• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

4over just cost us a major client

W

WhatsYourSign?

New Member
We recently landed a large client with one of the largest employers in our entire region after months of nurturing.

On their very first order with us, it was just a simple banner stand.

We ordered through 4over and the first time it was delivered, it was a banner stand for a completely different company.

They re-printed and sent it a second time and this time it won't retract.

They've messed up the same order twice in a row, killing our new relationship in the process.


Has anybody else faced similar issues with 4over? I recently purchased this company (we're a marketing company at our core) but I understand we've done business with 4over for 9 years.

I asked the previous owner about 4over last night and his comment was, "never rely on 4over for anything important...they offer a lot of products at a good price but customer service and quality assurance matters.


What's your experience been? Should we avoid them for anything important in the future?
 
U

unclebun

Active Member
The mixup on shipping a different client's product is on them. But I've never had that happen with 4Over, and probably neither has your company. On the other hand, all I've ever used them for is what they started out to make when they were founded: printed paper products like business cards and stationery.

The non-working banner retractor is something you are going to find quite commonly because banner retractors are crap products made in China with not a whit of care about quality.

The biggest issue it seems in this case is your dependence on an outside supplier for short time delivery products. If you are going to try to supply products with a short deadline, you need to be making them yourselves. Then you could ward off the mistakes that come with large suppliers. But if you have to just be a middleman, try a company that started out to do signage.
 
W

WhatsYourSign?

New Member
unclebun said:
The mixup on shipping a different client's product is on them. But I've never had that happen with 4Over, and probably neither has your company. On the other hand, all I've ever used them for is what they started out to make when they were founded: printed paper products like business cards and stationery.

The non-working banner retractor is something you are going to find quite commonly because banner retractors are crap products made in China with not a whit of care about quality.

The biggest issue it seems in this case is your dependence on an outside supplier for short time delivery products. If you are going to try to supply products with a short deadline, you need to be making them yourselves. Then you could ward off the mistakes that come with large suppliers. But if you have to just be a middleman, try a company that started out to do signage.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure where you got the impression we needed an immediate turnaround, that was never mentioned in my post.
 
U

unclebun

Active Member
If you lost the client over it, it sounds like it wasn't delivered in time. If there was time, 4Over would replace the product before you delivered it, and you wouldn't have lost the customer. Unless you were making the mistake of having them dropship and not inspecting the product before delivery.
 
W

WhatsYourSign?

New Member
unclebun said:
If you lost the client over it, it sounds like it wasn't delivered in time. If there was time, 4Over would replace the product before you delivered it, and you wouldn't have lost the customer. Unless you were making the mistake of having them dropship and not inspecting the product before delivery.
Click to expand...

Yes, they were dropshipped. There was no deadline in jeopardy.

Like the previous owner said, "don't trust 4over with anything important." Lesson learned. We won't use them for dropshipping in the future.
 
B

bannertime

Active Member
This may not be a popular opinion, but you are solely responsible for your relationship with your customers. You put it at risk by employing third party vendors. We take that risk every day, just like many other shops. It's just the risk you take by selling products you can't do in-house. I've seen 4over Local Delivery drop off other jobs at our store. I've seen Signs365 send my job to another state. Even seen them send my order to another print shop to produce. I've had B2sign send a product that had the second side upside down while the others were fine. I had a customer get a blank banner once from someone she used once. I've had a local print shop print the low res proof with watermarks. That stuff is going to happen. Your supplier is going to send you the wrong material. Your printer is going to crash. Your employee is going to have a wreck on the way to the job. Your customer is going to keep asking "why can't YOU get it right?"
 
W

WhatsYourSign?

