Starting Jan. 1, 2019, Zodiac Pool Systems will no longer allow its Jandy Pro Series line of products to be sold on the internet.
The company’s marquee brand, which includes components for the equipment pad such as pumps and heaters, as well as the controllers that originally put it on the map, is being converted to trade series exclusive status.
The move will strike more than 400 of its skus from e-commerce, company officials said.
“We’ve been thinking about it for some time,” said Michelle Kenyon, Zodiac’s senior vice president of marketing and customer experience. “And we firmly believe that for the support and long-term viability of our industry, we need to give our pool professionals and trade partners a range of preferred equipment and a great brand with innovative features that they can prescribe and sell to consumers without needing to battle internet prices.”
The company publicly announced the change at the PoolCorp International Sales Conference in Orlando. The company also notified its customers via email earlier this week.
As stipulated in its new policy, Zodiac will not warranty Jandy Pro products purchased via the internet after Dec. 31, 2018. Additionally, the manufacturer plans to assemble a team of in-house employees and contracted individuals to monitor the internet for violators around the clock. It also will provide contact information for pool professions to report infractions.
Finally, the company says it plans to penalize violators by withholding loyalty rebates and incentives and, for those who continue to breach the policy, a refusal to sell the affected products.
The policy prohibits all internet sales of the affected products, including on pool/spa-specific sites and e-commerce pages maintained by brick-and-mortar dealers, Kenyon said.
As of now, the policy applies to equipment, but not parts, accessories or valves, Kenyon said.
“We believe that only the pool professional is equipped to prescribe the appropriate products for a consumer,” she said. “They’re the only ones who have the expertise and training necessary with these highly technical products, inclusive of electrical, gas and hydraulic expertise. And consumers should not be able to self-shop these products.”
The company will explore that possibility of applying its trade series exclusive policy to parts, accessories and valves in the future, she added.
The manufacturer will honor the warranty on internet purchases made before Jan. 1, 2019, Kenyon said.
While this is not Zodiac’s first time declaring products trade series exclusive, this is by far its biggest step in this direction. In 2014, after the sales of automatic cleaners on the web spurred alarm throughout the industry, Zodiac declared two cleaners to be its first trade-only products. Zodiac added more products each year, reaching 11 in 2017 and jumping to 31 for this year.
Now 400 products are included in those ranks. “It was an evolution over time,” Kenyon said. “But it was time to move all in and commit the brand to the industry.”
To additionally support industry companies, Zodiac said it will actively promote such firms to make them easier for customers to find.
While the announcement comes less than a year after Zodiac began the process of merging with Spanish manufacturer/distributor Fluidra, company officials said this move was not related.
As the industry looks for ways to help pool/spa specialty companies compete against internet and big-box competitors, some have said that deals such as this do little to help. Among the concerns: they can be difficult to police. Kenyon said Zodiac has seen success with its policy for the 31 products that currently fall under it.
“There are always going to be violators online, and it’s going to take us some time to clean it all up,” Kenyon said. “I know there are skeptics that are going to be out there, but we’re all in…”
