Can you... not understand the difference between a merchant charging for an order of in-stock items that they just need to package and ship, vs a manufacturing company that may not plan to even start making your component for months in the future?
Do think Cabelas is about to go bankrupt, shut their doors and not complete their orders? Conversely, EA had a lot of red flags for a while now.
Cabela's likely as a billion dollars worth of stock sitting on their shelves. Pretty hard for a small business to do.
I haven't shopped there much. But, I'd imagine if you go in and look at .308 ammo they'll have a whole wall of it, but if you look for 45-70 Government Ammo, they might be lucky to have a few boxes of it. Or, perhaps you'll be told they'll ship it in a few days.
Each business is different. For some auto dealerships, they take out huge loans to buy a bunch of cars in the fall, then sell those throughout the year. One would think that after a few decades they would build up cash on hand for the lean periods, but that isn't their business plan. So if sales drop for one reason or another, they struggle.
Here's what blows my mind. In business 78 years. They know by now what sells, quantity, etc. Why not have 20 rear blades, 10 grapples, etc. ready to ship. As people order, make more. I understand delays in obtaining steel and parts...simply explain via email/phone call there's a shipping delay. Phone in or online same thing.
Don't charge customers card until ready to ship, contacting customer keeping them up to date. If that customer doesn't want it...no loss...sell it to someone else.
One bad review was someone went there to buy something but was told on-line sales only. A customer should be able to purchase there and get a shipping cost discount.
A few years ago the buzz in manufacturing was about "Just in Time". So one starts processing on the blades, grapples, etc, so they'll all be ready when the order comes in. Of course if they have an assembly line, there may be a benefit of doing batches of at least a few dozen of the same thing at a time.
Because you have to pay your welders to make them. And instead, you are more interested in continually siphoning profit from the business in order to spend 10+ million building a garish metal and glass box house on the lake. And probably many other silly and awful ways the money has been burned through.
Yep, welders, as well as stocking metal and paint are the cost of doing business. Keep the inventory down, but just enough for products to be ready to go out the door.
Is there some amount of customization available? What if one wants their implement in Kubota Orange or John Deere Green? Can I get mine in tie-dye? Have it sitting ready to paint and ship?
We do have a local bicycle manufacturer here in Eugene Oregon. Well, a couple of them. Anyway, the one I've been to a couple of times makes semi-custom bikes. So, a customer specifies the frame size, they braze it all together, powder coat it in the chosen color, then add the components chosen by the customer, and ship it out with a couple of month lead time. I think they could do it better, but that seems to work for them. The bike company went through a change of guard with parents passing the business to children. I have no idea how the financial transition happened. Did the parents get some of their investment back? With the change they brought out new designs.
Other businesses will get sold. And the new buyers may struggle for a period with capital expenses plus cash flow, as well as keeping customers happy.
One business where I had previously worked had the old generation, then about 5 kids who didn't all have the same business goals. Then ultimately after decades of domestic production, I think they slowly shifted to over seas production. And now I'm just not quite sure what happened to the company.
A business like Everything Attachments also likely has a huge seasonal flux. With a lot of equipment going out in the spring and early summer. Haying Season? Harvest Season? And finally snow handling equipment in the fall and winter.
A good business will try to keep 12 months of work for their employees, or perhaps 11 months of work and 1 month of vacation. That means designing a product line that covers multiple seasons, so one isn't building thousands of planting tools in November/December. Although plan to get them ready for the spring and fall planting seasons. And, if you mess up a farmer's tilling/planting/harvest cycle, then anticipate never doing business with them again.
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