Who are out of what you may ask!
It doesn't matter, it could quite easily be any one of a whole bunch of distributors, we've all experienced it. Stock's getting a bit low, better order some more and lo and behold they're out of stock..... sometimes they're all out of stock of the same thing just to completely screw us over. (Anyone else tried getting hold of a 45x45 poly cotton canvas cushion covers through July - August?) ..... ok, to save the easily offended, please insert your own expletives at each asterisk of the next sentence ....... * one * supplier * even * ran out of ** Texprint A3 HR %*^ paper for the best * part of a * month! ...... I phoned regularly and was equally regularly palmed off with "It'll be in next week". Needless to say, it more often than not wasn't.
Ok, so ... deep breath ....... I now no longer use 45x45 poly cotton canvas cushion covers. After trying out other options I have found a better product for the same price. The Texprint, they now have again, but I have spoken to another supplier who has agreed a price close enough to make me swap. (I'll pay a bit more happily so long as I'm not let down when I need it).
This industry has some of the sloppiest distributors imaginable. "Sorry, out of stock" .... it's absolute BS. They are letting down their customers who rely upon them. It's unprofessional. If their sources let them down, do what we have to do, waste time changing them and find some that don't. Stock projections, control and levels are not rocket science, it's basic business practice and should not effect your customers. Either order more or order sooner, just never, ever run out and let customers down. At the very least have a current stock level visible so we can see what's left.
Oh the joy of getting a new product line up and running, investing time and money into it, it starts to take off, only to be told by your supplier that the resource you based it upon is out of stock.
They probably don't care, I'm just one small business out of shedloads, I'll probably keep buying my other stuff off them eh? Well, no .... you let us down on one single line of product, you let us down period.
As buyers it's in our hands of course if we want things to improve. If instead of buying a little bit from here there and everywhere, whenever possible, we now sway towards those companies that actually hold enough stock to serve their customer base reliably instead of running out of this, that and the other for rediculously extended periods. It's not always doable, but this year I've made a concerted effort and discovered that it largely is to a degree. It has taken extra work on our part of course but now the vast majority of our purchasing will come from one or two suppliers with two more that I have to use for one specific product from each.
Apologies for whining, really just a reminder to distributers that they can do better, rather than feeling they suceeded because they have a sublimatable peanut in stock that one person happened to ask about, whilst they ran out of staple items such as Mugs and Paper of all things.
Ok, that's it. I'm off to kick the cat.
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Originally Posted by harlequeen
