Status of Everything Attachments

[MattB4]

As someone who runs an e-commerce business, let me explain something to all of you who can't grasp the concept of a company requiring up front payment.

If you purchase an item from my website (custom or not) and I ship it to you without payment....there is literally nothing I can do to force you to pay me short of suing you. If you're down the street, no problem. If you're 2000 miles cross country...this is a problem. Multiply this times 50 orders a day across the entire country? Right. This is why 0% of the websites you order from will ship without payment.

You might argue "Well gee I shouldn't have to pay until it ships at least" and yes that is possible but what happens is we make this $5000 custom item for you and in three months later when it's completed we say "Ok, ready to ship. Pay me" and Mr. Customer
A: Doesn't respond in a timely fashion with payment so we're left dealing with said custom item packed and ready taking up space
B: Customer forgot about it and changes needed to be made / needs to cancel
C: Customer blew all their money on hookers and blow, maxed out their credit card and can't afford to pay anymore

It is FAR simpler for literally everyone involved to simply pay upfront like you do countless times on any other ecommerce website on a daily basis. In the end, you can always file a chargeback which is basically 100% foolproof if the company can't prove it shipped your product to your address. If you're using a check / wire / debit card for online purchases then that's your own stupid fault.

I don't condone EA's businesses practices. Personally I thought the guy always came off as kind of a tool in his videos and his responses to reviews and I've personally seen his monstrosity house on Lake Norman which looks like a giant blue turd at all angles. The endless complaints about payment upfront though are completely unfounded and based in total ignorance. Please stop already.

Sorry but your statement is why I would not deal with your business. Payment for custom items is a far cry from catalog items (items that you list everyday). On line purchases are back dropped by a CC (ability to pay with a pending amount on credit card) rung up. At real time of shipment that turns into a CC charge. With CC bills the customer has dispute charge in a reasonable time period ability. EA's billing so far ahead of delivery was a disaster waiting to occur for the purchaser.

One reason I prefer Amazon is they do not convert the pending charge to an actual charge until shipping occurs. Those companies that make up a shipping label but do not ship like you find all over the net are not any different than this EA. Once they get your money they do not feel any more obligation to provide a product.

 

[Sid Post]

As someone who runs an e-commerce business, let me explain something to all of you who can't grasp the concept of a company requiring up front payment.

If you purchase an item from my website (custom or not) and I ship it to you without payment....there is literally nothing I can do to force you to pay me short of suing you. If you're down the street, no problem. If you're 2000 miles cross country...this is a problem. Multiply this times 50 orders a day across the entire country? Right. This is why 0% of the websites you order from will ship without payment.

You might argue "Well gee I shouldn't have to pay until it ships at least" and yes that is possible but what happens is we make this $5000 custom item for you and in three months later when it's completed we say "Ok, ready to ship. Pay me" and Mr. Customer
A: Doesn't respond in a timely fashion with payment so we're left dealing with said custom item packed and ready taking up space
B: Customer forgot about it and changes needed to be made / needs to cancel
C: Customer blew all their money on hookers and blow, maxed out their credit card and can't afford to pay anymore

It is FAR simpler for literally everyone involved to simply pay upfront like you do countless times on any other ecommerce website on a daily basis. In the end, you can always file a chargeback which is basically 100% foolproof if the company can't prove it shipped your product to your address. If you're using a check / wire / debit card for online purchases then that's your own stupid fault.

I don't condone EA's businesses practices. Personally I thought the guy always came off as kind of a tool in his videos and his responses to reviews and I've personally seen his monstrosity house on Lake Norman which looks like a giant blue turd at all angles. The endless complaints about payment upfront though are completely unfounded and based in total ignorance. Please stop already.

Let post this with a slightly different view as I was not an e-commerce retailer.

A calls and wants a custom 1911 pistol (I was an FFL dealing with high-end pistols). First, I ask if he can wait 3+ years for his pistol to build when it is one of the big name guild pistolsmiths. Yes, okay step 1.

Step 2 was a partial payment upfront so I could sell this customer's pistol at a net cost to me to recoup my funds. The weirder or more specialized this pistol was, the higher the deposit became.

In ~3 years, I had people die, get married, have a first child, etc. And a few simply flaked out and ghosted me.

When I had something in stock, it was always 100% paid for before shipping.

Full payment upfront for a product not in stock always makes me nervous. Paying a reasonable deposit generally does not.

 

[deezler]

I don't condone EA's businesses practices. Personally I thought the guy always came off as kind of a tool in his videos and his responses to reviews and I've personally seen his monstrosity house on Lake Norman which looks like a giant blue turd at all angles. The endless complaints about payment upfront though are completely unfounded and based in total ignorance. Please stop already.

You're missing the nuance here.

Requiring payment up front is completely legitimate - for a legitimate business that produces and ships product in a timely manner.

