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Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

modest.coffee

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Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#311

Post by lbotos »

fabian2k wrote: post #257
zuppy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t be that sure about the price being good, if we’re talking about specialty coffee, which is a totally different kind of beast than the supermarket coffee. It’s almost a half a year old coffee (time since roast), a great part of the flavor has been already lost. We also don’t know how it has been stored, temperature will also affect the quality. here’s a very deeply technical explanation of this, right from…

The kind of people that buy specialty coffee would also tend to pay attention to roast dates and have very different expectations compared to people that buy coffee in a supermarket. Half a year is a lot for this audience. When you buy from a roaster directly something like roasted a week ago would be more like the typical age. So I'm a bit surprised, I would have expected this audience to be much pickier about the a…

I suspect that the people buying this coffee are either:

1. Taking the "loss" to support a small business

2. Normies who feel like they are getting a deal on "Specialty coffee" that they normally wouldn't buy. Some people can't pass up a deal (esp a feel good one!)

Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#312

Post by mindslight »

krisoft wrote: post #288
mindslight wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious reason the details of their story don't make full 100% correct post-facto sense is because they hired someone specifically to facilitate their interaction with the larger market. They trusted this person to get these details right, so that they could focus on their actual business of making coffee. It turns out that person was some kind of incompetent, and they themselves were left holding the bag(s). I'd…

> It turns out that person was some kind of incompetent, and they themselves were left holding the bag(s). I understand that that is the story they want to tell us. But that story doesn’t add up. If you are selling anything you need to know at the point of signing the contract how many you need to deliver, for how much each, and what is the total. Even if the person negotiating completely drops the ball at worst you…

Or the price was listed in $/lb, $/bag, or the distributor even played sloppy with the definition of "unit" where it meant bag in some places, and carton in others.

As practical advice to avoid getting burnt, yes what you say is true.

But as condemnation from an Internet Investigator who's going to get to the bottom of this company's possibly flimsy story to save us from some possible omitted details? meh. I can totally see how the attorney reviews the contract, the consultant explains the terms, and the business owner is mistaken about what they're signing up for. They did think they knew, that was the entire problem.

Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#313

Post by chihuahua »

dang wrote: post #231
JackFr wrote: post #144

Did I miss something in the article about how this was a grift? While these guys feel like they were screwed, and sure, they might have been screwed, making an order and then cancelling it isn’t a grift. No one stole from them, and I’m not sure how the multi-billion dollar grocery distributor got any financial benefit from the whole episode.

If someone suggests a more accurate and neutral title that doesn't say 'grift', we can change it.

"Our distributor cancelled their order and we need to move 6,000 bags of decaf coffee"

Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#315

Post by dwightgunning »

> This coffee is still good. It was roasted in June and July 2022 with a one year best buy date.

Still good but hardly fresh for a specialty.

Anyway. There’s a 6x number in here that somebody (or somebodies) completely missed…

Seems like what they thought was a fair-to-good deal was actually a such a terrible deal that, given their incorrect definition of a unit, the numbers in their model lined up.

That might be something the consultant could have spotted, since they’d seen the numbers around previous deals. I’m not sure it’s their duty/obligation to.

Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#316

Post by jimnotgym »

arpinum wrote: post #131
buu709 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in wholesale, but a different industry (electrical) and this is 100% wrong from my experience. Varies from business to business but often times our POs go out for single units rather than cases. It's actually a huge headache for us as we can't get the team responsible to keep our ERP system up to date on which units to use for which lines.

It’s a lot more clear if you use EDI to transact with trading partners

Not necessarily. Wrong price on a PO is wrong price on a PO, electronically or not. A human set it up in the system.

Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#317

Post by epicureanideal »

arpinum wrote: post #131
buu709 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in wholesale, but a different industry (electrical) and this is 100% wrong from my experience. Varies from business to business but often times our POs go out for single units rather than cases. It's actually a huge headache for us as we can't get the team responsible to keep our ERP system up to date on which units to use for which lines.

It’s a lot more clear if you use EDI to transact with trading partners

What’s the best resource for learning about EDI?

Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#318

Post by nkrisc »

dtnewman wrote: post #280
lisper wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it sounds like they had an initial agreement for 6000 units, but the actual purchase orders were coming in piecemeal. What difference does that make? They thought they had a deal to sell 6000 "units" for $250,000. If they had just bothered to divide 250 by 6 they would have immediately realized that a unit could not possibly be a bag, and they would, by their own account, have passed on the deal, and none of thi…

You are making the assumption that there's some formal deal for $250k total. I don't think that was ever the case. My guess is that in these negotiations, you tell the buyer that you sell in packs of 6 for say $41/case. They run their numbers and come back to you saying "okay, we have all the info we need and we are going to take 6000 units and the formal POs will come over the next few weeks."

Even so, you told them you sell in packs of 6. That’s a unit then. I sympathize with the producers but this really seems like their error.

Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#319

Post by mrandish »

analog31 wrote: post #89
georgeburdell wrote: post #3

One thing that irks me about dealing with big businesses, that the post touches on, is payment terms. If I buy an item, I pay for it immediately (or if it’s large enough, a creditor pays for me). Big companies pay with IOUs that say they’ll give you cash later, say 30-90 days from now or after criterion X is fulfilled. They do not care if you’re a small company with poor liquidity. I think it’s absolutely abusive beh…

It's worse than that because they will drag out payment after the term has passed. My first job out of school was for a mom-and-pop manufacturing company. I got an inquiry one day from a very well known company, and mentioned it to the boss. He gave me a long lecture about why we didn't work with that industry. They were notorious for stringing their suppliers along and holding them in a sort of debt bondage. I remem…

Yep, when I started out in business I focused a lot on price (and hence our margin). I then learned that with large distributors / customers the more important aspect can be the terms because "terms and conditions" of sale can make an order not an order, a payment be delayed months and even the price paid not how much you receive.

Re: Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]

#320

Post by epicureanideal »

Anyone know a good resource (book, video, whatever) about starting a small business, including approximate customer or revenue growth rates and mechanisms to get customers? So much I’ve been reading is for high growth startups and I wonder what the other end of the growth distribution is supposed to look like. How to know a slightly profitable hobby from a growing small business, for example?
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