Well I don't go directly through PD anymore since they decide I wasn't buying enough from them; therefore, closed my direct account but my current distributor does. I still access them through my Power Portal account for inventory checking. I just couldn't see paying them at a 10% off retail when my distributor gives a 20% off retail on the same parts shipped from the same warehouse.
To some accountant it probably makes sense to sell the parts to another distributor at a lower cost than give me the 20% discount.
There is a theory that because invoicing costs money then you try to avoid invoicing for single items or small orders .
Using this theory you optimise profits by only filling big orders ( that is where those minimum spend numbers come from ) so you encourage the big spenders with big discounts & discourage small spenders by charging more and even padding out the bill with extra charges.
Before we had the delivery business I tried to get my principle contractor to open multiple accounts for trade housers , production companies & prop makers, because these businesses work multiple movies, commercials & stage shows at the same time , but have to invoice things like couriers out to each individual customer , a bigger job than most would imagine .
My manager would not do this because it cost "$ X" per account where as in reality all it meant was the booker typing in a different 6 letter code , the computer did the rest.
So when we kicked off we did just that nearly every customer had at least 3 accounts and some of the PR companies would open & close over 100 accounts a year .
This alone scored us $ 2,000,000 a year .