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Ugh, vendor had a fire. No backup

binki

binki

New Member
Well our vendor for Letterman Jackets had a fire in their only facility that makes them. All inventory is assumed lost either by fire or damage from the fire. They can't even tell me if any of my pending jobs shipped because they don't have backups of their computer system at the facility.

Now I am scrambling to get my orders at other vendors. Unfortunately so is everyone else. The volume there was about 1000/day.
 
binki

binki

New Member
Right now I have 3 places I think I can get jackets but the process starts all over and I had net terms with my vendor so I may have to pay up front just to place the order. Also, at least 2 of them does not have all of the options our current vendor has so what I can replace without changing anything is very small. On top of that we are not the only ones in the spot. Everyone who got jackets from this vendor is screwed at the end of school. A lot of seniors will not get their LJ before the end of summer.

Now, what makes things worse is they just went through a material shortage where all of our orders were delayed by 6 to 8 weeks on top of the 6 week lead time.
 
binki

binki

New Member
White Haus said:
You think it sucks for you, imagine how they must feel.
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Well, I am going to start making calls tonight to my customers who won't have a jacket for at least another 6 months and that is being optimistic. Some of them have already waited 3 months.
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
binki said:
Well, I am going to start making calls tonight to my customers who won't have a jacket for at least another 6 months and that is being optimistic. Some of them have already waited 3 months.
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Again, you're complaining about people not getting custom jackets. I feel like losing your livelyhood/building/business is a little worse.

Not saying your situation doesn't suck. Just seems like you're expecting pity where it isn't due.
 
binki

binki

New Member
Holloway will survive. Custom orders is only one part of their business but you are only a Senior once. This is taking a quarter million custom jackets off the market as well as all custom sports uniforms so while baseball/softball season may be ok, football, basketball, volleyball, soccer are screwed. This puts pressure on all 'off the rack' and other custom suppliers.

Don't pity me, I am not looking for it. It is the kids that are affected by this as well as the sports programs we supply.
 
Boudica

Boudica

I'm here for Educational Purposes
JBurton said:
I'm baffled they still sell these. They weren't leather when I was a kid, but they were still $150 or something stupid. One coworkers daughter was getting one for softball, but they knew it wouldn't ship until mid summer. I wonder if it will be further delayed due to this...

Problem being they often only release half the cash until you prove with invoices that the repairs have been completed. Better start printing invoices before you douse the computers in kerosene. My uncle always said a ball of twine soaked in kerosene goes pretty far when you throw it, and is a pretty effective fuse if you hold the loose end...
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I lettered in High School, but I thought the lettermans jackets - the girls version anyway was stupid, and too expensive. So I made my own out of my jean jacket. I sewed the letter and all the other add-ons. it was so badass. Someone stole it when I was in college. I don't know why, it was only special to me.
 
Scotchbrite

Scotchbrite

No comment
Boudica said:
I lettered in High School, but I thought the lettermans jackets - the girls version anyway was stupid, and too expensive. So I made my own out of my jean jacket. I sewed the letter and all the other add-ons. it was so badass. Someone stole it when I was in college. I don't know why, it was only special to me.
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Did it have an AC/DC patch on the back? :D
 
binki

binki

New Member
The only good side of this is nobody was killed or injured. The fire happened overnight right after Easter. The bad news is there were 4 days of production ready to ship that were sitting in that facility.

The jackets we sell are high quality wool and real leather. They are lifetime jackets if they are taken care of properly.

This is more than just a vendor not being able to sell and their employees out of work. We will also lose good will, thousands of dollars in profit and our schools that do profit sharing for bulk orders will lose fund raising they counted on with our program where they get 15% of each order for their sports/band/dance/etc programs. This is pretty serious, at least 5000 jackets a week that is lost in production. Figure they were backlogged 4 months and that is 85,000 jackets that are not going to be produced and no other vendor or combination of vendors will be able to absorb that volume. That is just the orders lost that were already in process. Add 5000 jackets a week to that so by Friday this week it will be 90K that won't be produced. Next week 95K, and by May 100K. The average jacket retail with decoration is well over $400 plus sales tax. So what, $40 Million and counting down the drain plus the loss of the facility and labor? All the people that won't have jobs now?

