I want to sell my services to them as a consultant.
"Guys we are going to raise prices until we sell stuff at the same rate that we make stuff"

Firstly thanks for the reply, I do appreciate it and I should say i have no skin in the game as I'm not willing to take a punt on waiting month to month to see if I'll win the lottery, so I went with an alternative option.

Like I said, I support that decision.

I suspect, though have no way of knowing, that you hear from the people that its working for, you're not hearing from those that are unsuccessful to the same extent - it would be interesting to know how many people wanted to buy but couldn't.

My experience tells me that people are much more likely to say something when they have something to complain about, not when they are happy.

I think the refund argument is a straw man - I'm waiting 12 months for a bike, the wait for a Sachs or Vanilla is so long that the books were closed on them - the deposits gone, sure people can piss and moan if they change their mind or don't want to wait, but your customer service does not extend - if you don't want it to - to offering refunds if its clearly set out at the start that once you're in you're in.

A straw? It's not even close to a straw. It's really quite black and white. Let me give you a few things to consider.


1. Credit card processing companies always favor the buyer in any transactional dispute. Most good credit card processing companies require you to have a reasonable sales and refund policy. Saying you simply won't give someones money back because you said so, doesn't fly. Upset your credit card processor too many times and you have no way to accept payments.


2. Good luck with keeping a good rating at the better business bureau. A few "these guys ripped me off complaints" later and your company really gets a black eye.


3. What happens when the customer who paid in full calls you and says my child was diagnosed with "x" and I really need the money I put down on my wheels help cover the medical expenses? Or, I just lost my job and I'm really in a hard place? Are we going to tell that guy to go jump in the lake? I guess you could if you wanted but remember points 1 and 2. In the long run you're not going to win. Plus, I don't want to be the guy doing that. The stories above are true and we realize that sometimes life throws you curveballs. We believe that helping our customers out when they are in need will only bring more business our way in the future.


4. Finally, how do you think your public image on forums and social media would look if there were multiple threads and comments stating that they took my money and won't give it back. Especially when that guy says he has a kid who was just diagnosed with cancer?


If you would like to run a business with a no refund policy I wish you luck. It's simply something we are not going to do

The issue you would have is a lack of transparency about when the order arrives - you tell them its 8 months and its 8 months, then they know what they're getting in to.

You're assuming that I can accurately project production times 8 months or more in advance. What happens when a typhoon hits our factory, a container ship crashes, or a production run goes bad? All of which have happened to us. Even if I add time to my estimate, 8 months can easily become 8.5 or 9 months and people get upset. We've been down that road and don't want to go down it again. We believe in taking peoples money when we have the product in hand. If I was building frames myself, then I have control of everything, so the timeline model might make sense. When you produce wheels at 5 different factories you lose enough control to make projecting accurate dates difficult.

I'm not asking you to change your model - we're simply engaged in a discussion about lost sales, it seems to me that when you have a list, you're names on it, it gets to your turn in a given period of time, and there's a drop dead date after which you can't back out and you forfeit your deposit.

The only difference in the way its currently set up is you please some of the people (what percentage I don't know) some of the time, you can't please all of the people all of the time, but it would seem to me that there's an opportunity for orders to be split between people willing to put their money where there mouth is and wait, and those that want to take a punt on the lottery. If you tell me orders are 50/50 lottery and pre-ordered and that the current wait is 8 months, I'd put my order in, pay my cash and if I wanted to enter the lottery I could do that as well and you simply take the next person in line as a guaranteed order - either way no loss for you and I know exactly how I can plan my purchase and whether it works for me or not.

Here's the thing. Let's say we offer a pre-order option. Let's assume using 50% of my inventory I'm now at a 16 month wait time. How exactly do we take pre-orders? Naturally, everyone wants to be the first to get their order in, but that's not possible. So we set up the "FLO" pre-order event on a first come first serve basis. Everyone rushes to get their pre-order in. Then they get an email saying congrats, you made the last group. We'll be able to get you your wheels in 16 months. Do you know what that guys does? He complains. He's upset because he expected to be in the first group OR he expected to wait a maximum of 3 months, but now he has to wait 16 months. So he comes on Slowtwitch and complains that he is in the 16 month group and cancels his order.


What I've learned is that people are mostly upset because they didn't get exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it. We live in an instant gratification society. I wanted to buy something today, I set myself up to expect it, and then when I don't get that, I'm furious and tell the world how much the guys at FLO suck.

No matter what type of sales structure we offer, somebody somewhere isn't getting what they "expected" to get, and they tell the world how terrible we are.

I've no doubt the product is excellent and great value for money, I'd liked to have ordered but can't be doing with it waiting month to month and taking a punt and the money saved for me is neither here nor there so I exercised another option I just think its a bit of a missed opportunity for you - though i accept I don't know how you solve it - though I ran a manufacturing business and didn't go bankrupt so I understand some of the issues.