Discount Materials!
Too Good To Be True? Discount Materials!
John Heisler
This past month I got a call to buy someone's discount liner. While there was no label on the liner, I could get a “deal” on it if I bought several hundred feet, and while there had been no testing of the material, he assured me that it met all ASTM’s and would perform as well as any of the materials we currently provide. When I asked for a sample piece to test before introducing it to the market place, he told me I needed to buy 500′ of it as a show of good faith that I was truly interested. Now if the product had been on the market for some time and others had experience with it, that would be one thing, but with no market experience nor any test data, it made me kind of nervous. Hmm’ first time a vendor didn’t provide me a sample of what they had for sale for testing as it was a new product and he had no test data or experience? If it was so good, why wouldn’t he let me test it? Well, I found the answer. I had to take his raw material that was in flat sheet rolls, and then cut it, seam it, seal it, and test it. His “low cost” $1 per foot liner was going to cost me a whole lot more than a $1 per foot when I factored in my equipment and labor costs to get it ready for market. In fact, when I factored in all of those costs, the selling price of material we sell now is less than my cost of complete the liners. I thought about it for 1/2 a second and said no, then reconsidered another 1/2 second and confirmed the no answer.
We get people proposing resin, pull strap, tube, cutters, cameras and a host of other items all of the time. And we are very open to looking at and evaluating anything new, but usually, when pricing is so low compared to all of the other suppliers on the market, it makes you suspicious of the quality. That’s not to say the material is bad, but we want to test it before we put it on your shelves to offer it to you. We expect our vendors, as well as ourselves, to innovate, test and provide products that make our customers lives easier, but won’t sacrifice quality for price.
A few months ago a vendor had the “best liner product on the market” that he wanted us to carry. He did provide samples for testing, which we did. When the stitched seam kept breaking we asked him about it. He said that was no problem, that others had used duct tape to cover the seam if it blew out. I could see the obvious shortcoming of his liner and why the seam kept blowing out, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort to re-engineer his liner for him. We passed the “opportunity” and he found another supplier who supplies that liner today. We’ve been asked by many customers who use that liner how we address ours when the seam blows out. We don’t have that issue, so we don’t have to solve the problem and they tell us after trying our material that we were right, it doesn’t blow out. To resolve the “blow out issue” we’ve chosen to use a stitch at the seam much wider. The product that has the “blow out issue” uses a 5/16″ stitch at the seam while we require a minimum 11/16″ stitch at the seam. (See comparison below)
5/16″ Stitch (Blow Out Issue”
11/16″ Stitch
Remember my post of the 3 Rules of Business a few weeks ago? I had a customer who chased price so much that he ended up getting out of the lateral lining business. He convinced himself that no one wanted to line their old sewer pipes. He never chased the revenue side of his business, concentrating on getting the cheapest price he could on materials. He also committed the second error in his business plan by sacrificing his quality of the work he performed for price. He offered $49.95 drain cleaning, vowing to beat anyone on price. As soon as he got the drain open and draining, he’d leave, not necessarily solving the problem, but he did get the pipe to drain. His cheap materials got his cost low, and his low price got some bottom trollers to call him for jobs. His business model didn’t last long nor would ours if we followed his plan as a supplier to you.
We continuously test and evaluate materials, methods, and technics before offering them to you. When you ask for a particular product, application, or tool, we try it out first. That was how we assembled our line of cutting tools to help you solve field issues and will continue to explore and test new things, but they won’t all make the cut. Stay tuned, we have several new materials, tools, and methods we’re testing and as soon as they prove worthy, we’ll introduce them to you. And if they fail our testing, you won’t see them from us.