Hmmmm....besides 10 years in the bike business, I compete on a daily basis in a low-margin, high competition business. A level of competitiveness that far exceeds what I saw in the bike biz. So far I have doubled our sales, brought us to profitably and last year increased profit by over 150% (I won't bother telling you how much I increased profits the year before because it is absurdly high and sounds completely unbelievable).

To a certain degree, it is all just widgets and strategies that are successful cross all product categories.

Well, since you are hellbent on nitpicking and missing the point.....t hasn't been three or four years since they started shipping wheels.

I'll just say this: I like the company and how its run, and when it came time for me to order my wheels I was prepared for it and did it without issue. So I have no complaints. The fact of the matter is Flo makes a great product at a great price, and I can see how continually missing the opportunity to become a customer would be vexing, and inspire complaints. There's also the uber-capitalist side of complaints, whereby people don't agree with the actual business model and operating strategy, as if there is only one right way to run a business.

There is nothing wrong with:
a) sticking to your founding principles and having a mission to deliver good value to customers and serve a particular niche within the market, even if it means compromising profitability and growth
and
b) being risk averse and playing it safe (i.e. choosing security and stability over high risk/high reward gambling)

I understand that there are many people and businesses that are philosophically opposed to both of those ideas, and it may be that a different viewpoint is a threat to their worldview and that inspires ire. I for one like the fact that Flo does things a little bit differently, and I assume that at this point they know what they're doing, and understand their own business. If they do things a certain way, they have their reasons. The free market works in such a way that if someone finds that offensive, they don't have to be a Flo customer, there are many other options for them.

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"

Seriously.

I had a piece of crap old VW Jetta that I wanted to sell before a cross country move. So I put it up on Craigslist for $1,000 and got like 30 emails in 2 hours. I almost reposted it at $1600 to see if I'd get 1 person willing at that price.

How pedantic of you, you are right though. They started shipping in May 2012. So close... not close enough for Pedantic Boy though.

I guess you could buy their FLO30 rims and just build up a pair.

My transition was 2 minutes.

Seriously.

I had a piece of crap old VW Jetta that I wanted to sell before a cross country move. So I put it up on Craigslist for $1,000 and got like 30 emails in 2 hours. I almost reposted it at $1600 to see if I'd get 1 person willing at that price.

Love it, Chris. Keep up the good work! The armchair business people on this forum will continue to hate...you'll continue to provide a great product at a great price with great customer service.

Hmmmm....besides 10 years in the bike business, I compete on a daily basis in a low-margin, high competition business. A level of competitiveness that far exceeds what I saw in the bike biz. So far I have doubled our sales, brought us to profitably and last year increased profit by over 150% (I won't bother telling you how much I increased profits the year before because it is absurdly high and sounds completely unbelievable).

To a certain degree, it is all just widgets and strategies that are successful cross all product categories.

I just wanted to let you know that a big factor in my decision to buy Flo wheels was the amount of information you have shared on this forum, on your own forum, and in your blog posts. Keep up the great work. I am really excited to receive my new Flo 60s.

Also, personally I found the ordering process to be easier than some of the other wheel makers. I found the process transparent, well-communicated, and simple to use. It would be great if one could order direct from the website of every bike component manufacturer!

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.