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renowb

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Just a rant. Have you ever had a customer order several pens, you make them, and you never hear from them again? It just happened to me. This was on the web, via email. He bought from me before and wanted several more. I bought the parts, made them and contacted him. Nothing. No communication whatsoever. I know maybe he had personal problems, etc. But I never leave anybody hanging like that. I know I can sell them, but it irritates me to no end that people do that! Just venting a little....Ok, now back to your normal program...
 
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This is why so many on here require 50% down on special orders. This is not an exclusive situtaion to pen makers either. I would continue to try and contact the customer.
 
Who knows, his system might be down with one of these danged trojans. I just had to take off another one yesterday.
 
I haven't had it happen with wood turnings, but I have had the experience of having someone ask to purchase a photograph, and when I tried to find them to deliver it, they had disappeared.

And in my professional career, I lost track of the number of times a customer promised to place an order, and then either vanished or came up with an 'excuse'.

It's part of doing business. If your business model involves custom production of anything, you need to establish the practice of requiring an up-front payment that will at least cover your out-of-pocked costs.
 
JimB said:
Always get a deposit of at least 50%, even if there isn't anything unusual about the pens and you believe you can sell them anyway.
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While I agree that getting a deposit is a good idea for making several pens just for a customer, I would not make a blanket policy in asking a repeat customer for an advance. I would let the frequency of the repeat business dictate how I treated a deposit or lack thereof! I've had repeat customers who spent hundreds of dollars on pens and asking them to put up a deposit now would be an insult in my eyes.

The only exception would be if the customer asked for a very unique pen using rare or odd materials that I might not be able to sell if he changed his mind.

I'd give it some time. I had an attorney in Wyoming email me a custom pen order after ordering three others from my website. I finished the pen and emailed him but got no reply, a few more emails went unanswered as well. A few weeks later he emailed asking how I was coming along with the pen! I called him and it seemed that my earlier emails were going into his "Spam" folder and he never saw them. Never assume emails are 100% failproof!
 
Texatdurango said:
JimB said:
Always get a deposit of at least 50%, even if there isn't anything unusual about the pens and you believe you can sell them anyway.
Click to expand...

While I agree that getting a deposit is a good idea for making several pens just for a customer, I would not make a blanket policy in asking a repeat customer for an advance. I would let the frequency of the repeat business dictate how I treated a deposit or lack thereof! I've had repeat customers who spent hundreds of dollars on pens and asking them to put up a deposit now would be an insult in my eyes.

The only exception would be if the customer asked for a very unique pen using rare or odd materials that I might not be able to sell if he changed his mind.

I'd give it some time. I had an attorney in Wyoming email me a custom pen order after ordering three others from my website. I finished the pen and emailed him but got no reply, a few more emails went unanswered as well. A few weeks later he emailed asking how I was coming along with the pen! I called him and it seemed that my earlier emails were going into his "Spam" folder and he never saw them. Never assume emails are 100% failproof!
Click to expand...

You make good points and I agree with what you say. I certainly wouldn't insult an established customer by suddenly requesting deposits from them. Let me change my response to always get deposits from new/unknown customers when they want customer orders.
 
renowb said:
Just a rant. Have you ever had a customer order several pens, you make them, and you never hear from them again? It just happened to me. This was on the web, via email. He bought from me before and wanted several more. I bought the parts, made them and contacted him. Nothing. No communication whatsoever. I know maybe he had personal problems, etc. But I never leave anybody hanging like that. I know I can sell them, but it irritates me to no end that people do that! Just venting a little....Ok, now back to your normal program...
Click to expand...
Oh sure...he may have the personal problem of irresponsibility!!!!:rolleyes:
 
With boat parts we finally started getting 50% up front no matter what. In this economy even our long time repeat customers were screwing us. Log time repeat customers deserve an explanation why the up front payments but in my experience they understand and there is no problem. We did not lose customers because of this policy.
 
I agree 50% before you start. I got touched once (just for a three pen set, and since I started 50% before turning I haven't been hit at all.

Good luck, and maybe he will be back and pay for all....I hope he does for you.
Randy


IPD_Mr said:
This is why so many on here require 50% down on special orders. This is not an exclusive situtaion to pen makers either. I would continue to try and contact the customer.
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My son was showing some of my cartridge pens to some co-worker.....sold a couple. He then had one ask for 5 of them, two real soon for presents and the rest a little later.

Told my son that would require a 50% deposit, he told his friend and his friend handed him a check for the full $125. He got two right off for the upcoming birthdays and the others are waiting to be picked up. Son cashed the check and gave me the money that night so I could order the components that I needed.

Already had one person order a pen and never showed up but I knew I could sell it quickly so that was OK.....but, didn't like going to the extra effort at that time as everything had to be ordered and now I had more pens to sell!


Barney
 
We (nearly) always require payment up front for custom orders. No one has ever backed out of the sale after being asked for this prepayment.
 
Holz Mechaniker said:
sbell111 said:
We (nearly) always require payment up front for custom orders. No one has ever backed out of the sale after being asked for this prepayment.
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I always have asked customers for 50% down. even my repeat for the fact that is how I do business.
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This is and has always been my policy, even the people who have ordered many pens or other items from me. No one has ever expressed any issue with the request.
 
It would probably be a good idea in the future to get other methods of contact. Mailing address, phone number.
Hopefully it's just a glitch in communication and you will eventually hear from him.
 
Like most I always require a 50% deposit on custom orders.someone that is really interested in getting their pen made will understand and not disagree with it because they plan on paying for it anyway.
 
its also a good idea to get payment up front if you engraved them you can't sell them with some ones name on it.
i had a customer order 8 navigators in olive-wood with his name on it. took 8 months and many phone calls and emails to get them paid lesson learned. although if its a regular pen that will sell i don't usually worry about it still.
 
50% down for first timers since I got burned on 2 pens a couple years ago. Unfortunately they are still sitting in stock. 99% of the time my repeat customers ask if they need to put a deposit down. Sometimes I say yes and sometimes I say no. It depends on the money I have to put out for the order and I'm talking all my woodworking and not just the pens. My latest project which was a bar, I requested a deposit because material was around $300.
 
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