I have been contacting other vendors and have already been told by one that they won't take orders from those that had a loss because of the fire. I think we are pretty much screwed for the next 6 months on this. Our loss on this will be thousands. We already produced the chenille emblems which will be a total lose for 2022 and possibly 2023 as those are perishable. The others are just sunk costs until we get more orders for them for the same school. On top of that our chenille supplier is screwed as anyone like us will not be ordering from him if they can't get jackets.

All of this is on top of the last 2 years of material shortages for just about everything we sell. Our lost opportunity is already pretty high. This will only make it worse.
 
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binki

binki

New Member
Just an update. I had 4 alternates. The biggest one said 'F Off' in so many words. Basically the same thing they said 15 years ago when we started selling LJ's which is why we didn't set up an account with them. We just were not big enough for them. Two have not responded and the 4th will have the owner call me tomorrow. Hmmm, who should I go with?
 
GAC05

GAC05

Quit buggin' me
Fires are not fun. We had one in our paint n body shop a long time ago. Shop was full of customers' vehicles. Odd stuff that happened - It got hot enough to melt the glass out of the window frames in a full-sized tour bus. Cans of thinner popped their caps off from pressure build-up but were still full of thinner when the fire inspectors went through the remains (this made them suspect my dad started the fire for some reason). And, our shop cat was inside the whole time - came out half-blind, singed but recovered to go back to hunting the rats that most likely also survived.
Took a very long time to recover with our insurance short on the total cost of the vehicles.
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
GAC05 said:
Fires are not fun. We had one in our paint n body shop a long time ago. Shop was full of customers' vehicles. Odd stuff that happened - It got hot enough to melt the glass out of the window frames in a full-sized tour bus. Cans of thinner popped their caps off from pressure build-up but were still full of thinner when the fire inspectors went through the remains (this made them suspect my dad started the fire for some reason). And, our shop cat was inside the whole time - came out half-blind, singed but recovered to go back to hunting the rats that most likely also survived.
Took a very long time to recover with our insurance short on the total cost of the vehicles.
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Did they figure out what caused it? A friend of mine changed out his booth filters and had them in a trash can sitting in the middle of his shop. He came in the next morning and they had caught on fire but luckily nothing else burned but did cause a lot of smoke damage. He has told me the story at least 10 times, we put ours in a barrel of water until trash day. Used rags are just as dangerous especially for the furniture guys who use more natural oil based products.
We were painting a cement mixer once and the started randomly started cranking while we were spraying. By the time I grabbed a wrench and started disconnecting the battery, the cable caught on fire, in the paint booth in the middle of painting. That one got my heart going. I burnt my hand disconnecting it but it beat the alternative.
 
Scotchbrite

Scotchbrite

No comment
binki said:
The only good side of this is nobody was killed or injured. The fire happened overnight right after Easter. The bad news is there were 4 days of production ready to ship that were sitting in that facility.

The jackets we sell are high quality wool and real leather. They are lifetime jackets if they are taken care of properly.

This is more than just a vendor not being able to sell and their employees out of work. We will also lose good will, thousands of dollars in profit and our schools that do profit sharing for bulk orders will lose fund raising they counted on with our program where they get 15% of each order for their sports/band/dance/etc programs. This is pretty serious, at least 5000 jackets a week that is lost in production. Figure they were backlogged 4 months and that is 85,000 jackets that are not going to be produced and no other vendor or combination of vendors will be able to absorb that volume. That is just the orders lost that were already in process. Add 5000 jackets a week to that so by Friday this week it will be 90K that won't be produced. Next week 95K, and by May 100K. The average jacket retail with decoration is well over $400 plus sales tax. So what, $40 Million and counting down the drain plus the loss of the facility and labor? All the people that won't have jobs now?

I have been contacting other vendors and have already been told by one that they won't take orders from those that had a loss because of the fire. I think we are pretty much screwed for the next 6 months on this. Our loss on this will be thousands. We already produced the chenille emblems which will be a total lose for 2022 and possibly 2023 as those are perishable. The others are just sunk costs until we get more orders for them for the same school. On top of that our chenille supplier is screwed as anyone like us will not be ordering from him if they can't get jackets.

All of this is on top of the last 2 years of material shortages for just about everything we sell. Our lost opportunity is already pretty high. This will only make it worse.
Click to expand...
It's like the butterfly effect that always gets talked about in time travel movies.
 
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