Shopsmith Forums

Come on you guys can't figure it out? They are BULK buying. An with their financial picture they have to have orders in Hand before they order any. In other words they need so many ordered before they get any. My guess the Power Pro comes into container size shippments and they have to have them sold before they can order them. For the rest they are getting “their price” by ordering a certain number. They have to have that number sold before they get any.

Watch the pattern run a special, backorder the product, run another special and ship immediately. That explains why some wait months while other get immediately delivery.

My guess is they have to have a percentage of the product on hard order before manufacture will ship. If the requirement is a gross at a time they have on their books that they have at least actual cost sold for that gross before they can order.

Ed in Tampa wrote:Come on you guys can't figure it out? They are BULK buying. An with their financial picture they have to have orders in Hand before they order any. In other words they need so many ordered before they get any. My guess the Power Pro comes into container size shippments and they have to have them sold before they can order them. For the rest they are getting “their price” by ordering a certain number. They have to have that number sold before they get any.

Watch the pattern run a special, backorder the product, run another special and ship immediately. That explains why some wait months while other get immediately delivery.

My guess is they have to have a percentage of the product on hard order before manufacture will ship. If the requirement is a gross at a time they have on their books that they have at least actual cost sold for that gross before they can order.

You may be very correct in your assessment but, in my opinion, that does not warrant offering something that you cannot deliver. There are at least a couple of vendors who tell you right up front that the special is for items that won't be immediately available or that are part of a special limited edition offering. This approach does not seem to hurt their reputations and they keep doing it with more new items.

Just be honest with the customer base.

dusty wrote:

Ed in Tampa wrote:Come on you guys can't figure it out? They are BULK buying. An with their financial picture they have to have orders in Hand before they order any. In other words they need so many ordered before they get any. My guess the Power Pro comes into container size shippments and they have to have them sold before they can order them. For the rest they are getting “their price” by ordering a certain number. They have to have that number sold before they get any.

Watch the pattern run a special, backorder the product, run another special and ship immediately. That explains why some wait months while other get immediately delivery.

My guess is they have to have a percentage of the product on hard order before manufacture will ship. If the requirement is a gross at a time they have on their books that they have at least actual cost sold for that gross before they can order.

You may be very correct in your assessment but, in my opinion, that does not warrant offering something that you cannot deliver. There are at least a couple of vendors who tell you right up front that the special is for items that won't be immediately available or that are part of a special limited edition offering. This approach does not seem to hurt their reputations and they keep doing it with more new items.

Just be honest with the customer base.

Dusty I do not think it is intentional dishonesty, I think it is trying to stay alive when your back is against the wall. They are hoping the sale will reach the needed numbers to get delivery, if they do everyone is happy if not they do not charge your account and usually have another sale to see if it will bring the needed numbers.
My daughters ordered some things for me for Christmas, got notified they were backordered then notified they were being shipped. Talk about being nervous, they were not sure what was happening. Things arrived on time and they breathed a sigh of relief.
I think that same sigh went through Shopsmith when they got enough orders that they could be processed.
Remember without being able to ship there is no money coming in. Think about Shopsmith's position sitting there trying to makes ends meet and having enough orders to pay the bills except they are “X” number items short that they can,t order and ship.

Life is short, too short to waste it being angry at company that is trying to survive.

I remember having this same discussion many years ago with my wife ,, we were in the HVAC plumbing elctrical business, she all ways complained because I spent lot of money keeping the truck stocked when we could have been running around going here or there,,,,,,,, , when I sold a part I ordered or restocked it,cant tell ya how many times this saved me hours of running to the parts house and let me get to the next service call,,.. maybe some thing was on the truck for a month or so , so what ,,maybe a belt was there longer,,, I had certain parts on the truck,,,circuit boards , ignition parts , thermocouples ,,yada yada yada that others were waiting on they had to order,,,,,, ,some even made folks wait so they could order them on line ,,,, , I made me a little extra in the long run and kept customers when folks were complaining about others ,because I had the parts ,,the customer base was our saving grace,,,point to this is,,, when you know you have 20 parts sold ,,,instead of making a order for 20 parts ,,,,order 25 or 30 parts , and stock them when ya get below 5 parts order more ,you usually get a better savings by buying more ,,,you stay ahead of the curve ,, there is usually a pattern to mechanical things and what sells ,,,,and a average to how many a year,,,, but thats not how a lot of business think any more ,,,,,,,like my wife they want their profits up front to spend at the golf course,,,, and if you dont buy the stuff some one else will . not saying this is how SS is , not trying to tell them how to run their business ,,,just saying.

Hobbyman2 wrote:I remember having this same discussion many years ago with my wife ,, we were in the HVAC plumbing elctrical business, she all ways complained because I spent lot of money keeping the truck stocked when we could have been running around going here or there,,,,,,,, , when I sold a part I ordered or restocked it,cant tell ya how many times this saved me hours of running to the parts house and let me get to the next service call,,.. maybe some thing was on the truck for a month or so , so what ,,maybe a belt was there longer,,, I had certain parts on the truck,,,circuit boards , ignition parts , thermocouples ,,yada yada yada that others were waiting on they had to order,,,,,, ,some even made folks wait so they could order them on line ,,,, , I made me a little extra in the long run and kept customers when folks were complaining about others ,because I had the parts ,,the customer base was our saving grace,,,point to this is,,, when you know you have 20 parts sold ,,,instead of making a order for 20 parts ,,,,order 25 or 30 parts , and stock them when ya get below 5 parts order more ,you usually get a better savings by buying more ,,,you stay ahead of the curve ,, there is usually a pattern to mechanical things and what sells ,,,,and a average to how many a year,,,, but thats not how a lot of business think any more ,,,,,,,like my wife they want their profits up front to spend at the golf course,,,, and if you dont buy the stuff some one else will . not saying this is how SS is , not trying to tell them how to run their business ,,,just saying.

