In his latest contribution to Large Format Review, Peter French - our man on the ground - vents his frustration and asks "Why is everything out of stock these days?"
Here’s a rough overview of a conversation I had last week:
Me: “Hello , can I order 2 rolls of 1600 wide print vinyl please?”
Supplier: “I’m sorry, we are out of stock at the moment. I can put it on back order for you...”
Me: “OK, when will it be available?”
Supplier: “in about a week…”
Me: “what?!”
To my mind, this is nonsense. Standard 1600 wide white vinyl out of stock with a major supplier? How is this possible? And this is not the first time this has happened of late. What on earth am I supposed to print on?!
This scenario is, sadly, all too common these days. Only a week or so ago, I needed a 50m roll of standard stock red vinyl from the same supplier. Again, out of stock for at least a week...
Today I called our Foamex supplier for 10 sheets of 5mm only to be told that they only had 3 on the shelf and the remaining 7 couldn’t be delivered until next Tuesday. Now, if I was the only person buying from them I could understand it as I’ve already had 10 sheets this week, but I’m not. There must be dozens of people like me buying Foamex from them, so how can they run their stocks so far down?
I hear nothing but woe from many other sign makers at the moment, so it’s not just me experiencing these supply shortages.
Recently, I rang a trade supplier of banner stands and pop-ups, only to be told that the item I wanted was out of stock and the next shipment would be at the end of the month.
Now I appreciate that I can shop around. I have several suppliers each offering very similar products and normally I can find what I need. But it doesn’t explain why so much material is out of stock with main suppliers - certainly when they also claim to be manufacturers.
My theory is that the suppliers are experiencing exactly the same problem as the rest of us in this industry – namely cash flow. They do not want to take the risk of having too much stock and not enough money in the bank. Especially in a tough market where some customers are struggling to pay their bills.
The supplier solution appears to be simply to cut stock levels. This - to my mind - is crazy as it creates shortages which mean customers then go elsewhere or fail to meet their own deadlines for product delivery.
The car industry has, for many years, successfully operated the “just-in-time” method of working, whereby stock is kept to a minimum, ordering is automated when levels reach a low water mark, and a cavalcade of logistics lorries keep arriving at the main gate to keep the stock bins full. However, it takes a computer the size of barn to manage stock in this way – not one man with a clipboard walking up and down the aisles listing down shortages.
The number of times I have heard “We don’t have it in 1370mm... but I can cut down a 1600mm roll... although you’ll have to pay the 1600mm price”. This is not an answer I want to hear. I base my product pricing on the yardage of a 1370 roll, not a 1600. I have enough problems trying to remain competitive these days without having to charge a customer extra or taking the hit myself just because material is out of stock.
If suppliers are reading this, I have one plea to make on behalf of sign shops across the country: Please can you try and keep stock levels up on mainstream products? This business is hard enough in the current climate, without the need for additional stock-related frustrations...
About Peter French: Peter has been working in the sign industry for 9 years having spent a lifetime in IT. Specialising in kick-starting businesses, Peter worked in many diverse business sectors. For most of the time at Signtec he has been at the forefront of large format printing with both solvent and UV technologies.
