Re: Model railway retailing

manatbandq@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Mar 22, 11:13 am, Mark Goodge <use...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
What would you do if a customer wanted a specific item that you don't
have in stock, but know is available from your supplier? Would you place
a special order so that they could come back in a couple of days and
collect it (assuming they're prepared to put down a deposit, of course),
or would you simply say you don't have it now but it should be in again
next month?


I noticed Simon declined to answer this one. As a customer (I had a
rant about this a few weeks ago) the atitude of my local MR shops
(Motor Books, Headington and Transport Treasures, Aylesbury [1]) seems
to be "that's all we've got" and "We might have some coming in the
next delivery". Neither offered to special order and I got the
impression it was once a month when the man from Peco came and that
was it.

I wouldn't necessarily criticise a retailer for taking this attitude, as it depends a lot on things like minimum order quantities and the reliablity of supplier deliveries. If a supplier imposes an unreasonably high carriage charge for orders below the minimum, or can't guarantee delivery times, then sometimes it simply isn't practical or financially viable to do special orders for customers.

That's also one of the things I was hinting at when I asked about how things could be better for retailers. In my line of work, I expect that a) if I place an order with a supplier before lunchtime then it will be with me the next working day, b) minimum order levels for free delivery are low enough that I can bulk up an order to the minimum at pretty much any time without needing to worry too much about having too much stock, and c) even if I do need to pay for carriage costs then I'll still make a profit on selling the products, no matter how few I order. Simon's comment about ordering once a month suggests that he doesn't have that flexibility from his suppliers, which in turn means that he can't offer it to his customers. That's bad for everyone - it means a dissatisfied (potential) customer, it's a lost sale to the retailer and possibly a lost sale to the manufacturer as well.

Mark
--
http://mark.goodge.co.uk
.

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