How important is product availability to you?

[coppice cutter]

I deal with two main wholesalers for the motorcycle business, one a Dutch company, one a German company, but both of them have distribution centres here in the UK.

 

They both have online ordering systems and both run a traffic light system, green, yellow/amber, red.

 

For both systems, green means available from stock in the UK, red means unavailable, the difference is with the yellow. For the German company yellow means not in the UK, but available to order from the main warehouse in Hamburg and an expected delivery date, for the Dutch company yellow simply means available to backorder with no expected delivery date specified.

 

I will sometimes order things that are yellow/amber from the German company if the delivery date is acceptable to me or my customer, but I never backorder stuff from the Dutch company when there is no expected date for delivery.

 

Long story short, in my opinion, without expected (and fairly accurate!) dates for backordered items, probably just as well to stick to listing the stuff which is actually in stock.

 

Hope this is of some help.

[Ian Leach]

48 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

I don’t care really.

It’s all about the free sweets.

Sweets I get miniature bottles of whiskey.

[john87]

I only ever order in stock stuff. If a supplier could say with certainty when an item would be in stock, that would be ok, but half the time i suspect they just say anything to try to get the order..

 

Would rather pay more for an in stock item than wait..

 

Also, some firms use completely shit carriers. The ones where they tell you the time the thing is coming and you can track where the van is, I would DEFINITELY, GLADLY, pay more for that service everytime..

 

john..

[Mark Bolam]

Seriously, I think Skyland’s honesty policy on stock levels is a credit to them.

Yes, they have lost sales to me when another top arb supplier has something in stock that they don’t, but they had the decency to tell me that, so I’ll go back there.

 

The real problem is us with our Amazon Prime next day mindset.

Those days are gone.

There is a world shortage/supply issue with pretty much everything, it’s pretty unfair to rant about arb shops.

 

We need get back to planning ahead a bit more.

Spare chain for your primary ground saw and topper?

Get some spares in when they are available. 

It’s not like you won’t use them!

 

I’m as bad as anyone for wanting my luxury bits of bling there and then, but I can also remember the days of A&F Warehouse and Charterhouse Richmond.

 

We maybe need to plan a bit more rather than rant.

We have been spoiled for a few years, I think we’ll have to tough it out for a bit.

[Mick Dempsey]

5 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

Seriously, I think Skyland’s honesty policy on stock levels is a credit to them.

Yes, they have lost sales to me when another top arb supplier has something in stock that they don’t, but they had the decency to tell me that, so I’ll go back there.

 

The real problem is us with our Amazon Prime next day mindset.

Those days are gone.

There is a world shortage/supply issue with pretty much everything, it’s pretty unfair to rant about arb shops.

 

We need get back to planning ahead a bit more.

Spare chain for your primary ground saw and topper?

Get some spares in when they are available. 

It’s not like you won’t use them!

 

I’m as bad as anyone for wanting my luxury bits of bling there and then, but I can also remember the days of A&F Warehouse and Charterhouse Richmond.

 

We maybe need to plan a bit more rather than rant.

We have been spoiled for a few years, I think we’ll have to tough it out for a bit.

A&F were great, a real Aladdin’s cave.

[Doug Tait]

I don't really find myself needing something tomorrow, usually no problem to wait for a week or three, provided I know what to expect.

 

And my preference is for the Stihl calendar, or at a push a beanie or buff, really not fussed for sweets or whiskey.

[Mark_Skyland]

Thanks to all for the feedback.

 

From what I gather we seem to be doing the right thing, if we could allow pre orders with a reasonably accurate eta then that would be a goer. Unfortunately there is absolutely no chance of that as most manufactures are constantly changing etas or just not providing them. That's not a dig at them, it's just how it is ATM and how it's been for the last 2-3 years. 

In the past 95% of the time we could get supplies in within a day or so the other 4% could take up to two weeks for the uk distributor to get stock from the worldwide distributor and the last 1% was say three months max, this was usually down to waiting for production of a product.

 

On the plus side as my post just shouts of doom and gloom there are a few manufactures that can offer reasonable etas so I think it's worth looking into pre ordering certain items but only if we can give yourselves an eta too. 

 

Once again thanks for the feedback and for using the poll. 👍

 

 

 

 

[Mark_Skyland]

21 hours ago, GWYNFIL said:

what price u got on 592xp  mark pm me! asuming in stock lol

Around £1200 Inc the vat depending on bar size, definitely no stock left and I don't know when we well be getting anymore unfortunately.

 

[Mark Bolam]

Jesus Christ, an honest salesman!

[Peasgood]

2 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

I don’t care really.

It’s all about the free sweets.

They sent me a toffee penny out of a Quality Street tin.

Never been so insulted in all my life!