens of thousands of pounds of Natural Balance Pet Food we sell each year.

No, the reason was much more sinister. Did you know that manufactures like Natural Balance Pet Food, with the pressure from major corporate pet food retailer chains can force a smaller company like West Coast Pet Supply to fix their prices at an inflated level! That's right. Natural Balance Pet Food bought us lunch and then told us that our retail prices were to low and that we needed to raise them or Natural Balance Pet Food would not allow us to sell their dog and cat food.

We believe Natural Balance dog and cat food is one of the better quality foods on the market, but we also think that they are not the only quality dog or cat food on the market. What would make them think they could dictate what our store sells Natural Balance Pet Food for? Why do they think that it would be better for you the consumer, in these difficult financial times to pay upwards of 10% more for your food because someone like Pet Food Express complained that we were selling Natural Balance Pet Food for less than Pet Food Express wanted to sell it at.

Why not just let Pet Food Express sell it for whatever they want to sell it for and let West Coast Pet Supply sell it for what we want to sell it at?

There are only a few manufactures that rely on this kind of price fixing practice and Natural Balance Pet Food is one if them. As independent retailers like West Coast Pet Supply and consumers like yourself, we need to stand up to this kind of bullying and say no. We will continue to sell Natural Balance Dog and Cat foods on our site at the price we deem fair until that day the big chains like Pet Food Express and the price fixing manufactures like Natural Balance Pet Foods force us to remove it from our offering. Because we will not allow another company to dictate what we sell our pet food and pet supplies for!

M.A.P. = Minimum Advertised Price. You should start asking about it wherever you spend your hard earned money. If the products you are purchasing have MAP pricing, you are paying too much. More than what the market would normally charge!

Think about this scenario. You are looking at a bag of Taste of the Wild dog food and comparing it to a bag of Natural Balance Duck and Potato. The Taste of the Wild dog food is priced at $32.99 (fairly) and the Natural Balance Duck and Potato is priced at the MAP pricing of $49.99 (unfairly). These foods are comparable in quality. The Natural Balance Duck and Potato should be $39.99 without MAP. That would be more inline with the Taste of the Wild dog food and you could weigh the differences between the Natural Balance and the TOW ingredients and see that they were close, then make a decision. But with MAP pricing in place you don't get a true picture of the Natural Balance Duck and Potato value. That's because now it is overpriced and not priced within it's level of quality. If you were to choose the Natural Balance you would be paying too much!

If this really gets under your skin we suggest you call or write Natural Balance Pet Food and tell them what you think. We did, to a deaf ear! But if enough of their Natural Balance customers tell them they don't want to pay higher prices for such an unreasonable and selfish reason maybe they will change their mind.

Natural Balance Pet Foods
12924 Pierce Street
Pacoima, CA 91331
800-829-4493

The person that came up with this brilliant idea is Frank L. Koch the Executive Vice President of Natural Balance Pet Food. 818-897-2521

Best Wishes,

Glenn Matherly
WestCoastPetSupply.com

October 2, 2009 Update

Wow, who would of thought that just telling the truth about Natural Balance Pet Food and how they manipulate their retail pet food pricing would cause such a stir! We have received numerous calls and letters of support by not only our customers and Natural Balance Pet Food customers but also many retailers of Natural Balance Pet Food. In addition we have received calls from agents of Natural Balance Pet Food telling us to be careful. We had no idea this problem of M.A.P. (Minimum Advertised Price) was so prevalent in our pet supply industry and was causing such a problem for small retailers nation wide.

West Coast Pet Supply will stand firm against such manipulation by Natural Balance Pet Food and their third party, multi box store hypocrites. When will people wake up and realize that we don't want some corporate buffoon telling us what the minimum price we will pay for a bag of Natural Balance Pet Food or any other pet food or pet supply item. What happened to shopping for the best price and best service? When did I ask Natural Balance Pet Food to look out for me? Or who are they really looking out for. I will tell you, it's the big box, multi store pet supply retailers that are trying to control the pet supply industry!

Let Natural Balance Pet Food and the others know how you feel about this disgraceful injustice. Even though we sell Natural Balance Pet Food I am asking you to buy another pet food. One that offers fair trade, fair prices and retail integrity. There are many on the market and even some we don't carry. I urge you to look for a food that does not carry with it a Minimum Advertised Price. Find a pet food that is actually worth what you pay.

Best Wishes,

Glenn Matherly

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Comments on: Natural Balance Pet Food

Frank Diaz	I've been buying Natural Balance from you for my dogs and cats for some time and have been very happy with the results. If Natural Balance chooses, however, to favor more expensive stores over yours then I think it's time for me to make a change. Look for my next purchase to include either Eagle or Taste of the Wild products. Thanks for keeping us informed! And thanks for always shipping my pet food so quickly...You guys rule!
Jason	This doesn't surprise me at all. Natural Balance Pet Food controlling prices just like the big corporate giants. I used to feed (and i would like to underline "used to") Natural Balance Duck and Potato. I am switching to Eagle Holistic Duck. Hopefully Natural Balance Pet Food will learn a lesson. Controlling retail prices should be left up to those that know best, like the GOVERNMENT!
Jim Travis	Natural Balance Pet Food should really see the error in their pricing strategy. I always assumed they were a small independent pet food company with independent stores being their primary outlet. It just seems wrong for Natural Balance Pet Food to encourage these kinds of predatory pricing policies. Why would i want to pay more than i should for a bag of Natural Balance Pet Food.
Linda Givens	I have been feeding Natural Balance Pet Food for 5 years and was always curious why my local Petco was so high priced. This explains everything. I'm going to shop around for a better price for my Natural Balance Pet Food and if i can't find a better price I'm going to switch to Wellness. I've heard it's really good. Thank you for reporting the truth about Natural Balance Pet Food and their dishonest practices. Linda

Natural Balance Pet Food

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