Drop shipper Smart Living Company has ceased operations

[na-6695]

"IMPORTANT NOTICE

On December 31, 2019, Smart Living Company ceased operations. Sigma Distributors, Inc. has acquired the intellectual property, inventory, and other select assets of Smart Living Company. Sigma Distributors is not responsible for Smart Living Company’s payables, product returns, or any other debts or liabilities. For matters pertaining to business with Smart Living Company prior to January 1, 2020, please email slc8302 (at) gmail (dot) com .

Sigma Distributors is fully prepared to accept new orders for Smart Living products and will begin shipping new orders on January 2, 2020. To inquire about placing an order with us, please email customerservice (at) SigmaSLC (dot) com . Our new toll-free phone number will be operational shortly and will be posted on this page when available. We will also be launching a new e-commerce website very soon, which smartlivingcompany (dot) com will redirect to."

Someone just bought an item from me that I source through SLC and when I went to place the order I was met with a shocking notice that the order minimum MUST BE $100,000. 

I get the feeling that something horrible is about to happen to thousands of eBay sellers who use(d) SLC for their product sourcing. Better put your stores on vacation until this get resolved.

The old SLC phone number just rings busy... In the mean time I have placed my eBay stores on vacation until this matter gets resolved and am more than likely going to have to refund my buyer and cancel the transaction. There goes my Top Rated Seller status due to another "defect" that will put me over the 3 allowable.

[na-6695]

Using a drop shipper has been working fine for me for the past 15 years. Getting nabbed for OOS has been minimal - I check the drop shipper's inventory daily. As for your comment of it being a really bad way to run a business, tell that to Amazon, Wayfair, Kmart, Sears, Overstock.com, and the endless list of venues that either use drop shippers directly or have 3rd party sellers who do (I sell on Amazon too). Remember Buy.com? They were once really big and sold on eBay too. Their entire inventory was drop shipped merchandise. Same thing with Shopify stores; almost all products are drop shipped.

Drop shipping may not be right for you but as an experienced eBay member/seller since December of 1998 selling under several ID's (my own best competition), I've found something that works very well for me, although as other sellers use the same drop shipper, the only problem becomes the "race to the bottom" pricing, cutting out profit to try to secure a sale. But that problem exists whether you're selling drop shipped items or not.

Best of the New Year to you!

[na-6695]

Sigma Distributors, the company that bought SLC, said they have nothing to do with eMerchant websites and that you should contact eMerchant directly. I think this whole thing is going to be up in the air for the next week or two as Sigma gets things sorted out. It sure would have been nice if they had been working on this and effected a smooth transition January 1st.

[na-6695]

I guess that all depends on whether or not eMerchant can contract with Sigma using the same EDI (electronic data interchange) as they had with SLC so the eMerchant websites can continue to show real-time inventory of items for sale. eMerchant was the only company authorized by SLC to sell websites stocked with SLC products with a direct EDI link to SLC live inventory.

[na-6695]

What would be nice is if the majority of folks using these drop shippers would price their merchandise to make a REAL profit. I prefer to make more on a sale than eBay does but most of these sellers don't seem to understand how much money more money they let eBay make over their own final profit, all in the name of trying to get the sale.

I use a fee calculator at finalfeecalc.com. It allows you to figure out a pricing strategy by showing you what your eBay and PayPal fees will be based on sale price and item/shipping costs. What troubles me is when I plug in the BIN price of an identical item offered for sale by another seller that I know is being sourced from the same drop shipper and see where the seller is actually LOOSING money on the sale, I think to myself, "have they no clue as to what they're doing???"

BTW, I have no affiliation with the fee calculator web site I mentioned. I found it years ago and the operator keeps up with any changes in eBay fee structures and changes.

[pink.fish.rule]

Wasn't SLC a membership based thing were you paid to "get deals"?

[na-6695]

Yes, they were membership-based. I don't know if there latest program was a monthly membership but I've been a member since 2004 and paid $49 per year. I was getting 5% discount off their lowest prices. I don't know if anything worked different for monthly memberships (again, I don't know if they transitioned into monthly).

