Went to Walmart the other night...

[rgG]

Surfrider wrote:
rgG

Lovable could have stopped dealing with Walmart at any time.

I have a small business, I have allowed one of my customers to become 50% of my business. If they wanted to start dictating to me new terms and prices, I'd have three choices. Agree, Negotiate and hope. Walk away.

Lovable allowed themselves to be put in that situation, just like I have.

I'm trying to spread my customer base so I'm not caught in that jam, Lovale should have done the same thing.

It's not easy, I'm 62 now and my steam for business is running out but I'm still trying to do better/smarter every day.

That said, I buy US every chance I get. It's not easy, almost every major surf clothing brand and tee shirt manufacturer is making things offshore (Mexico & Central America included) American Apparel is one of our few good choices.

You clearly cannot know the whole situation, as you were not there, and my husband could not spell out the whole situation, for fear of being sued, but let me say that it is not as simplistic as you make it. If one of your customers gave you a multi-million dollar order, then basically reneged on it, after the goods were produced, how would you compensate? A customer that you had dealt with for decades, and in the past had been reputable and fair, but now was not. You could possibly have sued them, for breach of contract, but even if you had won, you would have been out business by that time, since they are that large and that powerful. With companies such as WalMart, vendors are almost forced to do business with them, because they control such a large share of certain markets. It is truly a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario.