Part of my business is in the duplication world. I do tons of CD/DVD work. The Christmas season is the busiest time of year for the duplication industry. I’m slammed right now. I’m going through tons of materials and need more.
There’s a company right down the street from me that manufactures an (unnamed) certain material that I use constantly. This material is made out of plastic.
This company is a little strange. They have a several hundred thousand square foot facility for manufacturing and warehousing their “product.” At any given time they can have millions and millions in the warehouse.
Given that this season is the busiest of the year, I placed an order with this company early in November. On my purchase order I specified when I’d be by to pick the order up. When I got there, the warehouse was empty. No product, no humans.
I wandered all through the warehouse and finally ended up talking to a lady I’ve dealt with before there. I asked where my buddy the warehouse manage was. Turns out, he doesn’t work there anymore. She wouldn’t tell me if he quit, or was fired.
I asked if my order was ready and she then informed me that they were out of stock. Now I’m not talking about a big order. I’m talking about 2000-3000 units, where they usually have millions in stock.
She informed me that they weren’t manufacturing the product for about two weeks. The reason? It costs them less NOT to operate than it does to produce their product. What??
I checked in again today (close to 3 weeks after my last discussion with them) and they’re still shut down. They’re not out of business. They’re just not manufacturing during the busiest time of year.
Business 101:
- If you don’t have a product to sell, you can’t sell it.
- If you don’t have employees, they can’t serve your customers or make your product.
- If you don’t operate your company during the busiest time of year, when do you?