Shady Buyers

[Ken Spriggs]

damn

Jason? Steve?
I didn't drag that out that long did I?
Damn they were supposed to hold that check for another 3 weeks.
You know there is no money in the account!!!!

Steve I can't hang out with you!!!!
You are the kiss of death sir!!!!! STILL!!!

[screamlinestudios]

Oh Ken, You silly boy - You know you don't buy crap from us, so there is no way your payment could be late.

Oh and I'm gonna be looking for you at MHC, me and you buddy. You'll change your tune when the women flock to us like Seagulls to a hunk of stale bread.

[ScaryJerry]

Wow, heated thread..... Some advice for those of you new to business...

Just to clarify MAP - minimum advertised price. A vendor cannot set the price at which you sell. That is price fixing. But the vendor CAN say that you will not reap the benefits of their cooperative advertising fund if you advertise below the MAP. Only big retailers care about this.

As to bad buyers... We sell only direct. We get 50% up front and the remainder just before shipping. We can't afford receivables and bad debt, our profit margins are invisible already. If you want to provide credit terms then you need to budget a certain percentage of bad debt as well as cost of money expenses.

We've only had one bad buyer in 4 years. First he wanted a big discount for which he would promote our brand name amongst the industry. Then he wanted to return the custom product for no particular reason. Because of his standing in the community he threatened us with bad publicity if we didn't agree to a full refund. We caved in but we have a long memory...... (it was not anyone on this forum as far as I know)

Another kind of bad buyer is the one who preys upon your generosity by claiming hardship or fake non-profit status,

Still another is the guy who says he is going to order a huge amount and negotiates the discount and then only orders one and expects the discount will hold because he will order more later. Those additional sales never pan out. We charge the full price on the first one and promise the discount will apply when he places the additional orders. That usually reveals the bluff. They cancel the whole order.

We sold a truck load of product many years ago to a big retailer whose name begins with K. We agreed to take back unsold product as part of the deal. But then they screwed up and never put the product on the shelves and when xmas was over they returned the entire order of a couple of mil. Who could budget for this kind of catastrophe?

When dealing with really large chains such as "toy stores are everyone" be ready to hear the buyer ask "what are you offering me to take this risk on your product". Bribes are common and almost expected when dealing in large orders.

Bottom line - if you continually take risks you will eventually get hurt. It is so much simpler to treat every buyer the same. And if you don't, they'll get together at the trade shows or elsewhere and share the methods they used to get discounts out of you. Don't provide credit terms if you can't afford the losses associated with them.

Now that I sound like I know what I'm doing I've got to figure out how to make a profit this year

Jerry Jewell
SkullTroniX
916 600-2295

[grossparts]

Great Advice Jerry!

[daynjohn]

Unique perspective

I decided to weigh in on this because I think I have a unique perspective to offer. I work for an international company that does 95% of it's business with holidays and a majority of that business is Halloween sales. We supply your suppliers and we don't sell retail.
Having said that, I work in the collections/receivables department. I have to say that we sell to some dot coms and we sell to major Halloween retail stores as well as Mom & Pop B&M's.
The biggest problem I have is with Mom & Pop B&M's. A big part of my collections work (and my headaches) come from them. They have the ability to close up shop on Nov 2nd and leave with our product. Phones disconnected. No forwarding addresses. Taking months and months to pay. These are the reasons they're called "bad buyers". The scary part is they call you the next Halloween and want to know why they can't have their old terms back or why they have to pay in advance! I have found that dot commers aren't the huge problem that all my co workers waned me they would be. Yes there's a few but the smaller escape artists are my biggest problems. While it may take many moons to jump through the hoops and get payment from the big chains, you know THEY aren't going anywhere. A majority of my problems are small B&M's that buy $100,000 or so and take off after Halloween. Now the orders are coming in for this Halloween and they turn up like bad pennies looking for product and get mad when we say no way. Pay your bills on time and you'll get your product.
Just my four cents.

Day

[Epperson]

I own and run a surplus company and do sell many different kinds of merchandise. I would think this would be a great way to promote and sell a product.

1: Owner/Seller Introduce at a Hi retail price.
2: Sell to wholesalers/ Ebayers that will market (They use their OWN CAPITAL to advertise YOUR products) lower than your current retail price.
3: They make money moving your product.
4: You make money as the owner due to they purchase more merchandise (see 3)

It is a win win if you understand internet marketing.

I am new to the haunting side of things as I do a home haunt now and am slowly building to a featured event.

Just my 2 cents and also if anyone is looking for marketing for a product ( I have over 150,000 small business/wholesalers and surplus guys on my email list) I would love to market the halloween scene. Please feel free to give Shane a ring at 360-572-0665. Or you can contact me at my website www.closeout.cc