I was in business for 40 years. Had a lot of people depending on me, both customers and employees, to keep the fires burning so to speak.

I think Hobbyman is right on. For me, this lack of customer service is getting old.
We can look at it as a company that is struggling to stay afloat, or a company that is being mis-managed. I really don't know how to interpret it ...

IDK. Getting a hand written note with my purchase from the clearance items was nice when it was so late. But, just tried tried their current specials link under products and it was pointing to an aug. special where the link was broke. The spoilers are adding up it seems.

The Mother Ship must be monitering the chat here. I received a noce PM this evening apologizing for the delay and the order will go out FedEx in the morning. That was a good good faith effort. This was the first time i have experienced this long a delay. Obviously somebody dropped the ball, and maybe has a habit of dropping the ball. Don’t know. Regaeding shipping dares, perhaps Dusty has it right. When running a special, announce a realistic shipping date, regardless of how far ahead that date may be. It works for Woodpeckers.

Yes Woodpecker does their one-time tools this way all the time. I have a couple items on order, of course if you order through them your card is not charged until the item ships but you get charged shipping, some other places will ship for free but charge your card right away.

The problem I have is I have to budget my tools and when things are unexpectedly back-ordered the money that was to be spent gets delayed into another month, some of which have their own added expenses already. End of May and end of Aug are property tax times so those are normally not months for tool purchases, a few unexpected arrivals of back orders messes things up. Don't get me wrong, I have the money but it might not be in the right account when needed due to the back orders.

One change from the old days is that some of the shopsmith parts now have "(Item may be on back-order or is made upon ordering)" note which is a warning that it might not be coming as soon as you hope.....

So maybe they are trying to address these issue that way but might not have all the items updated on the web.

Ed

Hobbyman2 wrote:I remember having this same discussion many years ago with my wife ,, we were in the HVAC plumbing elctrical business, she all ways complained because I spent lot of money keeping the truck stocked when we could have been running around going here or there,,,,,,,, , when I sold a part I ordered or restocked it,cant tell ya how many times this saved me hours of running to the parts house and let me get to the next service call,,.. maybe some thing was on the truck for a month or so , so what ,,maybe a belt was there longer,,, I had certain parts on the truck,,,circuit boards , ignition parts , thermocouples ,,yada yada yada that others were waiting on they had to order,,,,,, ,some even made folks wait so they could order them on line ,,,, , I made me a little extra in the long run and kept customers when folks were complaining about others ,because I had the parts ,,the customer base was our saving grace,,,point to this is,,, when you know you have 20 parts sold ,,,instead of making a order for 20 parts ,,,,order 25 or 30 parts , and stock them when ya get below 5 parts order more ,you usually get a better savings by buying more ,,,you stay ahead of the curve ,, there is usually a pattern to mechanical things and what sells ,,,,and a average to how many a year,,,, but thats not how a lot of business think any more ,,,,,,,like my wife they want their profits up front to spend at the golf course,,,, and if you dont buy the stuff some one else will . not saying this is how SS is , not trying to tell them how to run their business ,,,just saying.

What you described is really the proper way to do business but as you know if you do not have the cash flow it can't be done. Shopsmith went through bankruptcy and I imagine suppliers have put fairly stringent requirements on them. Like cash up front. I also imagine everything is priced in bulk. Before a manufacture starts up a line for a part or Tool it probably demands it is a run for “X” number of the item. Apply cash up front and you can see Shopsmith is playing a balancing game.

Now there are two common ways around this, stimulate sales with lower prices or offer “sale” discounts. For what ever reason Shopsmith demands a very high profit on normal priced items. Apparently that serves their purpose. So from time to time they must stimulate sales so they offer “SALES” the problemis if they do not sale enough at one time to meet manufacture minimum they must backorder until they get the count needed.

Also all inventory must be accounted for and is taxed as assets, when cash flow is low this in itself can be problematic.

Ideally Shopsmith needs to reach the point that they can order from manufacture reduced volume of the product at the same or lower cost. Or even on credit. Personally I do not believe Shopsmith has either of these two luxuries right now. So backorder and robbing peter to pay Paul is part of their business model.

Love it or limp it history teaches unless they get a major windfall of cash that upper management does not squander, that will be how they do business in the near future.

You are correct. Declaring bankruptcy has consequences but that was a few years ago. The PowerPro has since been developed, placed on the market and grown out of infancy.

I seriously doubt that Shopsmith is still suffering from those consequences today.

I believe that what is really hurting is the lack of product knowledge and experience level of the replacement employees. Remember that those folks for whom we yearn were all seasoned veterans with Shopsmith (especially those in customer service).