Ann: New Product Line, page-28

Ok so now LPE will be competing in the "Direct to Consumer" market, which is basically just another way to say they'll be competing in the National Electricity Market, with the difference being that LPE will only target strata communities and rely on a sales strategy that involves them pitching to the Owners Corporation and/or strata manager to then attract multiple individual sites at once.

I don't mind this strategy (i'm wondering why they didn't do it sooner) but I'm just thinking - what's stopping their competitors (pretty much every retailer in the country) doing the same thing? There doesn't seem to be any barrier to their competitors getting in on this type of selling in this market. Whereas in an embedded network, the appeal is that in order for a retailer to win a customer within that building/community they would require new physical assets to be installed, which is cost prohibitive, hence the long contract terms and certainty around reliable income from those customers.

I just wonder whether the DMC opportunity will be a big drag on performance in the near term and wonder whether they can fend-off their competitors in the long-term. And the metrics for DMC would likely be a bit different to the Embedded Network channel (so everyone's spreadsheets will need to be updated and become more complex) because there would be a level of churn e.g. customers being poached by competitors.

I've also noticed multiple retailers are reducing tariffs in SEQ and other states, which means there may not be a big difference in price between LPE and other retailers (I could be wrong here, but just pointing out the adverse effect competitors can have on DMC.

Also, I think Alinta Energy is the cheapest retailer in SEQ thanks to their favorable wholesale deal that was worked out with the state gov last year... I'm not in SEQ but I wonder whether any of the other posters who are located there could do some digging to see whether LPE are cheaper than Alinta...

Food for thought. I'm happy to hear what everyone else thinks about all this?

Hoops.