Product Update

Remember, the strikes at the west coast ports and China not shipping out any products during the Chinese New Year, have caused massive delays for many many companies. I ordered some more  opic Markers yesterday, and the first three vendors had such low inventory, they didn't have all the colors I wanted. I finally found all 5 colors in stock at one vendor. Copics come from Japan and are all shipped into ports on the west coast.

Stampin Up! Related an update about the butterflies!
The Butterflies Thinlits have shipped from China, and we are awaiting an arrival confirmation date; that means at this time we do not have an availability date. Once we have more information, I will let you know. 

Now, about Blendabilities.

Over the months we’ve noticed quality issues with this product, but they were within normal tolerance. However, when corrections and complaints became more and more frequent, we increased the sophistication of our quality testing. Our manufacturer is now reporting a 30 to 40 percent fail rate before they are shipped to Stampin’ Up!—which is unacceptable.

The decision to pull the Blendabilities line was painful for all of us here at Stampin’ Up! We carefully selected a reputable manufacturer whom we believed could produce high quality, alcohol-based markers. But with the manufacturer reporting that 30–40 percent of the product produced could not be shipped to Stampin’ Up!, and with other defects being discovered by us when we tested the product here at Stampin’ Up!, we’ve come to the conclusion that the company are in a no-win position. Due to the nature of the defect, the problem would only become more widespread. That leaves us with only two possible courses of action: to keep selling the product (with uncertainty about whether the manufacturer could ever repair the defect) or withdraw it from our offering. We felt that we would rather pull the line than continue to try and sell a product with such a high fail rate and such an uncertain future.

I sure have learned a lot about commerce, business and manufacturing. It makes me sad that the US has to rely on China to make so many of our products. I mean EVERYTHING you know? Anything made here in the US costs more, and for companies to keep the cost down they go to China. Those poor people are making nothing for their work in factories. Little kids are working in the clothing factories. Wow. How on earth did things get so messed up, and how do we fix them? Some people blame labor unions. I can see that to some extent, but it can't be just that simple. I haven't had really nice towels since the textile industry left us. Doesn't matter what brand, how much I pay for them, they all have hems and they rip out. Towels never used to do that. We didn't have hems either, did we?