Along comes one guy that knows the value of selling in volume, undercuts the schemers' prices and blows their whole charade by getting ALL of the business.
But were they really selling in any volume, or was it 1 or 2 UM employees taking a dozen-odd phone orders a week from "people-in-the-know" on boards such as this to gain a bit of customer loyalty (which they obviously did)..? UM management wouldn't have killed off a cash cow if in fact it had been one. Not in this economy. I'm sure it wasn't a decision taken lightly, but management probably figured that the costs/reduced profit associated with servicing that loyalty outweighed the benefit. If you've got investors, bankers, shareholders, etc., that want/need to see solid margins, loss leaders like heavily discounted parts weigh on your books. Sure they'll lose a few customers (certainly not all), but now they only need to sell 1 of something instead of 2 to make the same profit but with the added benefit of reduced inventory expense and carrying costs. It's not personal, it's business.