I started with Festool in 2007. One of the reasons I did was because every accessory was readily available form every dealer. The last few years it has been a steady decline of the amount of accessories being available. It is very disappointing to see that Festool USA has lowered to the level of all of the other tool makers instead of holding a higher standard.

You can order from Amazon (any country) using your current Amazon sign in account. 

Amazon.co.UK is entirely in English and is easy to use.

Amazon.de has a translate feature (or you can read the German).  Even Prime members will have some shipping charges, but it is generally not too bad.

In the Amazon.de on the top tool bar there is an icon for a German flag.  If you click the flag you will be given a language option.

Even if it's not a powered item, I find Amazon will generally block it at some point in the process.  I've tried things in the past and go most the way thru checkout before it stopped me, and even had things processes before just to get later told it has been canceled. I don't think I have yet been able to get something via Amazon.

At some point it would be nice for Festool to catch on. But we just don't know what the hang up is.  If it's a issue with dealers (they don't want to carry things), if it's a hidden cost we don't see (import fees/paperwork) that make it to expensive for them.  Or if it's Festool making assumptions about buyer here. 

Some companies see a slow moving product and pull the plug, what they don't see is it's the nature of the product to be a slower seller, but can be key to the whole system of sales.  Pull those couple items, and people go away as what they are doing is based on those and or the option to buy them.  People can often find themselves never buying the thing they bought into a system/brand/etc for,  but they bought a bunch of the other stuff the company made on the basis of buying that thing at some point.  Or it could be the cheap item (low profit), that keeps folks around and buying the other products.

If they would set up a second path for stuff that isn't normally sold, a lot of folks would be very happy, even if the stuff should just be for sale normally.  Look at the cutting table, sure looks like a lot of folks went for it.

My guess is that dealers focus on selling the products that make them money. And I have heard that they receive an end of year bonus on products that have been registered, eg machines and products with serial numbers (the stuff that has warranties etc.). Accessories and consumables are probably excluded from this incentive.


Also, dealers don’t like to tie up capital in stock. The closest dealer to me with an official Festool Shop-in-the-Shop has almost everything you can wish for, which is probably a requirement. But their pricing is quite rigid. The most they will do for a regular customer is 20 procent off consumables or an equivalent freebie, with a substantial purchase. That in fact is very unfavourable compared to the discounts that can be had when purchasing online in that country ten miles to my east.

I ordered a CMT item that I could not find domestically or from Amazon.co.uk, from Amazon.de (Germany).  The order was processed through Amazon.de but shipped from Amazon.sp (Spain).

Also, dealers don’t like to tie up capital in stock. The closest dealer to me with an official Festool Shop-in-the-Shop has almost everything you can wish for, which is probably a requirement. But their pricing is quite rigid. The most they will do for a regular customer is 20 procent off consumables or an equivalent freebie, with a substantial purchase. That in fact is very unfavourable compared to the discounts that can be had when purchasing online in that country ten miles to my east.

This is why the "dealer model" needs to go away, or run in parallel with direct sales.  I wouldn't want to be told I have to stock stuff that I don't think will sell, of course I wouldn't want to be stopped from selling stuff I know would sell too.   I have no idea how the deal arrangements work, and I suspect the dealers on FOG are forbidden from discussing it.  If Festool would sell stuff direct, it would solve the problem of dealers not wanting to carry some stuff.  You see the same issues in other industries like Car Dealerships, where some want to sell certain models and not others, but they don't get a choice in the matter.

For NAINA type stuff, Festool could offer a direct sales model.  I'm sure this would cause some tension between them in dealers, as there will always be someone out there screaming they lost out on a lot of sales of X because of this.

Festool has done the key first step in this by having the fixed pricing, this solves the typical problems of such systems. They just need to start offering stuff. Even if it was special order, or had a longer lead time, folks would be happy to have the option.  If someone wants say the metric version or a 220V version of a tool, they might just have to wait a month.  Stuff comes from the EU gets tacked onto the bulk shipments to the US.

There are two different issues at play here:
1. Dealers not stocking what you want/need. I have no problem with this because Festool has far too many accessories to even begin to carry a portion of them. Consumables and a few accessories is just about all that makes sense to carry. If you want the other stuff go online and order away.

2. NAINA items. These most likely will never be seen here for any number of reasons with the easiest being electrical items that require UL Listing and which Festool does not believe will sell enough to make sense to import and support it. There are ways to get these items. Everyone must give up on NAINA items coming here. That horse has been beat to death several times over.

When I started with Festool in 2007, dealers did not stock all of the accessories, Festool USA did. Festool USA controls what is available in the US not the dealers.

I completely understand not shipping things with incompatible electrical requirements, but there are tons of accessary items that should not matter at all?
Part of the "selling point" is the system approach, why not have every part of the system available?

Bad enough they charge more for their tools here and increase the prices dang near annually, but denying us sooo many products is just adding insult to injury.

Quote from: Crazyraceguy on December 20, 2020, 12:57 PM

I completely understand not shipping things with incompatible electrical requirements, but there are tons of accessary items that should not matter at all?
Part of the "selling point" is the system approach, why not have every part of the system available?

This. I don't understand why the Centrotec Installers set or the MFT clamps/dogs/elements kits aren't available everywhere you'd buy a drill or MFT, let alone why they're not NAIA full-stop.

My point exactly. Something as simple as a "twinbox" bit set, are not available? They used to be! I had one that I bought through Amazon in the US. It was destroyed in a fire and I can't get a new one? They are listed on the Amazon UK site and the right side of the page says "Cannot be shipped to your delivery location", but other things are just fine.