MidwayUSA

[Pablo]

Quote:
Larry,

First of all, I just entered my first web order with your company. Great web site, cool looking company.

I do have a beef. The amount of items on backorder is crazy ridiculous. I mean not to be insulting, but what, you can't have a warehouse larger than my shop? Or can you not have your suppliers on hair trigger for drop shipping? Or are you just having logistics issues? There are four items I decided to wait on. I had to change my mind on almost EVERYTHING else I choose and finally I just grabbed a good alternative - meaning I didn't buy exactly what I wanted. If that in itself isn't bad enough, you are charging me OUTRAGEOUS freight on the four backordered items, a separate nasty shipping charge. It's as if you are doubling up on customers because YOU ran out. Think about it - I'm penalized monetarily (and time wise) - because you have no stock. I can tell you one thing, your largest competitor does not do this.

Can you check my order out and look into the freight charges, please. I would love for you to convince me why I should stay as a customer.

Customer #: 10XXXX757
Invoice #: 12XXXX78
Invoice Date: 1/16/2011 8:21:51 AM

Regards,

Paul

 

[Johnny]

Oh my!

 

[simple_gifts]

I wouldn't bang your head to make him a successful business person. The market (like with Home Despot) should solve this issue. Giving him feedback is good, but if you have to explain why customers will get PO'd with his policies, it is a lost cause.

 

[duaneb9729]

Sounds like an odd way to do business keep customers, esp in this business climate. Have you talked to other folks that have used this company?

What were you buying?

I like your complaint letter, If the company has any sense it will work on solving the issues, not only for you but for their own future growth as well.

 

[demarpaint]

I wrote Larry and company off a long time ago. No point in banging my head against the wall, or lining his pockets.

 

[duaneb9729]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
I wouldn't bang your head to make him a successful business person. The market (like with Home Despot) should solve this issue. Giving him feedback is good, but if you have to explain why customers will get PO'd with his policies, it is a lost cause.


As a business owner sometimes I get focused on the wrong things, esp when there are tons of things being thrown our way every day.

If the company is a fairly new company, they could be getting bad advice or just plain not thinking.

The letter that Pablo wrote could seriously change things quickly. Or not depending on management.

I am not making excuses or trying to justify what happened, I agree with Pablo 100%.

But a well worded polite complaint letter in the past has allowed me to keep customers and fine tune what we do.

The BBB has some figures something to the tune of 7 or 8 out of 10 customers with issues will never call to complain, but will tell all of their friends and family.

I believe that as a company, if we make sure our customers needs are met, our employees needs are met, then my needs will be met.

Could complaint letters or calls be considered an obligation?
A complaint could help ones self, it could help the next customer if not ones own self and it could help the company serve itself and its employees better. jmho

Duane

 

[Warstud]

If this is a stock issue...I feel you.
There's an outdoor equipment supplier near me that I used to do business with that never had the parts I needed in stock. Parts were somewhat reasonably priced but when they got them in and I went to pick them up I had to pay a shipping charge. Which ended up costing more than the part itself. Anyway I'm done doing business with them.

 

[tom slick]

What types of stuff were you trying to order? Ammo stock is going nuts right now because Calif. will no longer be able to mail-order "handgun ammo" after 1/21/10.Shipping prices have been reasonable. Did you order powder or primers? Both have a $25 hazmat fee by the freight carrier that everyone has to charge. Except for a couple high demand or low volume items I haven't had a backorder issue with them in 15+ orders.

Besides that, I'm not a single source shopper. Brownells, Graf and Sons, Natchez, Cabela's, and even Amazon carry almost everything I'm looking for.

 

[Pablo]

Trust me, I'm not a one supplier guy. A couple guys actually recommended this place to me. I didn't go too deep, seems like just basic stuff. I certainly wouldn't expect them to have tons of popular ammo, I've been down that road.

They were out of the two carbon fiber rods, bench rests, gun bench rests, gun cases, etc

 

[greenaccord02]

I shop brownell's and numrich almost exclusively for this kind of stuff. Now, to be honest, they both have stuff out of stock or on backorder from time to time, but it's usually weird stuff that you might expect to be out of stock. I've been dealing more and more with Sarco for military surplus stuff and I've been happy with them.

