Gone very quiet

[Sheepshanks]

Phooey said:

Chatting to a few online sellers recently and the current trend is that online sales are rapidly declining - in particular Amazon. A few seem quite concerned that it's not going to pick up..

That'll be my wife's fault - got her creodt card bill yesterday and it's half what it normally is. She's quite put out though - she obviously didn't realise so I'm sure will make it back up.

[Spidersleg]

Phooey said:

Chatting to a few online sellers recently and the current trend is that online sales are rapidly declining - in particular Amazon. A few seem quite concerned that it's not going to pick up..

Do you think it's temu/Ali/banggood hitting Amazon? It used to be almost a month wait for stuff from China, but now you can get things in 5 days (quicker than some UK eBay sellers) and they seem rather pushy with the coupons, daily logins and rewards etc.

[DSLiverpool]

Spidersleg said:

Phooey said:

Chatting to a few online sellers recently and the current trend is that online sales are rapidly declining - in particular Amazon. A few seem quite concerned that it's not going to pick up..

Do you think it's temu/Ali/banggood hitting Amazon? It used to be almost a month wait for stuff from China, but now you can get things in 5 days (quicker than some UK eBay sellers) and they seem rather pushy with the coupons, daily logins and rewards etc.

If you’re a brand you are golden, if you’re selling generic you are at risk of losing out to unprecedented channel choice for consumers.

So - build a brand!

[r3g]

"Brand" only works long-term if your product or service is beyond excellent and the market you are appealing to has the money to buy it. In the short term "brand" works if you pay off enough influencers to make it the to-be-seen-with thing, but that only lasts until the novelty wears off and all the fickle and shallow move onto the next fad. The vast majority of these new start-up brands fall into the latter category, ie. it's a st product coated in glitter with an obscene price tag because they've just had to pay 50 big-follower Tiktokers a sizeable sum to produce a bunch of videos filled with lies saying how awesome it is and how you can't live your life without it.

It's all fake as fk, but there's a killing to be made from the dumb youngsters who only care about their image and perceived status.

[Louis Balfour]

r3g said:

"Brand" only works long-term if your product or service is beyond excellent and the market you are appealing to has the money to buy it. In the short term "brand" works if you pay off enough influencers to make it the to-be-seen-with thing, but that only lasts until the novelty wears off and all the fickle and shallow move onto the next fad. The vast majority of these new start-up brands fall into the latter category, ie. it's a st product coated in glitter with an obscene price tag because they've just had to pay 50 big-follower Tiktokers a sizeable sum to produce a bunch of videos filled with lies saying how awesome it is and how you can't live your life without it.

It's all fake as fk, but there's a killing to be made from the dumb youngsters who only care about their image and perceived status.

We are truly blessed to enjoy marketing expertise such as this on Pistonheads.

[rallye101]

Well Tuesday will be a crap one for me, been trading 26 years, been horrendous the last 2 years, my biz partner arrived on a Monday morning in early Feb, burst into tears and has been awol since, a week later I was contacted by the hmrc fraud investigation service...
You can guess the rest!!!.....love the fact last week he finally got back to me when I said I was liquidating that I (33%share) and another both owed 1/3 on a credit card (£35k)we knew nothing about that he had pissed up the wall in the last 2yr....

[DSLiverpool]

rallye101 said:

Well Tuesday will be a crap one for me, been trading 26 years, been horrendous the last 2 years, my biz partner arrived on a Monday morning in early Feb, burst into tears and has been awol since, a week later I was contacted by the hmrc fraud investigation service...
You can guess the rest!!!.....love the fact last week he finally got back to me when I said I was liquidating that I (33%share) and another both owed 1/3 on a credit card (£35k)we knew nothing about that he had pissed up the wall in the last 2yr....

Oh mate that’s terrible I’m so sorry, business can be a horrible fker at times.
How did your partner get all that past you?

[LuckyThirteen]

Further compounding the crap news,

Client I have had for twenty years went under on Friday. Whilst he's taken me for somewhere around £8k (which hurts) I feel for more him.

He's gone from £1m/year to having put £60k of his own money and from what I gather £40k personal borrowing (and car) into the business.

Now it's gone.

For the benefit of the thread, he was high end (very) fitted furniture. A genuine quality product.

In his words 'what now, I'm 53, no qualifications, and declared bankrupt. I'm f#+ked'

[President Merkin]

My tale of woe from the freight world. I've courted a customer for nearly five years, think the first set of rates went over in 2019. Never managed to get a foot in the door but persisted on & off. Finally got in a week ago & took the first job away last wednesday. I'm a forwarder, therefore by definition, everything is subcontrated & I have decades long relationships with my suppliers.

Get an emal from the customer the following day to say the trailer hasn't arrived at its booked time. Turns out my supplier third partied it out again & they didn't bother taking it in for reasons we still don't know. Absolutely fuming & had to phone my customer & give it the full mea culpa, told the guy if he wanted to sack me, I'd take it without complaint. the guy was good about it & we carry on together but in my highly competitive, oversupplied world, there is very little worse than cocking up the first job.

