How do I make sure I get fair pricing from my vendor?

There are two primary costs involved when using an offsite tape storage vendor: storage and services.

Storage costs will be based on the number of tapes you store offsite. Service costs will be based on the number of rotations you do each month and how many items are rotated each time. For both storage and service, you should expect to receive better pricing at higher volume or activity levels.

National company versus local company

Logic might suggest that you would enjoy better pricing with a national company that enjoys larger operations and efficiencies of scale. However, in the data tape storage industry, this often is not the case.

Competition is not very fierce for national accounts since there are only two national vendors. The efficiencies of dealing with only one vendor throughout the country can be outweighed by the lack of competitive pricing pressure.

For small accounts, national vendors aim to make the same high profit margins that they do on their larger accounts. In order to achieve those margins, they charge high monthly minimum "administration" charges - including both monthly minimum storage charges and monthly account maintenance fees. These two fees taken together can make a national vendor more than twice as expensive as a non-national vendor.

Pricing tactics to look out for

When comparing vendors and budgeting internally for costs, make sure to get a complete picture of costs involved with using each vendor.

Some companies have fuel surcharges that can vary from month to month and can increase your costs by 10% or more when fuel prices go up.

Minimum service charges per order are another new tactic being used to increase the amount you pay each time you request service. These minimum service charges can be craftily designed to ensure they apply to almost all orders. 

If you expect to have your tapes individually slotted in the vault, your vendor will provide you "transport cases" for moving tapes back and forth. Find out if you will be charged a monthly storage and/or lease fee for transport cases. Also find out if there will be transport case handling charges (on top of tape handling charges) each time tapes are moved back and forth between you and the vendor. While these charges may seem inconsequential, they can add another 10% to the cost of each rotation.