 

[Pablo]

I just bought a few items from Brownell's. No issues at all.

BTW - for the record, I still have some .44 mag ammo (2 boxes) on back order from Cabelas.

 

[G-MAN]

Originally Posted By: Pablo
I just bought a few items from Brownell's. No issues at all.

BTW - for the record, I still have some .44 mag ammo (2 boxes) on back order from Cabelas.


Brownells is top notch. I ordered a set of punches from them last year and when they got here one was bent. I called up the customer service line and spoke to a very polite lady. She asked me the number of the bent punch. I gave it to her and she said they would ship me out a replacement the next day. It arrived UPS overnight. Now that's service.

 

[unDummy]

Never had that problem with them. Everything that I've order from them always shipped/tracked quickly. The website is pretty accurate for inventory. So, if something isn't in stock, I buy it elsewhere. I never bother with back orders from any company.

 

[Pablo]

Originally Posted By: unDummy
Never had that problem with them. Everything that I've order from them always shipped/tracked quickly. The website is pretty accurate for inventory. So, if something isn't in stock, I buy it elsewhere. I never bother with back orders from any company.



Seems like everything they do have is going to be fine, got confirmation emails and such. I will wait for backorders from time to time to combine shipping and save, and that's what got my goat. I may still cancel that portion of the order, depending what they say.

The MAIN things I'm waiting on are Tipton carbon fiber cleaning rods. Although I did find them here:

http://www.opticsplanet.net/tipton-deluxe-1-piece-carbon-fiber-cleaning-rod-22-26.html

www.opticsplanet.net????? Looks cool.

 

[unDummy]

http://www.battenfeldtechnologies.com/dealers/locator.asp
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/OpticsPlanet

Looks mildly safe too.

 

[Mr_Joe]

I like Midway but I'm not beholden to any company. I shop around for prices,reduced shipping,no taxes, & all the rest. For the most part I'm rather happy with Midway & hope they stay around.

 

[Pablo]

Originally Posted By: duaneb9729
Sounds like an odd way to do business keep customers, esp in this business climate. Have you talked to other folks that have used this company?

What were you buying?

I like your complaint letter, If the company has any sense it will work on solving the issues, not only for you but for their own future growth as well.


Yeah well Larry did respond:

Quote:
It's true, we are having trouble keeping items on the shelves, particularly reloading components, anything that might be affected by another "assault weapons" ban and loaded ammo. I think this is due to a combination of factors, including wartime demand for munitions that are made on the same assembly lines as commercial ammunition, the meteoric rise in raw materials that have raised ammunition prices so high that there is an influx of new reloaders buying more reloading equipment/components than the factories projected and course the big reason, the last Presidential election that has a lot of shooters very concerned. The factories have all added additional shifts and are operating at capacity, but the demand does not seem to be slowing down. I might order fifty cases of ammunition, and the factory can only send me five. If everyone would just buy what they need, we could get thru these shortages quickly, but people are upset they can't get ammo/supplies like they usually do, so they are making the problem worse by trying to stock up even more. Please accept my apology for the lack of stock, and I appreciate your patience as the supply lines catch up with demand. It is troubling to me that we are a nation of over 60 million gunowners, and 14 million hunters, yet membership in the NRA hovers around four million. Instead of panic buying in fear that politicians are going to infringe on our rights, we need to get our heads out of the sand and join the NRA. We need to use the political process to make our voices heard, and until we organize and do that, I think we will always have the danger of politicians trying to ban guns.



Thanks for Your Business,



Larry Potterfield

Founder/CEO

MidwayUSA

NRA Benefactor Member

 

[tom slick]

You should reply if the reason is an ammo shortage due to unforeseen 2 years of demand then why are they out of cleaning rods and ear muffs. Also jab him with the fact that Brownells had no inventory issues for the same items.

 

[Pablo]

Seems like a canned answer....I didn't mention ammo and they actually had ammo in stock.

 

[tom slick]

I agree