PPB July 2015

QUESTION

Terry McGuire, CAS

Senior Vice President Of Supplier

Relations

HALO

UPIC: HBS

We have run into this situation.

When we looked into it with the sup-

plier, we found that the incidents are

very isolated. Basically, what happens is

a large online distributor has a packet

of promotional material that each sup-

plier is required, per their agreement

with that distributor, to insert into

their outgoing orders. The person

packing orders made a mistake and put

the distributor packet in another dis-

tributor’s order. I don’t believe it’s any-

thing but human error since a major

supplier—and the online distributors

only work with the majors—would be

committing industry suicide by know-

ingly inserting a distributor customer’s

promotional material in other distribu-

tors’ end-buyer orders.

A Distributor Asks:

A supplier shipped a sample directly to us instead of to our customer, as requested. It was a good

thing because they inserted literature from our competitor offering a discount. A month later, the same

thing happened with a different supplier. When we complained, the supplier said it would not happen

again. Yet a few months later, the same competitor’s literature was inserted into the packaging again.

Other than this snarl, the suppliers in question are respected industry companies. We anticipate repeat

orders, so we don’t want to discontinue business with them. Other than pay more to have all ship-

ments come to us first, what should we do to prevent this?

WHEN A SHIPMENT GOES

HORRIBLY WRONG

BY TAMA UNDERWOOD

JULY 2015 •

PPB

• 21