suppliers

[Graysalchemy]

I am glad that this was sorted out with lion calmly and professionally. There doesn't need to be threats thread pulling and banning, just sensible dialogue.

Lion have chosen to address this situation in private.

[Framerpicture]

Thats a good example of how this forum can work-

If Calico hadn't moaned on this forum Lion wouldn't have known he had a problem,whether justifiable or not.
Its all very well saying he should have spoken to Lion first, but do you complain about every thing every time?

Unless its a company I've been dealing with for a while my normal (and I believe typically British) response is to take your business elsewhere and look for another supplier, and this was the reason this thread was started.

As many people have already stated, dealt with properly its possible to turn a negative situation round and win a loyal customer but only if you know there's a problem in the first place!

[Martin Harrold]

At Lion, we enjoy following the Forum and we often learn from it.

We've been interested in the amount of good debate on this particular topic.
We've held back responding as we think it would spoil the atmosphere if
suppliers like us were to jump into the conversation at every mention of our
names. We regard the Forum as a great place for framers to share their
thoughts, offer ideas, seek advice and occasionally let off steam.

It is our hope that by enclosing an 'All Ears' card with each parcel we send
out and putting the direct numbers and email addresses of all the directors
in our catalogues and on our website, all customers will feel they can come
to us with any comments they may have. The team at Lion tries very hard, but
we are human and we do make mistakes. When we are alerted to one, we do our
best to sort it out to the customer's satisfaction.

[stcstc]

martin

thats a great approach. its to easy to become defensive all the time, which doesnt help anyone

glad to see you learn things here, just like i do

[superclaret]

You could give Mainline a try, the website is the best in the trade and carriage paid for an on line order is only £95 and next day delivery
Check out http://www.mainlinemouldings.co.uk.

[shiltonphoto]

I do use Lion quite a bit, unfortunately, but am building a good relationship with my local D&J Simmons rep so will change allegiance when I get some samples sorted out! Its mainly the easy of on-line ordering which makes me use them.

The thing that gets me about Lion is the minimum charge. Just remember that the £50 minimum spend is EX VAT so add 20% on top of that, plus next day p&p and that quick delivery you need for one frame your customer wants very quickly ends up being £70+

I usually end up ordering stuff I don't really need to creep over the minimum spend.

If I only wanted to order mouldings for one frame, it makes me think twice about using them.

[Vix]

In fairness to Lion (and I am not connected with them in any way other than being a long standing customer), is that they have to absorb the carriage cost somewhere. In their case they do make it transparent by actually making it a seperate cost and not adding it in to the moulding / product price.

What you need to remember is that wholesalers like Lion, work on far lesser profit margins than we framers and therefore need to make sure that they are covering all their costs (including carriage and packaging) and have to have a huge turnover of stock in order to make their businesses workable.

If you need to order something for a customer fairly urgently, then the customer should understand that this will cost them and should be built into your pricing accordingly as a 'special' job. Afterall these days if you want something quicker you usually have to pay a premium for it. Over the years it's been my experience that the 'urgent' job, when the customer is aware of the extra charge applied to cover the carriage if it's not an item we keep in stock, usually turns into the not so urgent job!

It understand though that if you're not making vast amounts of frames and having to order in extra stock to make up to the minimum order value it can be frustrating but that's when you need to look to at alternatives that work for you.