When Is It The Right Time To Switch Suppliers?

Businesses are survived by partnerships. You have a partnership with your customers and also, with your suppliers. You hope to give your customers the best of your brand and you hope that your suppliers will give you their best too. When a customer feels that your products or services are no longer living up to standard, they will leave you. So what should you do when your suppliers are no longer living up to standard? You should leave them too! It’s increasingly becoming important that you should always be ready to move on when your supplier is no longer giving you their best. Supply chains are being questioned because of resilience and quality matter more than ever.

 

 

Late deliveries

 

When you feel that your supplier is no longer delivering the products you need to make your own product better on time, then you should consider your relationship. If the supplier is making consistently late deliveries this could be due to a number of reasons.

 

• They have other partnerships they are focused on. You might be a secondary client and they seek to serve their primary clients first. 
• They have taken on too much. If they have too many partnerships, they won’t be able to multitask as well and so, your tools, equipment or machines will be delayed.
• Production hiccups. Maybe their production line is constantly causing issues, and because they have to repair or replace parts, it will cause late deliveries.

 

If you don’t get the supplies you need on time, you will not be able to serve customers. For seasonal pressures, give the supplier some time, but if it’s a regular occurrence, time to go elsewhere.

 

Quality control

 

By far the most common reason why changing suppliers might be a necessity, is quality control. If your supplier isn’t maintaining a high standard whereby the defective product rate is less than 5%, then you should reconsider your relationship. For every product that is defective, you have lost a chunk of your profits. If you can afford to lose two products by breaking even if you sell 1 product, then this is somewhat tolerable for a while. However, if you lose money due to defective products or parts no matter the sales figures, then the issue has become too untenable.

 

Finding trusted suppliers

 

One way to find a wholesale supplier is to see their reviews online. Various businesses that have worked with in the past, will give them a review of what their working relationships have been like. If you are a tattoo business, check out these tattoo supplies and equipment as well as the reviews online. They have a tried and trusted approach with timely deliveries of various products. You can also speak with industry regulators about suppliers and the reputations they have if you want to choose from the best of the best.

 

It’s the right time to switch suppliers when they keep making late deliveries causing your issues with satisfying customers. If the quality control is consistently lacking, this too is a sign it’s time to move on.