When Orders Go Bad....

This is an example of when orders go bad, a nightmare from my perspective as a retailer.

Two of my very good customers who have been shopping with me for over 10 years each placed an order for an Oxbow Chest by Mark Emirzian of MA. This is an expensive chest with a lot of design features ($ 5K). These chests are not shipped, so we go pick them up and its 10 hours from the store to make the trip, so we coordinate several pickups in New England all at one time to come back with a full truck.

The orders were placed in early January 2010 with an anticipated promise date of April 2010.

We booked a trip for April, and he was not ready. "Three more weeks" I was told, so we put off the other suppliers who had their orders ready by three weeks, delaying the other orders most of which has customers waiting. Three weeks goes by - still not ready. At this point we have to roll our truck to go get the other product. Mark says 'I'll drive them down to you next month, I promise'. That would be in May.

I tell my two customers who have the chests on order they will be here in May, sorry for the delay.

Every month from then on, they are not done. Every time I call to put the pressure on I am told "I'll have them for you next month". I send letters, faxes, phone calls. All to no avail. Each time my two very patient customers are told 'next month he promises'.

May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Nothing. Finally near the end November, I inform both my customers on our monthly status calls that they can cancel anytime they are tired of waiting and get a full refund of their money when ever they want it. The promises are never-ending, and the supplier updates are not reliable.

I send another fax to to the woodworker informing him that once these customers bail on the orders, I will not take the chests, and that they are both ready to cancel the order.

Our order for these two chests have simply been pushed back to work on other orders. We were not a priority or even allocated into a production schedule. There was time in the year for this supplier to get married, go on vacations and honeymoons, but not time to build this order.

As a retailer, I can't force the maker to build them, but I can stop carrying the product line and that's the decision I made in December and pulled that maker off my website and removed his catalog. I informed him of that via letter as well.

Both my customers were now ready to cancel come January 2011. As the chests were 80% done by then, they were finished up and ready for pickup when our truck made a run into New England last week. Mark Emirzian was shocked when I told him I was serious about not carrying his product any more, but as a retailer I have to protect my reputation and cannot continue to relay false information to my customers month after month after month. He left me with no other choice.

Another fallout from such a long wait to completion (13 months from time of order) is very high expectations on the completed product from the customers. Their rationale is that since it took so long to get them, they should be exceptional. That logic doesn't always hold true I'm afraid, but these two chests do look good.

Some of the best cabinetmakers are very poor businessmen. I see this time and time again in this industry.

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