The shady part about Everything Attachments requiring payment up front during the last two-three years, is that they would not even start making your ordered piece of equipment for MONTHS after taking your money to spend elsewhere.

 

[MossRoad]

As I drove by Tractor Supply or Rural King this weekend and saw many dozens of brand new implements sitting in their parking lots, I thought about this thread.

 

[Bobctat2035]

I would speculate that there are very, very few $5K items that you or anyone else orders and pays up front for.
I just ordered $3K worth of fence wire from Deer Busters. It was picked up that day by SAIA and then they charged my card. Funny how that works.

We literally do it every day. I'm speaking from direct experience, not speculation. I've been in business for 20 years and have been running it like this since day one. We also do not take orders over 10k via credit card because of the fraud liability so we regularly get wire transfers from our customers. None of our customers have issues with payment up front. Maybe it's because our website doesn't say "Theres a good chance Imma run off with your cash" like EA's circa 1998 website does. Or maybe it's our spotless 4.9 star Google review reputation that reassures customers we're not scammers. Or maybe it's because our clients aren't stuck in the 1970s. Who knows?

Yes because it's an in stock item. Not something that Deer Busters personally hand crafted in a warehouse in North Carolina specifically for you. If they had to special order something they don't typically stock specifically for you, I guarantee you they would charge you before hand.

 

[jmc]

Off topic alert:

Decades ago, I went to an auction of a small manufacturing business bankruptcy- selling it lock, stock, and barrel, one lot at a time. They made surgical instruments- often large government orders. Some of the failed partners were there, selectively buying things.

One lot was trays of semi-finished instruments with a junk radio stacked on top. Auctioneer starts out low, assuming he was selling the radio. Not his first rodeo, he notice all the interest in that radio and started jumping bids $10 at a time and eventually, maybe $100 at a time. One of the bidders was the failed partners. I think that lot went for thousands of dollars.

Turns out, the failed partners had found another investor for a new venture and hoped to buy those semi-finished parts on the cheap, finish them out, and (probably) fulfill the original order. IOW, almost pure gravy.

Their problem was, a competitor showed up who also knew the story. As the bidding played out, it seemed more like a grudge match.

Small town where most people knew each other. Word was that those partners had a pattern of filing bankruptcy, finding a new backer, and resume where they left off, free of debt.

 

[plowhog]

The endless complaints about payment upfront though are completely unfounded and based in total ignorance. Please stop already.

Glad to learn no one lost any money.

 

[MattB4]

... None of our customers have issues with payment up front. Maybe it's because our website doesn't say "Theres a good chance Imma run off with your cash" like EA's circa 1998 website does. Or maybe it's our spotless 4.9 star Google review reputation that reassures customers we're not scammers. Or maybe it's because our clients aren't stuck in the 1970s. Who knows?

...

I am willing to wager you that some of your customers do have qualms about payment up front. Your sterling reputation might help them overcome it. However I will say this about reputations, they are only as good as the last fulfilled order.

There is a ring instruction in Boxing, "Protect yourself at all times."

 

[Bobctat2035]

yes, nothing EA made was custom or made to order. They were all stock orders.

What does your e-commerce site sell? Let’s see if we can make an apples to apples comp. Do you charge any customer accounts today and wait months to ship for back orders?

Custom / Semi Custom furniture and display products. Some more popular items / sizes are premade and ready to ship but those products are listed as such. If those common items are not already in stock, they will share the same lead time as a custom made item.

Our lead time is currently weeks, not months but during the pandemic, some of our products had a 3-4 month wait. So yes, we did. No complaints because most people understand how e-commerce shopping works.

We are about as a direct comparison to EA as it gets without being an actual implement manufacture. I even have a house on the same lake. The difference is I haven't run my company into the dumper with tons of poor financial decisions. I would sell my house, boat and jet skis before I had to lay off any employees.

 

[workinonit]

We literally do it every day. I'm speaking from direct experience, not speculation. I've been in business for 20 years and have been running it like this since day one. We also do not take orders over 10k via credit card because of the fraud liability so we regularly get wire transfers from our customers. None of our customers have issues with payment up front. Maybe it's because our website doesn't say "Theres a good chance Imma run off with your cash" like EA's circa 1998 website does. Or maybe it's our spotless 4.9 star Google review reputation that reassures customers we're not scammers. Or maybe it's because our clients aren't stuck in the 1970s. Who knows?

Yes because it's an in stock item. Not something that Deer Busters personally hand crafted in a warehouse in North Carolina specifically for you. If they had to special order something they don't typically stock specifically for you, I guarantee you they would charge you before hand.

They didn't handcraft things specifically for anyone. they made the same item for anyone who ordered it. The reason it was "handcrafted specifically for you" is because they were 6 months behind on manufacturing and when an item was made it shipped out to the customer. If you can do that and get away with it then more power to you. If it's a specialty item, I get it.