Southern Style Off-road blues

January 8, 2020 at 3:51 pm, @Uncle Feathers orders a 2016+ Tacoma Slimline Hybrid front bumper – CUSTOMIZE YOUR OWN bumper with a stated lead time of 10-12 weeks. He also checks the box to agree to the terms and conditions which state that there is a 20% cancellation fee and the lead times are estimates only. We will do everything in our power to meet those timelines barring any situations that are out of our control.....ie a worldwide pandemic. He also receives emails indicating his order is in processing and how to check the status of his order on our order tracker which, by the way, doesn't exist for another single fabrication company out there.

January 28, 2020 at 3:08 pm - His material order has been placed and he receives an email indicating as such.

February 25, 2020 at 12:17 pm - His material order is marked as received by our warehouse. He also receives an email stating this is the case.

March 13, 2020 (9 weeks of the stated 10-12 week build time) - Louisiana Governor Edwards closes all schools state wide and bans gatherings of more than 10 people. This action has an immediate effect on our 25 employees, half of whom have kids and suddenly must figure out what to do with them. Also according to the mandate, we would be in violation to continue full operations, not to mention placing our workers in danger to their health. We update our social media, create email auto responders, and place a large banner on our website explaining the situation at hand. Our office staff continues to work from home to answer as many questions, comments and curse outs as we can.

April 21, 2020 6:14 pm - An email is received from @Uncle Feathers.

Subject: Order cancelation
Contact Type: Other

Message:
Plans have changed. Please cancel order 118642.


April 22, 2020 4:46 pm - The operations manager responds to his email advising him that there would be a cancellation fee of 20%. This policy is in place because we have already expended resources and labor towards his CUSTOMIZED bumper built specifically for him. Usually we will waive this fee if the material has not been ordered. This was not the case here.

April 22, 7:52 pm - @Uncle Feathers responds stating that he will keep the bumper even though he's already sold his truck. He states he will sell it easily.

May 4, 2020 - Louisiana governor Edwards partially lifts the stay at home mandate which allows Southern Style OffRoad to resume operations. We begin working double time to catch up on backorders and the last 5 weeks of downtime due to the government mandates. An email is also sent to all current customers in process stating as such.

May 5, 2020 at 10:29 am - Order status changed from Material Received to Welding Station.

May 5, 2020 at 2:44 pm - Order status changed from Welding Station to Grinding Station.

At this point, I'd expect his bumper to ship sometime in the next two weeks. If there had not been a worldwide pandemic, the stated 10-12 week lead time would have been pretty damn close. I hope this information is useful to those that only heard one side of the story. Southern Style OffRoad is committed to providing the best possible products within the time frames, but sometimes things are completely out of our control. Over the next 8 weeks of work, we expect to be completely caught up with all back ordered items.

 

So if he had canceled the order what would you have done with the material you ordered for his build ?

 

We would have had to wait for another customer to order exactly what he did. We have no way of knowing when that will be. The simple fact is that we already did work, we had to pay people for that work and pay for the materials. If those costs arent covered, that means someone doesnt get paid. Business doesnt work that way.

 

You just convinced me that if I ever open a business that requires materials ordering, and the labor involved with inventory and planning, to place a big "restocking fee" notice on my site to keep from having to deal with people like you. It's more than just materials involved, but some people can't see labor as part of a business and I wouldn't want to have to deal with them.

 

So the Southern Style Off-road business style is “f’ the customer. Our company was impacted by COVID-19 and we don’t care if it impacted the customer!
FYI it has impacted everyone. Your humanity is overwhelmingly obvious. Profits first and carry on.

 

You're just helping SSO look more professional, and you more whiney. You're also helping SSO have to deal with less customers like you and @Rottencotton in the future. I hope they take your 20% if you go for a refund, and have a party with it.

 

OP when you made the order and checked the box indicating you accepted the terms including the 20% fee, what makes you think you’re exempt from it now because your “plans changed”? I don’t understand.

 

That "F" is your grade on reading your purchase agreement.

 

Funniest thing I’ve read in a while. A+

 

what the hell is going on in here?

 

The big question I have for what appears to be most shops is on efficiency. These are not custom parts. They may be customized, but they are all using the same patterns and materials and just adding or removing standardized features. There are about 7 weeks from order above related to ordering and receiving materials that are used and they are the same materials for almost everything else sold on the website, unless they are ordering pre-cut and bent metal and just welding it together. Why aren't standard materials kept on hand? As steel prices fluctuate, how can you run day to day without knowing what the costs of materials are going to be? Hell, I have enough materials in my garage to make a bumper or two. I don't understand why there isn't an arrangement with a steel supplier for an estimated amount of yearly materials that are delivered incrementally. That allows you to get the benefits of quantity discounts, accurate cost estimates, and have materials on hand for immediate use. I do run a business and that is exactly what I do for anything used frequently in quantity. I even do that for parts specific to a project that is long term so I can get quantity discounts on the whole project instead of smaller orders occasionally over 2 years. It's not like you don't know that you might need steel tomorrow. Shops small enough to have to order materials for every part order scare me. I don't want to get Pelfreybilted. All that being said, I do really like the SSO bumpers a lot and that's probably what will be going on when I change.

 

A lot of things aren't as high of margin as you think. Pay your bills and workers and hopefully a little profit, doesn't leave much to pre-order 10's of thousands of steel and let it sit there while waiting for customers to come in and use it. "If you build it, they will come" isn't always sound business advice.

 

There are 26 different variations that can be ordered through our website. To be able to plan an entire year out in advance with that many differences is out of our ability. Not only that but we only have so much space to store materials. We simply wouldnt have the room. We have begun reducing options and preparing for "stock" items, but we arent there yet. Our intention is to wrap up these backordered items over the next 8 weeks and finally begin stocking our most popular variations.

 

This... Materials are pre-cut (not certain about bent)

 

I got my tracking number after little over 5 months. Just be patient. It'll be worth it

 

I am sorry about that, if this order was placed around Black Friday/Right after feel free to shoot me a PM. The Black Friday sale was HUGE and we def got a little overwhelmed with that. I tried to communicate that with any customer that asked for status updates/called in. Our lead times on average are 10-12 weeks but volume of orders 100% do effect them. This year between the Tacoma World group buy and the Black Friday sale we had some gigantic sales happen. Any customer whose negatively been effected by this I've personally tried to help.

You can DM me here, or email me at Lee@southernstyleoffroad.com and I will see what I can do. And I do apologize for any delay in your order, as I assure you it's never our intentions to have a product linger in our system, the quicker we get products out the shorter the lead times, which translates to more sales.

-Lee

 

And here I thought my day was going bad.......

 

Thanks Lee!

I haven't ordered anything from you yet, but I will at some point.

I love your attitude man.