New Member
bannertime said:
This may not be a popular opinion, but you are solely responsible for your relationship with your customers. You put it at risk by employing third party vendors. We take that risk every day, just like many other shops. It's just the risk you take by selling products you can't do in-house. I've seen 4over Local Delivery drop off other jobs at our store. I've seen Signs365 send my job to another state. Even seen them send my order to another print shop to produce. I've had B2sign send a product that had the second side upside down while the others were fine. I had a customer get a blank banner once from someone she used once. I've had a local print shop print the low res proof with watermarks. That stuff is going to happen. Your supplier is going to send you the wrong material. Your printer is going to crash. Your employee is going to have a wreck on the way to the job. Your customer is going to keep asking "why can't YOU get it right?"
Click to expand...


I think that's fair feedback and a lesson we learned the hard way.

We'll learn from it and correct things moving forward, including not dropshipping to clients.
 
W

WhatsYourSign?

New Member
Texas_Signmaker said:
I wouldn't drop ship something like that to a new, large client!! Get it delivered to you and YOU personally deliver it and keep trying to woo the company. I use drop shipping a lot, but this would NOT have been the time to.
Click to expand...

Agreed, that was definitely a mistake on our end.

There's some things I've had to learn the hard way as I've taken ownership of the business and this was something I kept i the hands of the previous owner who is now employed by me. We'll be changing how we deal with things like this starting today.


Great feedback.
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
There is always a risk outsourcing, and you need to understand the benefits and the limitations. Instead of investing in equipment and employees, I've chosen to outsource more and more. It has allowed me to make more $$ but you have to be realistic about the problems that can happen.

UNDER PROMISE and OVER DELIVER
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Sounds like you learned your lesson. That's good to hear, that you are willing to accept responsibility. That's a good sign (no pun) of a real business-like person.

One of the main problems with blind drop shipping is you have lost your 'Quality Control' on it completely. You can't even talk intelligently with your end-user, cause you never saw it.

We have a vendor who has been for years asking us to drop ship their orders to our customers. I repeatedly say no and for two basic reasons.

  1. They never send the correct quantity I specify..... in writing and they even confirm it. It still ends up 4 short...... 3 too many.... whatever.
  2. I did drop ship with a company a long time ago and although they say they blind ship, they still had advertisements for their company here and there. One was the number of items and they used their own letterheads to write down the information. I didn't like that and I've never done business with anyone like that again.
 
B

bannertime

Active Member
Gino said:
Sounds like you learned your lesson. That's good to hear, that you are willing to accept responsibility. That's a good sign (no pun) of a real business-like person.

One of the main problems with blind drop shipping is you have lost your 'Quality Control' on it completely. You can't even talk intelligently with your end-user, cause you never saw it.

We have a vendor who has been for years asking us to drop ship their orders to our customers. I repeatedly say no and for two basic reasons.

  1. They never send the correct quantity I specify..... in writing and they even confirm it. It still ends up 4 short...... 3 too many.... whatever.
  2. I did drop ship with a company a long time ago and although they say they blind ship, they still had advertisements for their company here and there. One was the number of items and they used their own letterheads to write down the information. I didn't like that and I've never done business with anyone like that again.
Click to expand...

Kind of off topic, but I got a delivery from a vendor (not a sign vendor) that had flyers from other businesses. Like a wine tasting ad and some type of supply company ad. So, I really dislike drop shipping stuff.
 
Fuel Media

Fuel Media

New Member
I do 95% in house .. but Mistakes happen, and will happen always give long delays when outsorcing a job !! retractable banners will fail !!! BUT NEVER DROPSHIP !!!!! ALWAYS INSPECT your orders before delivery to client !!!
in the last 5 years they only f****d up twice ... 1.) not cutting cards straight 2.) only making 1 of 2 feather flags ordered and taking over a month to get the second one
Learn from the mistakes made .....
 
F

fresh

New Member
i dont' drop ship unless its a product and a vendor i know won't screw it up. i have like, one sign trade vendor I'd be willing to drop ship with.

also, i have no problem with 4over, but I don't use them for signs. I make signs in house.
 
S

shoresigns

New Member
We use 4over for a lot of things here, too, but we never drop ship. They occasionally screw up, but we catch it and make them redo it before it gets to the client.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top