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.

[eleanor*rigby]

I'm not familiar with SLC. Are they a wholesaler, a retailer, or both?

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?

[cyclebitz]

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

Drop-shipping has a place in retail but your business should not rely on it. As a retailer you are supposed to carry inventory.

We stock every product we list and only use drop-ship when it makes economic sense or the customer is closer to the drop-ship warehouse than ours.

[luckythewinner]

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@na-6695 wrote:

There goes my Top Rated Seller status due to another "defect" that will put me over the 3 allowable.

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Failing to fulfill a transaction disappoints the buyer and the whole eBay community suffers for it.

IMHO out-of-stock defects are one case where eBay got it right.

[myboardid]

SLC is a dropshipper, or was. Using a dropshipper is a really bad way to run a business.

[mam98031]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@na-6695 wrote:

There goes my Top Rated Seller status due to another "defect" that will put me over the 3 allowable.

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Failing to fulfill a transaction disappoints the buyer and the whole eBay community suffers for it.

IMHO out-of-stock defects are one case where eBay got it right.

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I do drop ship some of my items and I actually agree with you.  I spend a great deal of time making sure my inventory is correct on an almost daily basis.  Sometimes I faultier.  But most days I go over my exceptions report from my supplier and make whatever adjustments needed to my inventory.  As a result of that hard work, I avoid most OOS dings.  I do however have one from the past year.  

[mam98031]

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@myboardid wrote:
SLC is a dropshipper, or was. Using a dropshipper is a really bad way to run a business.

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No it isn't.  But it does depend on the vendor you select to be a drop shipper for you and if you are going to do the work to make sure your inventory levels are accurate on Ebay.  Done the right way it can work well for both buyers and sellers.  

[kensgiftshop]

That place went down hill since they changed their name from SMC.

[eleanor*rigby]

Well, it apparently didn't end up working all that well for the OP.

[mam98031]

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@eleanor*rigby wrote:
Well, it apparently didn't end up working all that well for the OP.

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I made no claim that it would.  There are ways to do drop shipping successfully and there are ways that will get in you into trouble if you aren't careful.  However the situation of the OP is pretty unusual.  Hard to defend against your vendor silently shutting down.

[papermoneyforme]

Any one know what will happen to the emerchant websites or are they closed as well?

[fuzzface50]

"get the feeling that something horrible is about to happen to thousands of eBay sellers who use(d) SLC for their product sourcing"

Yea but it might be a good thing for other sellers to lose some competition, slow down that race to the bottom that drop shippers tend to compete in. 

[mam98031]

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@papermoneyforme wrote:

Any one know what will happen to the emerchant websites or are they closed as well?

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Sorry, I don't understand your question.

[papermoneyforme]

emerchant did the websites for SLC to integrate all their products on your site.

Now that SLC is shut down, will emerchant also go away and what will happen to people that have an emerchant/SLC website

[mam98031]

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@papermoneyforme wrote:

emerchant did the websites for SLC to integrate all their products on your site.

Now that SLC is shut down, will emerchant also go away and what will happen to people that have an emerchant/SLC website

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It would be an assumption on my part, but probably yes.