Gridlock Mikey

Is it me or is it a sign of the times, I was looking through the dealer and third party threads and i'd say 1 in 4 is a thread about "poor service" or suppliers not being able to give "accurate delivery dates" Within a couple of posts, someone will defend the situation and so on. It got me thinking about a few issues and consider this:

For the past 6 years I have worked for Ricoh UK selling copiers etc, over the past 12 months or so there has been a noticable lack of stock in Japan (Or so we get told) so a customer orders from me, I order from Ricoh, they deliver to us, we deliver to the customer. Easy really except when ricoh don't deliver on time, don't know when it's gonna be delivered or even worse lie, this lie gets passed onto the customer and well, you can image what kicks off when that delivery doesn't happen. Ricoh uk blame ricoh japan etc, none of which helps the customer.
This I believe is what hapens to the suppliers of gauges, splitters, pods etc.They get given a delivery date, add 2 days on or 5 or something to allow for **** ups, but then THEY don't recieve delivery, so neither do you. Same ****, different industry
I remember you could go into Argos/PC world/ Currys/Comet/ Homebase all those types of places and if you saw it, you could buy it. That simply is not the case anymore. How many times have you heard "Sorry, we sold the last one this morning" Bollox, you never had one and stop lying to me
They had not enough stock, simple. But why not?
Goto buy EVO mag, not one on the shelf, spoke to news agent, get me one i says, no problem he says, be in day after tomorrow, Fine i says. Was it there, was it ****, EVO had no stock, hadn't printed enough, would send me a back order soon!! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!
It's not that you don't get it cos you do eventually, it's just frustrating to deal with, almost knowing full well that whatever novelty you are gonna treat yaself to, just ain't gonna be availiable when you get there for a few weeks, maybe one or two, the supplier wasn't sure cos the manufacturer was on holiday

Mikey

P20SPD

iTrader: (1)

Its apparently a new Management tool for stock management taking the world by Storm, its similar to JIT but its Called JNIT (Just Not In Time).

Spoon

Gridders- Over time you learn to order what ever it is before you actually want it.

That way, it's in stock when you do.

But of course when you go to order it and they have one in stock you don't buy it because you don't actually want it now, you only want to order it.

I think that's how it works.

Da Booga

I know exactly what you mean GM As part of my business we sell performance car gear, mainly imported from Japan. The amount of times we've been let down by shipments not arriving, or arriving late from Japan is unreal! Then as you say when the customer complains, we've done all we can and advised them of the dates we've been told.

It makes me so mad because we take pride in our business and customer care but this doesn't help our reputation one bit, through no fault of our own

pugoetru

nothing is ever in stock when i want it even a fookin kettle

fast bloke

Nearly every big sales company on the planet is trying to tighten up their cashflow at every level. As this happens over a couple of years the manufacturing side also needs to tighten up as no-one now allows 10% extra stock to be sitting about. The only way to tighten up at the manufacturing end is only to build what has been ordered. If there is a slightly higher level of orders for a couple of weeks suddenly there is no product available worldwide.

I used to do work for a very large PC manufacturer. In the late 90's they would keep an excess of 1.5 million PC's for European distribution. Fine while markets are good and cash is a plenty, but if it is getting tight you don't want 2 or 3 billion quid tied up in stock. Now they keep an excess of 30000, which would have been 2 days output in 1998.

Gridlock Mikey

It's an evil state of affairs How I miss going to buy stuff for my car, pulling up, getting out with me cash and going home to fit it.
Now I have to phone to be told the mandatory 2 weeks we should have some. I put the phone down knowing it's gonna be 4 and i'm made to feel "lucky" if it arrives in 3
Well just another nail in the coffin of how things "should/used" to be

<Rant> So because a few thousand fat cat directors around the world want to earn "Another" Gazzillion quid, Millions, nay billions of normal folk have to suffer world wide. *******s [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Mikey

taffyterzo

Da Booga, I understand what you are saying, but if someone orders something from you then he is taking part of an agreement by himself and you or your company, not the company that you deal with, if you cant give a date of delivery then dont, there are too many company's out there who lie (not saying you do that )
dont mean to go on so I wont

Adrian F

i have the same problem in my job the client wants a nice new brand name light fitting for an office and i have to quote him 8 weeks as Philips don't stock their products. fine if you are planning maintainance but not to replace a unit which has failed and if you approach philips for parts you get we don't supply that part sir.same for most of the quality brand names in the industry.

one branch of a national wholesalers in Camden never use to keep steel trunking above 50mm by 50mm in stock! so many times my electricians go to the suppliers all over london and find basic items of any brand not in stock so we have to make a second visit to clients who are not happy paying us to come back again a few days later.

pugoetru

time computers is a good example you cant take it away sir it has to be built first!