When payment matters.

Staying in business for over 31 years takes more than tenacity. The foundation of a great business is long-term relationships with suppliers.

Recently, we had a client ceased trading with us, allegedly to get on top of their business administratively. They were ‘taking a break for a month’. What they hadn’t told us was that various suppliers including suppliers we had recommended to them (i.e. printers) had not been paid and they weren’t going to pay us either. A reminder; all the suppliers, ourselves included, had paid our suppliers in advance based on the goodwill (and indeed contractual obligation) that this company would pay us and they simply didn’t.

Now this company gets payment for the goods and transport in advance every month, and they had simply spent the money rather than paying the suppliers. Since they have taken over their own distribution, it has been chaos as their online reviews suggest.

Today, as I continue to be one of the subscribers, I receive a notification insinuating that Logistics was one of the issues and as a consequence they were taking in-house. Now I have no problem whatsoever when people bring their logistics services in-house, but I can guarantee you that their service to their clients will get worse, not better and eventually they will go pop. They are fundamentally incompetent business people. What is immeasurably worse is that when they do not take responsibility, then will try and take the reputation of others down with them.

This is a young business and we have been very accepting of their mistakes in the last years that we have been trading with them and supported them hugely. We have the communications to prove it. But the golden rule in business is pay your suppliers, particularly if you were working on a subscription box model whereby you get the cost of all your goods and indeed your profit upfront.

This company has a huge social media following and their audience deserve to know the reality of the company that they are dealing with. This company pretends to be all flowers and good karma, but actually they have the morals of an alley cat. You only have to look at the CCJs at Creditsafe.

If anybody wants to have an off the record conversation about who this company is so they do not get hit with an unpaid bills then do approach me. Companies that particularly need to watch out are packaging, carrier/post and publishers.

And for any businesses who truly want to last over time, just like Diamond, remember payment matters.