Have you tried Amazon for distribution? I have no idea how that works, but I do notice a large variety of odd things now available via amazon, some with free 2-day shipping.
Honestly, the distro model is dead except the large players like Amazon now, and good riddance. At least Amazon can have some accountability and rating/feedback that helps buyers etc. From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Forrest Christian (List Account) Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 3:32 PM To: af <af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Jeff Evans query? I'm getting really sick of distributors asking me for a deep discount, extended length net terms, and to drop ship all of their orders to their customers. There's a reason why we haven't gone down this path. On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Steve Jones <thatoneguyst...@gmail.com<mailto:thatoneguyst...@gmail.com>> wrote: Distributors that dont maintain accurate web based on hand/out of stock are the devils condom. I hate them. The only thing worse is the ones that lie and you get an order in with a "drop ship from mfg" F those guys, they take your money right quick, thats for sure On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 10:27 AM, <ch...@wbmfg.com<mailto:ch...@wbmfg.com>> wrote: We offer dry storage, sequestered inventory and order fulfillment to all distributors so they can stock at our warehouse, ship from our warehouse, and keep from paying double freight (for the galvanized steel parts). Some take advantage of this and some don't. -----Original Message----- From: ch...@wbmfg.com<mailto:ch...@wbmfg.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 9:26 AM To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Jeff Evans query? We try, our restock level is approx equivalent to a 30 day inventory, but we are constantly having runs on one particular part or another and then when a distributor wants something dropped we don't have it and they attempt to blame us. The main reason to use a two tier distribution network is so that the distributors have inventory, not us. That is how they add value. Otherwise I would just sell direct. We build to forecast and to order but the channel that stocks is the channel that gets the sales. Some of our distributors are much better than than others with this. -----Original Message----- From: Matt Hoppes Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 9:22 AM To: ch...@wbmfg.com<mailto:ch...@wbmfg.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Jeff Evans query? Wouldn't this be on you to make sure you have proper stock levels to absorb the 20-30 day time frames? I know there have been times when I've waited to get mounts because they were drop shipping but "we didn't know when the supplier would have the parts in". On 12/5/17 11:14 AM, ch...@wbmfg.com<mailto:ch...@wbmfg.com> wrote: I got a note from a guy saying that Jeff Evans was looking for stock on our tower mount products. Some of our distributors stock, some don’t. We have most of the stuff on our e-commerce site but it is MSRP. You get discounts from going to the distributors. Not sure if there was a specific product in question or not. I don’t have visibility into the inventory levels of my distributors so I can never answer as to what they may or may not have. If you hit me off list I can give an opinion as to who may have them. I will say this: those distributors that do stock sell much more than those that don’t and expect us to drop ship for them. We may not always have the stuff depending on production cycles. We have a huge unknown in the cycle due to the galvanization. Sometimes the company that dips the parts can turn them around in 2-3 days, other times it is 20 or 30 days. -- Forrest Christian CEO, PacketFlux Technologies, Inc. Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside Road, Helena, MT 59602 forre...@imach.com<mailto:forre...@imach.com> | http://www.packetflux.com<http://www.packetflux.com/> [https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.wisestamp.com/icons/linkedin.png]<http://www.linkedin.com/in/fwchristian> [https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.wisestamp.com/icons/facebook.png] <http://facebook.com/packetflux> [https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.wisestamp.com/icons/twitter.png] <http://twitter.com/@packetflux>