[na-6695]

I don't see how you figure "(Failing to fulfill a transaction disappoints the buyer) ...the whole eBay community suffers for it." How does the whole eBay community suffer for it? When you go to a physical store to buy something and it's out of stock, does the whole business community suffer for it? Not trying to be facetious here but let's keep things real and in perspective. Yes, it's disappointing to buy something only to learn it's not available, but I don't get the correlation of how the whole eBay community suffers for it.

[emerald1830]

But when I go to a store, to buy something I want and it's not available, I don't have to pay for it, head to my car empty handed..

I utterly detest when I pay for something on ebay and then I get the email stating my money has been refunded cause it's OOS..It ties my money up sometimes a entire week..

[na-6695]

"Never heard of SLC but obviously the format was not working for that company."

Originally called Specialty Merchandise Corporation (SMC), it was founded in 1954 by Abe Levine, and has helped launch more than 2.5 million home-based businesses across the U.S. and Canada. The company is one of the few home-based businesses to offer its members a wide variety of merchandise, drop-ship fulfillment, and live one-on-one business coaching.

It has worked since 1954 but as to the reason why they decided to sell, I don't have that information. Even Tom Bosley of "Happy Days" fame was paid to do an infomercial for them some 10-15 years ago.

[na-6695]

Of the VERY FEW times I've been OOS of an item, my customer(s) have been refunded instantly - none has ever had to wait more than minutes to get their money back once the refund has been issued. I don't know why you would have to wait up to a week.

As for utterly detesting this situation, well... I can only say that I do my best to provide the best possible customer experience when they buy from me and even when these types of situations occur (as I stated - RARELY) over the past 20 years I've only had ONE person leave me a NEG feedback - ONE out of THOUSANDS. On the other hand, it's sad that eBay won't let you leave NEG feedback anymore for people who scam you. I've had that happen a heck of a lot more times than I've been OOS of an item.

[mam98031]

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@na-6695 wrote:
Of the VERY FEW times I've been OOS of an item, my customer(s) have been refunded instantly - none has ever had to wait more than minutes to get their money back once the refund has been issued. I don't know why you would have to wait up to a week.

As for utterly detesting this situation, well... I can only say that I do my best to provide the best possible customer experience when they buy from me and even when these types of situations occur (as I stated - RARELY) over the past 20 years I've only had ONE person leave me a NEG feedback - ONE out of THOUSANDS. On the other hand, it's sad that eBay won't let you leave NEG feedback anymore for people who scam you. I've had that happen a heck of a lot more times than I've been OOS of an item.

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The buyer's money can and does get tied up on a refund often.  It takes a few days for the refund to show up for them depending on the funding method they used when they make the payment.

[na-6695]

I've never had anyone mention any issue with receiving their refund in a timely fashion. This isn't to say it's not possible for this to occur since "captured" funds may take several days to be released; it's just not been my experience or at least not brought to my attentions by a customer.

[mam98031]

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@na-6695 wrote:
I've never had anyone mention any issue with receiving their refund in a timely fashion. This isn't to say it's not possible for this to occur since "captured" funds may take several days to be released; it's just not been my experience or at least not brought to my attentions by a customer.

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I don't know how often it happens.  Like you, my buyers don't always say something.  I know that the last one I processed took a few days before the buyer had access to their money again.  I didn't ask them what their funding source was, I should ask that next time someone says something.

[na-6695]

Let me clarify my feedback comment: I have not had thousands of OOS incidents, just ONE person leaving a NEG out of the thousands of FB I've received over the years. 🙂

[eleanor*rigby]

@na-6695 

I know it's so easy to overlook posts/replies on threads like this, so I'll post mine again. (It was the very first reply to your original post, so easy to miss.)

"When you say that you "source through SLC," does that mean you list an item you don't have physical possession of and then when someone buys it, you buy it from SLC and have them ship it to your buyer?

Or was SLC a wholesale supplier with whom you had an agreement to buy stock and worked with them to send items directly to your buyers without handling them yourself?"