Re: Starting to get my doubts.
I am not defending or criticizing USO or the posters but the US, the world and economy are in the tank. It will get worse. I am not an economist but have deep roots in the retail world running a local mom pop outdoor shop in Anchorage Alaska. There is virtually no credit for anyone in the business world for raw materials, manufacturing and payroll. This has slowed everything down.
Company A needs coin to dig raw material, they cannot get coin so they have to slow down and cut back on digging. Equipment breaks and again they cannot get coin for fix or buy new.
Company B has orders with A. Company A says prepay so we can dig but B cannot get coin either. A has mad customers as does B with C.
Company C has orders from consumers. Company B says prepay for your orders so we can order and fill your orders, so B can give A coin to help the whole process. C cannot get credit either. But, C did have some coin left over and goes ahead and pays B. Now, C has angry customer and C wants to help them and wants coin back from B, but B has spent it to A and to pay its bills.
One small nick the chain stops the whole process. I remember around 03 when one of my vendors who also was their own manufacture came out with a new high speed ice screw. The whole fall preseason for all retailers was found bad when they ran it through their QA. So, retailers, and some wholesalers and the vendor had mad prepay customers and we all lost major coin that fall. It took 8 months to recover.
On top of this, the firearm lovers are/wanting to spend coin creating deep holes in the inventory chain. This all has created a bad deal for everyone.
I know when we had our tuning machine go down, it took about a week to fix it and we got back logged, you have no idea at the mad customers some who paid up front. We charged ahead trying to fix it and then tune. Its very hard to stop when you want to charge ahead wanting to fix an issue to better serve your customers. And yes, we received massive phone calls everyday, and we tried to take each one but this is not an Inc. with 100 people to answer phones, I had 8 employees all trying to charge ahead to help. We had paper on each customer, too small to pay $10,000 plus for computers and software. I had one employee take each tag one at a time to call each customer so the paper matches the tune, help us all if the paper does not match the tune, it consumed hours to days when this person was taken away from fixing and tuning. While on one call the phone would ring from a just called customer. And yes, we had those who said hire more help, my reply was, wish I could but in order to pay them, my services must go up, then they got mad at this. I did my best to give free future service and it helped but it is hard for consumers to understand how the whole process works. One small chink in the chain from raw to retail can have a major ripple effect and many are outside control. Had a whole container coming across the pond fall off the ship. Most consumers do not care, its not their problem, give me now.
As a society, we have become very impatient, I want it now and cheap but quality. We are so bombarded from intel all day long we need that constant feed of intel. The days of ordering hand made boots, then sit back got to work and wait for them to be delivered are gone.
This was not directed towards anyone. I want my GAP the day after I ordered it. I want my USO the next day too. Its hard to wait and its hard when intel is not there but its the economy, retail and society we live in now. It will get worse as coin drys up and us gun nuts want more guns, ammo, reloading, sights, kit, etc.
When there is an actual fist fight between 2 customers in a gun shop down in Anchorage over a single one pound can of Varget, you know we are heading down the wrong path.
