Supplier trouble

[jamie]

Hi, I'm new to this forum, thanks for letting me take part.

My initial problem is one of supply. I have been buying mugs from Xpres but they have just discontinued the mug we use, without warning and we are extremely thin on stocks. The mug we use is their Xp5059, which for most of you probably wouldn't be the mug of choice but for us it's perfect. The problem is that we have stockists and wholesalers with this mug on the shelf right now and we can't find anyone who's doing the same mug. The specific dimensions we need are 88mm tall x 80mm diameter. I know I can get some at 92mm (same diameter) but this is what we need. Does anyone know where we can get some at very short notice? You would really be digging us out of a massive whole right. We've had to suspend all stocks until we get this sorted. Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks
Jamie

PS. They have said they would buy some more for us but we can't get them until March!!!!

[Earl Smith]

If all else fails you could try my supplier here in Germany. www.printequipment.de
They are one of the biggest suppliers over here. Maybe they can help. They speak English.

[jamie]

If all else fails you could try my supplier here in Germany. www.printequipment.de
They are one of the biggest suppliers over here. Maybe they can help. They speak English.

That's a great fall back thanks for that Earl

[Earl Smith]

Ive just had a quick look at their site. They dont seem to have the size you want but you could telephone them and ask. You never know, they might have a secret stash somewhere.

[jamie]

Ive just had a quick look at their site. They dont seem to have the size you want but you could telephone them and ask. You never know, they might have a secret stash somewhere.

Yeh, I had a good look through and couldn't find the size. I think I will call them and ask, thanks again

If anyone knows of anyone in the UK, that would be very handy indeed

[Justin]

Have you spoken to your customers about possibly using the slightly different mugs? I guess at some stage you'll need to switch unless Xpres can guarantee you ongoing stock. I'm currently using Raja mugs which are very good but not sure on size until I'm back in the office.

[mrs maggot]

these might have something ? sorry dont have time to check all the variables http://www.bestsublimation.cn/photo-mug ... -mugs.html

[jamie]

Thanks Justin. I did contact Raja but they don't do that size. We haven't spoken to customers yet, this only came to light yesterday, perfect for fulfilling those orders we don't have stock of! Xpres told us that they would continue to order these if we wanted them but we would need to put advance orders in, so that's a 3 month lead time each time we need them, which is not ideal. I'm sure retail customers won't have an issue with a change in dims but our stockists might as the larger mugs would sit aside the smaller old stock mugs on the same shelf which could look a little odd. I think we're fast coming to the conclusion that we will need to move to a large mug. Actually we started with larger mugs but moved to this as it was ideal and ever so slightly different, which is us for sure.

If anyone has any stocks of Xpres XP5059 mugs, we're willing to purchase them from you Just as a stop gap measure.

[jamie]

Thanks Mrs Maggot, unfortunately, they don't do the size we're after, thanks though

[pisquee]

We're in the same situation, waiting on Raja to import our next load of non standard mugs to arrive mid Jan. Initially they'd said early Dec, and we had enough to fulfill wholesale order 'til then, so didn't think we had a problem. We moved to standard 10oz mugs (with some designs reworked and new ones created) to keep us going, some stockists have taken these, and other are sitting waiting til we can supply our usual.