Assortability

Among other things, I purchase your donuts (round, rectangular & oval) tongue pendants, teardrop and trapazoid pendants.  I was just wondering why I cannot get the 100+ discount when I buy an assortment of these pendants.  I even asked them over the phone if I could get the 100+ quantity discount if I purchased 200+ pendants, and I got a big fat no.  Can someone tell me why this cannot be done?  I love buying items from you, and your full color catalog is even more fabulous, but this is something that really has me wondering.  I would be able to buy more pendants and would be able to buy more frequently.  Thanks in advance.

AEBeads

[Tamelyne]

I agree.  Your biggest competitor allows assortability, which is very attractive to small-potatoes home businesses like myself.

[Polly]

Thank you, both, for posting.

Because of how our computer system is set up, discounts for assorted products are awkward.  It takes a fair amount of time to override each price and calculate out the new prices for each line.

So right now, we're working on more efficient way to do discounts for large assortments.
I think we have something for the donuts and jumbo gemstone pendants, just about worked out, and so I'll post it when I have more details.

--Polly

Polly,

Since nothing is in place to obtain a quantity discount at present, could one calculate the discount on a spreadsheet and send it to the order department?  This would take the guess work out of it and the legwork would be done by the time the order came in.  This would be beneficial on both ends.  Thanks again.


AEBeads

[Russ Nobbs]

Part of our "logic" for price breaks is having things packaged up, ready to go, in the next quantity. That is, it's faster to grab a 10 gross bag than to count and double check 10 one gross bags. Less labor costs that we can pass along as a discount.

Same thing for strands. It takes less labor to grab a bag of 10 strands than to label 10 individual strands and pull and double count 10 individual strands.  That said, there are things like donuts that are rarely prepacked in 10's.  If we give a break for 10 of one style that we have to pick one-by-one why not a break for 10 assorted.

Overriding each price for each line item on the computer IS time consuming. It takes time for the person on the phone ordering, too. The spreadsheet idea is better but takes extra time, too. The "next" price break usually gives between 8% and 15% off the lower quantity price. I've suggested a simple way to give an assorted price break is to do a flat 10% discount on the total for each group being assorted. 10% is often an easy one to do in your head so it could be done line by line, too. a flat 10% saves the time of looking up the next price break either in the catalog or on the computer.  

On some items (hematite for example) the break from single to 10's is much larger (15% to 25%) so we have to do some exploring of our options. Most of you who resell already buy hematite in 10's or larger because they are so cheap. In any event, these are some of the things we are considering. Between getting ready for the move, packing and traveling with the trunk shows  and establishing easy ways to do this in the computer, it's taking longer to thrash out a new "assortability" discount than Polly hoped when she first posted back to you.

[Kaytee]

>>Overriding each price for each line item on the computer IS time consuming...<<

Why not make "assortment packs" of these and similar items? You've done it with other items-- I got an assortment package of brass charms from you, which was "1 each" of each style, at a bit more than what a "bulk discount" would have been on the same # of individual packs in one style. As  I recall, the assortment pack had its own stock #.

[Russ Nobbs]

We do that, Kaytee, for a lot of things. But what this thread started with was allowing you to buy , say, 100 gemstone donuts in  your choice of stones and get the 100's price instead of the each price.

We could make up an assorted 100's pack but it would not be just the ones wanted.

Many people first buy an intem in the assorted pack to see what they can do with it. Future purchases are usually ordered by color when they know which ones do best for them.

Are there things we currently don't offer in assortments that you would like to buy assorted?

[Kaytee]

>>Are there things we currently don't offer in assortments that you would like to buy assorted? <<

Well, actually, I usually buy assortments in person at your shows, and only "fill in" from the catalog, so I don't know exactly what is/isn't catalog-assortable in most of the stuff I buy "assorted".... Hope that made sense....

The gemstone donuts would be a nice assortment-- say a pack of 10 assorted (one each of 10 different stones) and/or a bulk deal of 10 packs of 10 individual stone types (one type per pack), in both cases the assortment chosen by RnT.

What I've been buying in "assorted bulk" at your shows have been "wonder beads", catseye chips and the 4mm & 6mm Chinese chevron beads-- usually one of every color I don't remember having, or that I remember using most of, or just because I really liked the color. I also bought "one each" of the ceramic mini-vessel pendants available at one of the shows-- a "bulk assortment" of those would be nice, rather than having to get multiples of just one style for the bulk price. Maybe call such "bulk packs" something like "designer assortments" to distinguish them from the true bulk packs-- I'd expect the "10 assorted" price to be a bit higher than the "10 bulk" price (though I certainly wouldn't object if it wasn't!).

[WriteBrainedWoman]

It’s ready at last (whew!). Thank you to everyone who posted suggestions about assortments! We read them all and have created an assortment system that we hope will meet your needs. Gemstone donuts and jumbo pendants are now available at a discount when you assort 100 or more pieces. With this new option, you get:
- 15% off the 10s price
- any stone or style you want (in groups of 10)

This means you can order 10 amethyst teardrops, 40 sodalite donuts, 20 tigereye rectangle donuts, 30 goldstone faceted trapezoids, and so on.

As Russ always says, we listen to you!  '>

Melissa

[Polly]

p.s.  We had a little confusion in our math translation the first time we posted the discount.  We originally said it was 15% off the each price.  It is really 15% off the 10's price, like it now says above.
--Polly