FedEx 1: Rockwood 0

Legume said:

Free bag of Cowboy lump to the first person to put their keyboard away.

DieselkW said:

@stlcharcoal agreed, but as a valuable vendor you have the leverage and the responsibility to have FireCraft adjust their packaging methods because it directly affects your bottom line. Right or wrong, the average consumer will blame ROCKWOOD for this because it's your company name in a thousand point font, and FireCraft on the return address label in 12 point font. Do you want more customers (that are unhappy but don't complain where you can see it) to blame Rockwood for this kind of delivery? Completely up to you. When I buy Rockwood, I buy it at Ace Hardware in excellent condition.

I've been in sales my entire adult life, and I'm here to tell you that showing hostility to the consumer is counter productive. Everyone reading this thread is a potential customer and your public pissing contest with one angry dude has an affect on all your potential customers, only some of it is positive.

I repeat, it won't hurt to talk to FireCraft, tell them you're seeing a limited amount of feedback on their packaging methods, and what can be done about increasing the level of customer satisfaction for both companies?

If it cost an extra dollar a box, are you willing to drop your per bag price by 25 cents to compromise?

I'll tell you this - If my FireCraft deliveries showed up in a tight box, protected better from the gorillas at UPS/FedEx, I will give Rockwood 100% of my lump purchases that are now going to Amazon.

Because Amazon is not perfect, but they ship better faster and are far more responsive to complaints than FireCraft is. And they do it for $1/lb. no minimum dollar value.

I didn't say that I wouldn't talk to them about it, I just said it's ultimately up to them how they do business.  I'm not going to cut them off because of "all the complaints", of which I formally have ONE.  Their sales have increased every month for the last few years, and then they doubled in March when another brand went off the market.  A vast majority of their customers are obviously happy with their orders, or we would see a drop in sales (and an increase in complaints to them and to us......hasn't happened).  Like another said though, the "free" aspect of the shipping could go away if these beat up bags become an epidemic.

I've looked at Amazon for fulfillment and you would be looking at $25-27/bag.....not gonna happen.  If they had a fulfillment center locally, it would be much less and make sense.  As with everything else, SOMEONE is paying for the shipping.

I've been in sales my whole life, since I was a kid.....things change a little when your name on the product.  The customer is always right--but when someone is not a customer, has no intention of being a customer ever again, and acts in a vindictive manner toward the company/product that feeds my family, the gloves come off.  I'm not going to hide or try to appease someone who has not even given me the courtesy an email/call and the opportunity to fix the problem for them.  If anything, potential customers are going to see that I handle these issues personally and am passionate about the product I sell--and perhaps encourage them to contact me directly rather than making passive aggressive / anonymous posts on the internet. 

xiphoid007 said:

Now, speaking of good lumps, how about some more Giada pics!!!