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Elyptic
12
Dec 1, 2014
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Thanks for the update and for successfully negotiating a freebie for those of us waiting. It goes above and beyond Massdrop's responsibility in this instance.
And, as others have stated, I don't really blame Massdrop for this fiasco. While I would hope it would be a good lesson to them regarding distributors and large sum transactions, I don't believe that they have, in any way, acted in anything other than good faith for us, the buyers.
I will say, that I believe the distributor seems to be disorganized and playing games with Massdrop. But I'll leave them to deal with that.
Dec 1, 2014
Mark
3186
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Dec 1, 2014
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Elyptic"Playing Games" is pretty extreme. We've worked with them before and it has been flawless.
I think it's possible that people here are mistaking the expectations of B2B vs B2C transactions.
We purchase from Lamy's distributor in a business-to-business transaction. The "quality of service" of these transactions is extremely different than a business-to-consumer transaction.
Orders are handled entirely manually. Someone fills out a purchase order, files it with accounting, processes a bank wire, sends an email to the warehouse, who then packs boxes and ships them out. Any part of this process gets delayed when people are away on vacation (or just busy, as it happens during the holiday seasons). In B2B, inventory/stock is never guaranteed, nor are ship dates. There are dozens of sales people selling inventory out of the same warehouse and if items get oversold, the consumer simply gets a "backorder notice", and you wait until another boat arrives and fills the warehouse back up.
In the B2C world, Amazon (and other retailers), make this process invisible to you because they order their inventory weeks, or months ahead of time and only sell you what they have ready to ship right now. For this service, you're paying retail level profit margins.
Participating in a group-buy, we connect the group directly to the wholesaler. The good part of this is that you get the wholesale price (plus a small fee that covers Massdrops costs). The bad part of this is that the group experiences the delays/mistakes/etc that comes with playing in the B2B space.
Hope that helps shed some light on the situation. Most likely how things apply to the Lamy situation, is that they're busier during the holiday season (like all of our distributors) so the order took longer to process than usual. Someone at the warehouse was probably having a bad day and slapped the wrong labels on our boxes and shipped them to Iowa by mistake. Then it took longer than usual to sort out why/how that happened and formulate a retrieval and reshipment plan. It's an unfortunate sequence of events that have led us to the group getting delayed pens, but it's something that happens. We're really happy with our relationship with Lamy overall and excited that they're willing to throw the free bottle of ink into the order.
Dec 1, 2014
EvanD
7
Dec 2, 2014
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MarkI participated in the drop and really have no problem with the delay. I appreciate the ink being thrown in.
However, I find this "update" as quite condescending. MassDrop is not "connect[ing] the group directly to the wholesaler." Certainly I can't contact the wholesaler about my order, can I?
MassDrop is selling to consumers, who do expect the service in a "B2C" transaction; after all, this is a B2C transaction. MassDrop is a business that offers for sale a product, collects money as payments for said product, receives shipment from distributor of said product and then reships the product to it's "consumers." MassDrop's backend issues aren't really the consumer's problem. It's MassDrops's reputation problem.
Instead of blaming someone who works at the warehouse who was having a bad day, it's better to stick with @HassanS 's reply and say "we're sorry and we're trying to make it right." (paraphrase).
Dec 2, 2014
GonzoTGreat
756
Dec 2, 2014
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MarkI'm a little confused.
1. If the group were connected directly to the wholesaler by Massdrop, then wouldn't we (the consumers) be dealing directly with the wholesaler? And wouldn't the wholesaler then be sending the items directly to us?
2. I'm not especially savvy in distribution business jargon. Does B2B mean business to business? If we (the participants in the drop) are "playing in the B2B space" where is this indicated in the "how Massdrop works" and/or "FAQ" sections?
3. If the vendor is significantly busier during the holiday season, why was this not taken into account when posting the estimated reshipment date? Such qualifiers are included in currently active drops with mid-December reshipment date estimates.
Also:
4. Thank you @EvanD for highlighting @HassanS' most recent posts addressing and apologizing for oversight issues and promising to keep us posted as new information becomes available. At this point, this seems the right way forward.
5. Finally, I appreciate @Elyptic's most recent post. I wish I could be so eloquent and succinct.
Cheers.
Dec 2, 2014
Mark
3186
Admin User
Dec 2, 2014
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EvanD@EvanD
Not trying to be condescending, simply educational. Apologies for the tone if it's poorly worded.
We use the terminology of "direct", but I agree that's overstating the relationship. We are acting as an intermediary, however our transaction is "more direct" than a regular retail model. In about a quarter of our drops, the manufacturer/vendor ships directly to the consumer. In the remainder, it bounces through our warehouse first.
I'm not blaming the warehouse worker, simply defending our Lamy distributor and saying that they aren't "playing games" with us. There's nothing from our end that indicates that Lamy hasn't done its job to fulfill our order/request, it's simply taking longer than the "typical" order. They do not guarantee fulfillment times and subsequently, neither do we. We do provide "estimated" shipping dates which we relay based on our vendor's best estimates (plus 2 days for our warehouse to repack and reship).
At the end of the day, it's absolutely Massdrop's reputation problem and we need to do more to properly set expectations to the end-user. That's something that we continually strive to do and we'd happily accept any feedback from the community about what we can do differently given the constraints that we work within.
It sounds like my input isn't appreciated so I'm happy to bow out of the conversation.
@GonzoTGreat
Yes, B2B stands for business to business. The types of transactions are slower, higher volume, lower profit margin, and much more relationship based (and generally monopolized). When you buy a product from a retailer, you can demand a high level of service/etc because you can vote with your money. i.e. You can buy the identical product from a different retail store. When in the B2B space, you're often ordering from an exclusive dealer. There are no alternatives, so the balance of power is very different (and frustratingly so at times!). Say you're running a Pen store, and every time you order from Rotring (or Lamy, or Pilot, or whomever), they delay your order. Your choice is to put up with these delays or not carry their product in your store (usually not an option).
We try to get as much clarity around shipment dates as we can. Given that we were working on this in early November, we believed that it was early enough to not get "caught up" in the holiday season delays. Overall the vast majority of drops ending in late October and early November were fulfilled on time, this one happened to be one of a few that didn't. These delays are becoming more frequent as we get closer to Christmas so we've added the disclaimer.
Dec 2, 2014
GonzoTGreat
756
Dec 2, 2014
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MarkThank you for the additional explanation.
Dec 2, 2014
EvanD
7
Dec 4, 2014
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MarkThanks. Any information is appreciated, I just got the feeling that the last post was a bit harsh and tried to pass the buck from MD to the distributor. Thanks for the clarification; online postings - especially - are always open to misinterpretation and I'm glad the conversation is an ongoing on with MD.
Dec 4, 2014
GonzoTGreat
756
Dec 7, 2014
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MarkMark,
After rereading your response, I still have a few questions, comments and suggestions. As this particular drop is winding down, what is the best way to continue this conversation with you more directly?
Cheers.
Dec 7, 2014
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