[Sheepshanks]

President Merkin said:

My tale of woe from the freight world. I've courted a customer for nearly five years, think the first set of rates went over in 2019. Never managed to get a foot in the door but persisted on & off. Finally got in a week ago & took the first job away last wednesday. I'm a forwarder, therefore by definition, everything is subcontrated & I have decades long relationships with my suppliers.

Get an emal from the customer the following day to say the trailer hasn't arrived at its booked time. Turns out my supplier third partied it out again & they didn't bother taking it in for reasons we still don't know. Absolutely fuming & had to phone my customer & give it the full mea culpa, told the guy if he wanted to sack me, I'd take it without complaint. the guy was good about it & we carry on together but in my highly competitive, oversupplied world, there is very little worse than cocking up the first job.

It was a standing "joke" in one distribution company I worked for how we seemed to manage to mess up so many first orders we took. Absolutely no reason for it, the process was pretty simple.

[anonymous-user]

Often getting a cock-up in early doors cements the relationship. Everybody's expected to have hiccups here and there, it's how you deal with it that sets the tone. The best reviews I've had are normally from clients where something's gone wrong and we've done a good job fixing it.

[President Merkin]

I'm hoping so & working hard to mend thngs; In 20 years, this situation has only happened twice, last week we may have got away with, the first time, the guy told me to do one.

For me, the key is honesty, if something has had the worst possible outcome, then it's crucial to own it & tell the truth, if i were to be slippery, then I risk not only being found out but making a bad situation worse, vital to take the heat out of things if you can.

[HoHoHo]

LuckyThirteen said:

Further compounding the crap news,

Client I have had for twenty years went under on Friday. Whilst he's taken me for somewhere around £8k (which hurts) I feel for more him.

He's gone from £1m/year to having put £60k of his own money and from what I gather £40k personal borrowing (and car) into the business.

Now it's gone.

For the benefit of the thread, he was high end (very) fitted furniture. A genuine quality product.

In his words 'what now, I'm 53, no qualifications, and declared bankrupt. I'm f#+ked'

That's pretty crap however he must have seen the writing on the wall, you don't go from £1m to injecting funds and bankruptcy in a week or two?

[anonymous-user]

Lots of businesses can be high T/O and low margin. A friend of mine used to talk of the £200m construction contracts they'd won when in reality their margin was between 1% and 2%. Doesn't take much to go wrong at those margins to work hard for nothing.

[HoHoHo]

Forester1965 said:

Lots of businesses can be high T/O and low margin. A friend of mine used to talk of the £200m construction contracts they'd won when in reality their margin was between 1% and 2%. Doesn't take much to go wrong at those margins to work hard for nothing.

I fully understand that, my point was simply you would be fully aware it was going t1ts up long before you injected cash.

That said, I doubt very much if high end furniture works on a low margin, you're paying for quality and craftsmanship, not a quick build housing estate.

[anonymous-user]

No idea about this particular case, but you could easily be subbing for someone further up the chain. They go bounce and leave you holding a sudden and unexpected loss. You put your own money in for a few months whilst you try to find some new contracts and don't make it.

Opposite could be true, the frog slowly boils away, expecting things to turn up and they don't.

[LuckyThirteen]

HoHoHo said:

That's pretty crap however he must have seen the writing on the wall, you don't go from £1m to injecting funds and bankruptcy in a week or two?

You're right. He, like me, knew the downturn was kicking in back end 2022. He considered it would be tough, but survivable.

I've watched him for last 6-9 months. I could see just how hard he was fighting.

[Sheepshanks]

LuckyThirteen said:

For the benefit of the thread, he was high end (very) fitted furniture. A genuine quality product.

Do you mean very high end, or very fitted?

I thought very high end stuff - I suppose I'm thinking of cars - was supposed to be unaffected by downturns.

[anonymous-user]

loafer123 said:

Tim Cognito said:

Dave_V6 said:

Must be quiet, I've had Google send me an ads email. I'd rather drink my own warm piss.

You'd rather drink warm piss than profitability advertise to new and existing customers? You must really like warm piss.

To be fair the recent ROAS on our campaigns makes it a valid option.

Exactly!

22 year lows now, I'm done with this st & will try & get employment.

Not going to be easy though.

[skwdenyer]

Sheepshanks said:

LuckyThirteen said:

For the benefit of the thread, he was high end (very) fitted furniture. A genuine quality product.

Do you mean very high end, or very fitted?

I thought very high end stuff - I suppose I'm thinking of cars - was supposed to be unaffected by downturns.

Frame that another way: when the very high end stuff stops, there's big trouble. High end cars have often suffered - remember the XJ220 saga of Jaguar suing customers to take cars they no longer wanted, or the failure that was the McLaren F1 project. We've got a bit used recently to the idea that the HNW folks always have HNW and always spend, and that their numbers are only growing. That's a dangerous assumption to make.

My personal barometer is I start worrying when the number of hypercars just keeps on growing. When times seem good at that level for so long, people forget it was't always that way. Funding is found, cars are developed; that all takes 5 years, just in time for the next downturn.

Often the same with commercial property. There seems to be a *lot* of empty newly-built, expensive stock around from my wanderings in London...

If the furniture maker in question is really "very high end for normal people" (as it were) then I'd imagine that's the expected sign of the economic pain reaching further and further up the income levels.