13 replies to this topic

[Chris Miller]

Calling their office and you get a message saying they are closed until 1:05 EST. Do they close down for lunch or something? :tongue:

Anyone know why they are closed?

[LouieM]

They may have had a Halloween lunch party for the employees. We had 1 here and shut down for an hour today. Just our way of thanking employees. We let the voice mail work for us today from 12:15 - 1:00

[Chris Miller]

Ahh didn't even think of that! I bet they did have something going for halloween.

We did manage to get in touch with them after 1 only to find they wont be honoring pricing that they have on their own ASI website. They blamed ASI for what I consider false advertising. Oh well - probably a great supplier now crossed off my list because of a lack of ethics.

[Remy]

Chris,
I'd call back and talk to someone else. I have always had good luck with these folks. Prompt delivery and good customer service.

[Sierra]

Chris --
Don't cross them off your list. I have always had nothing but good results from them.

[Joe Denhoff]

Call Eric Clarke at 800-666-7117 x 316
He will make any problem you have right.
Vitronic was just very good to me with an order .

[IDEASGirl]

You shouldn't take them off of your list. I've never have a problem with them. They increased their Spanish pads for the Press-N-Stick calendars this year. My customer (this is the 4th year that put the same order) almost had a heart attack with the increased price. In V4S gave me a good deal for this loyal customer when I mentioned the situation.

They have great customer service...

[Chris Miller]

Joe Denhoff said:

Call Eric Clarke at 800-666-7117 x 316
He will make any problem you have right.
Vitronic was just very good to me with an order .

Thanks Joe but Eric was the one who said they wouldn't honor the pricing on their website. :(

[A G]

Chris,

EVERY supplier has their "pluses" and their "minuses". I understand that at least their Missouri plant (and perhaps also their Ohio) plant are "in the sticks", or in more rural areas. Anyone who has ever been to Europe knows that many merchants in many towns close for lunch.

You and I are use to (and, perhaps in a way 'spoiled') by having ANYTHING we want WHENEVER we want. Between convenience stores and fastfood drive-ins, our society has changed.

However, years ago in France, I found a benefit (there, they'd even close high schools for a couple of hours, so kids could go home to eat lunch) to this "closing down for lunch" thing. Sometimes, it gives employees a chance to go home, or to go out for lunch. And, having most everyone do it at once, helps keep problems as far as who takes a lunch when.

True, it does inconvenience you and me. But, sometimes, this is a "benefit" a company can offer to employees that perhaps many of them like.

We just got an order done by Vitronic in which they did a very good quality job on a somewhat larger order. They had a backlog in production which meant things were very tight in getting all of the quantity on our order shipped out on time (they were sending it to us via Motor Freight, to keep OUR costs and our Customer's costs down).

And, though things first looked very tentative for doing this, they (Vitronic) went (I feel) the extra mile, and shipped the WHOLE order on time. I was pleased, and so was my customer.

I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND Vitronic. They give very good value for your (and your client's) advertising dollar.

If you call around enough, you will find enough suppliers who close for lunch (and many of them, you can't even get an answering machine to answer the phone)!!!

Put up with a few of their idiosyncrisies, work with them, and you will be amply rewarded.

I have a problem with so many East Coast suppliers who don't have anyone to answer my questions after 4:00, 4:30, or 5:00 pm. (We're 2 hours behind the East Coast). I would like to see many of them have SOMEONE who can answer questions then. But, alas, they give THEIR employees time off when they close. So, what can one do, for now, but 'go along'?

A G

[ericidline]

I understand your getting irritated at not honoring the price that ASI published - but here is the low down on the search services available to you - the distributor. ASI - we suppliers send them our catalog and they enter the information, we have no control over what they enter. Same with SAGE. Distributor Central, PMDM and Impact are all entered by the supplier themselves, unless you pay special to have them do it. This pricing is more the responsibility of the supplier.

What we do (right or wrong) is say that the pricing in our catalog (or our web site) prevails. That does not say we won't work with distributors - depending on how wrong the price is, but we often times do. What we also will do is honr the price and then go back to ASI/SAGE or whoever and get the balance from them in the form of an account credit. That really motivates them to fix it...

[ANDY62]

Sinse i have been busiiness since 1974 .
Vitronic was owned by a family own business and from the day we started using Vitronic to this day they have been a top supplier in our Industry.
Of course they have been sold many times over or have purchased other ASI supplier companies. (Can't keep up with the history)
I think back in the Early 90's they have expanded there line from Vinyl to caps and all other kinds of products.
However we have always depended on Vitronic. They follow up on proofs or any errors on your po and deliver on time and rush jobs.
I really use them more now these days on there stick on calendars on repeat orders for many yrs.
Just a short note back then they were a franchise and we had 3 top vinyl supplier that we could use Vitronic, The Hazel Vinyl Co. And running in 3rd place Forward Industries.
All 3 suppliers were more on top of our industry as good suppliers for for vinyl products.

Andy Torres
Andy Torres Adv Spes
www.andytorresadv.com

[epromo_1]

I work on putting supplier's information into our company's product database, and I have to agree with Eric. When a supplier gives their information to a database they are totally at the mercy of the database to get their information in correctly. I have suppliers tell me horror stories all the time about how they lose money because a database put their information in incorrectly, despite being given correct information.

If the information is incorrect in a databse, don't be so quick to blame the supplier. Sometimes it may because a supplier has not bothered to provide updated information, but also it can be just as much the fault of the database for entering incorrect information.

[Chris Miller]

epromo_1 said:

I work on putting supplier's information into our company's product database, and I have to agree with Eric. When a supplier gives their information to a database they are totally at the mercy of the database to get their information in correctly. I have suppliers tell me horror stories all the time about how they lose money because a database put their information in incorrectly, despite being given correct information.

If the information is incorrect in a databse, don't be so quick to blame the supplier. Sometimes it may because a supplier has not bothered to provide updated information, but also it can be just as much the fault of the database for entering incorrect information.

This all depends on the service provider. DC for example allows suppliers to edit their own information and they charge the supplier for having their products in the database. Supplier pays & is able to edit their information = supplier responsibility.

Even with the other providers - it is the responsibility of the supplier to go over all of their products in these databases and submit any corrections that need to be made. If they cannot do that then they should not be listing their products in these databases. When this is done, if the service provider cannot immediately update the product info then they are in the wrong business.

Service providers should start taking some responsibility too. Allow suppliers to update their information so they do not have to rely on you to update the info. If not then perhaps the service provider should be paying the difference when there are discrepancies in price.

This is 2006..... these are not just search tools anymore. Distributors see the pricing, end users see the pricing and it's what all of us expect to pay. Anything other is false advertising, bait and switch or whatever you want to call it no matter who entered the data.

[epromo_1]

Chris - You are totally right. I think the best answer is a mixture of both types of entering data (supplier driven and database manager driven) as well as putting more effort towards getting the information in correct from the beginning.

One of the best ways to get a database to be more responsible for what prices they list is to complain directly to them when prices are wrong. While I cannot say what responses you might get from other companies, I know that when we get such a complaint, fixing that price info becomes priority number one. But, as hard as we try to get it right, if no one tells us it is wrong then we can't fix it.