How to handle properly a difficult supplier

[Alexandoy]

In my retailing business we had 3 suppliers of the same products but different brands. The idea is to have a backup in case one supplier becomes “bad” in their dealings. It is not unusual for a dealer to increase prices without notice which can affect the customer’s cash flow especially for big orders that we make for CD and printer needs. By the way, this was the time before social media.

When one supplier was frequently remiss in the promised delivery my sales supervisor proposed to drop that supplier. But I said no because having 3 instead of 2 suppliers is an advantage. Sometimes our staff would pick up the items and there’s an added expense in the taxicab fare. What I did was to place an order and I would cancel it when the product was not delivered on the scheduled date. After 3 times of cancelling my order, the supplier changed for the better.

 

[Lens1000]

Your knowledge about life and business is impeccable and I must say this without mincing words, your writing skill too is outstanding despite your age sir. The thread has really talked about how to deal with difficult suppliers and that’s exactly how to treat an unserious supplier

 

[Augusta]

It is just human attitude of not being serious with their source of daily bread. Some people are just non-challant about very serious things like supplying of their products as early as possible. It was good you cancel those scheduled to drive home your point that you can drop his services too.

 

[Mika]

When I was working for a company, I was also sometimes assigned to the procurement department. I never worked always with the same supplier. and never bought everything from the same supplier. I always procured the same goods from more than one supplier. THis was to ensure that I always got the best price and best product

 

[Mataracy]

This is a very good idea. It will be very save for some one have more that one supplier as you have said because at any time one supplier can default and one will be able to move to another one if not the business will be affected. Even as a buyer some time its not good to just limit oneself to be buying from one place alone because a bad day may occur one day.

 

[Mertayasa]

The more supplier we had in our company, it's make us get more advantage. We can get more opportunity or changes to choose which one is best for our products. If talking about difficult supplier, I think it's a normal things happen in the business. The supplier also want to get best company to work with them that's way sometimes they will argue with us.​

 

[Sherman198]

Dealing with suppliers can be very tasking at times as you are trying to get the best out of your demands, literally, suppliers to will be looking for ways to get the best, by making excessive profits over their supplying products. So it's better to have different suppliers to be able to chose from, instead of having one.

 

[Setho]

When I just finished from school I work in a pharmaceutical store before my final results were out and we had issues dealing with a bad supplier. What my boss did then was to make them sign a contract that if they do not deliver the goods on an agreed date then they will pay a fine and it worked out very well