Waking up every day in the wee hours of the morning becomes a tad disheartening when we go through our emails to determine if our Forces of Valor shipment has, well, shipped. We placed an order with them over two weeks ago and have been sitting on our hands ever since, waiting patiently for a response that never seems to come. Today, we received a short message from Waltersons indicating that our restock order was going out either today, Thursday, or Friday, and that its tracking information would be passed along to us just as soon as the shipment was processed and sent on its way. Frankly, we’ve heard all this before and still no explanation has been provided as to why our shipment has been in hibernation for so long other than to say its sitting at a public warehouse. The manufacturer also went on to say that they are moving their product to a different public warehouse that has promised it can handle their shipments in a more expeditious manner. Bear in mind that the last shipment we received from them was way back in October and it was completely screwed up, with no explanation as to why it was sent out in such a sloppy manner. I’ve gone on record to say that in my 45 years of doing business after graduating college, and wearing multiple hats in the business world from salesman to store manager, buyer to merchandise manager, I have never seen a situation as poorly handled as this, with no communication from the owner as to why we have been placed in this unenviable position for such a long period of time.
As I’ve previously indicated, we will wait and see what this shipment looks like before placing an order with them for all the new merchandise they claim to have ready for dispatch. Paying thousands of dollars up front for an order only to have to chase it down for weeks on end isn’t my idea of ushering in the New Year. I know its not what a lot of you want to hear but we have to protect our investments — even with our suppliers — and be assured that what we order is what we will get despite what the manufacturer says in their communiques. If what they say is true, we should have this shipment by the tail end of January and, at that time, will place an order for their newest merchandise that is supposedly in stock. If they can address that to our satisfaction, then the new merchandise will likely arrive in early February.
Not much has been announced by the manufacturer as to what we can expect for the balance of the year. They’ve made previous product announcements over the years that simply haven’t come true, so having our hopes dashed time and time again isn’t new to us even when we pray things will change. In the seven or so years we’ve been doing business with them, lots of products have been hinted at that never came to fruition, shunted to the back burner for all sorts of reasons. Its become a tedious affair listening to pie-in-the-sky optimism with little to show for it. One the plus side, I’m over my sciatica. Yay! Happy new year!
Update: On Friday, our order has reportedly shipped and tracking information confirms that it is on the road. The delivery date is currently scheduled for Thursday the 25th. Once we inspect the shipment and note any errors we will then submit our order for their new merchandise. Again, we have no way of knowing if the new merchandise will be processed and shipped out on time but we will create a separate blog post to track its progress.