Maintaining a Stainless Reputation More Difficult
A few years ago it was not all that difficult to maintain a solid reputation with your clients by simply taking orders and getting them out the door in a timely manner. During the high times of the last economic boom manufacturers were spending so much money on inventory they would spend months unloading out of program products. That all changed during the financial crisis and the net result is it is tougher today than it has been in many years to provide reliable service to your clients.
When providing a proposal to your client be sure to check and make sure the inventory is deep. If you are quoting a thousand piece order and the supplier only has a thousand pieces in stock your best bet is to find another product. Nothing screams amateur more than giving your client a product to select and then having to go back and tell them it is out of stock. Take the Colorband Stainless Bottle which is made in three colors. All of these colors are available to the point of several thousand in immediate inventory. Surely you cannot control quick and unexpected shortfalls but there are enough color options and enough pieces in each that you should be safe even if it takes a week to decide. With deep availability in the same three colors the Leeds Deco Band Stainless Bottle is another choice that will provide you and your client with some level of security in the coming weeks and months. If you are researching large orders you may want to even check with the manufacturer to check into overseas production at a discount. Be aware though that there are some significant difficulties getting containers across from Asia as prices have skyrocketed. In either case please remember to check inventory before recommending a product to your customer. Almost all of the major vendors provide instant public access to this information so there is no excuse for leading your client down the wrong path.
Apple announced the release of their 4.0 software this Summer. Hopefully it will take care of some of the existing problems such as the voice control issue I discussed earlier. It is likely that the introduction of multi-tasking may get around the issue entirely as it would no longer overtake the other controls. At the same time news of initial sales of their newest product have been strong but whether or not that continues in the weeks ahead remains to be seen.