It has not been a good day.

In September, we put in an order with our main Chinese supplier. We were desperately low on cases, in particular our most popular case, and sales had just picked up enough from the summer doldrums to allow us to finance the order. These orders from China involve tying your money up for months on end.

Three weeks later, no answer, we mailed again. This time we got an invoice, Paid it quick before the money went to some other use.

A month later, still nothing except "we hope to ship it this week". Finally it left China right at the end of November. Reached Southampton on Dec 23rd, nothing happened of course until the country re-opened after the annual worship of Santa Claus. Finally a couple of days ago came the long awaited phone call "Your goods will be delivered on friday".

Christmas sales were quite good and we found we had some money left over (this is rare!) when we had paid all our suppliers, enough to contemplate rewarding the persistent pest of a sales rep for another company with a medium sized order after we got Christmas and new Year greetings from them even though we haven't ordered for a year. This sales rep tries very hard to get business - too hard. When we started getting regular phone calls in garbled English last summer as well as constant emails we thought there could be too much of a good thing, but hey, the stuff they sent was fine and they were so keen to please. So we sent off the order and got the invoice and they're sending it in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, back at Elida, the delivery day dawned and we got up early, sat by the phone waiting for it to ring. Finally it rang at 12.30, so we rushed down to the storage unit where we keep all our stock. The storage unit staff had gone well beyond the call of duty and actually unloaded it for us - or rather, 2/3 of it. The other 1/3 is AWOL presumably somewhere in Southampton. Sigh.

So we started unloading the cases. So far so good, then, suddenly "What's this?!" a batch of cases I never intended to order had arrived apparently out of thin air and the case we sell most of was nowhere to be seen.

Mentally called the Chinese supplier all the names under the sun. Complained bitterly to David about how we were stuck with this lot of cases that were going to be a nightmare to sell (no music pocket) and how we had already promised some of the best selling cases to existing customers and now we didn't have any. David seemed to be more confused than usual and when I eventually made him understand the problem it became clear why - and it is all my fault. I got the stock number wrong.

We've got a stockroom full of stuff, bulging at the seams, all our stock money is spent and we are entering the worst sales time of the year, and we've got none of these cases we wanted. David suggested cancelling the order we just put in to persistent alternative Chinese supplier (they don't sell nice cases or we would have been changing the order in a hurry i can tell you!) but the thought of this salesperson emailing every week for six months and calling every other week and asking if we are ready to order was just too horrific to contemplate, no no, David, I said, that order has to stand, there are limits to what even i can put up with.

Then there were the cello cases. Now, quite why a supplier sends two nice robust fibreglass cello cases, and then sends the two nice cellos without putting them in the cases, is a mystery to me, but there it is. So, we got the cello cases out of the horribly bashed boxes, made a few oohs and ahs because they really were quite nice, put the cello (the one that isn't stuck in Southampton) inside one of the cases, so far so good, then look at the base of the other case. O dear. A dirty great scratch out of the colour leaving the silver fibreglass showing through and meaning that is relegated to sale as "seconds" - and it wasn't cheap either. i guess that happened when the box was bashed about. The cello survived nicely in its box which really had to be seen to be believed - I mean that nicely - they've turned a cardboard box into a cello suspension case, most impressive and very safe (with most shippers anyway, I think with the shipper we had it must have been pure luck - rather dreading the arrival of the other, more expensive, cello in case that has got bashed about like the cases).

All in all, right now I want to go and bash my head several times against the nearest brick wall.

Liz

argh i'm sorry *hugz* i'm not really sure what to say, i know i'd be very peeved lets just say

Liz,
I can imagine exactly how you feel. I've ordered things myself in the past for pupils of mine, only to be sent 6 of the wrong thing, paid for it already and can't return it. I now tell them what to order and get their parents to do it individually.

With the situation you've got, you must have the patience of a saint.

Oh dear! Not a good way to start the New Year. Commiserations - I hope you are able to resolve your problems.

Ouch!!! That really does suck! If I were there, I would want to give you one big comforting hug! Hope you manage to get everything back on track!

Thanks for the sympathy vote, chaps and chapesses

I had an interesting induction into Chinese colour preferences too. Some of the cases were navy blue outside. How nice, I thought, what a lovely change from grey check which is what we normall get.

Then I opened one. Would you believe, the navy blue cases are olive green inside? What a bizarre combination!

Liz

Ok....green and blue....how disgusting....they don't go together unless there's a colour in between, well, at least I think that.

As a child I was always reminded that "blue and green should not be seen" when it came to clothing. Thinking back to my art classes there was some special project we did about colour combinations and red always contrasts well with green. I'm not sure what combination included blue - for the interior of a navy blue violin case, a lighter shade of blue would have been better than green.

Too right. I guess navy blue plus olive green must make sense in China

And to cap it all, folks, on further inspection, that batch of cases without music pockets all seem to be suffering from rusty screws and slightly oxidised metal on the strap buckles. Sigh.

Come to think of it, Viohazard's Chinese-made case is navy with a green inside. It's a color combination that surprised me when I first came to Japan, but now I quite like it!

His does have a music pocket, but he rarely uses it as there's only room for a couple of thin books.