alandenisefields
07-19-2005, 09:05 PM
We received the following email from Impression Bridal today regarding the DBS bankruptcy:
Dear Mr Fields
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Mitch Yeh and I am the Vice President of operation at Impression Bridal.
I have been monitoring the DBS/Martin bridal bankruptcies closely. I appreciate and applaud your effort in taking the lead role in helping all these brides get the dresses that they ordered through Discount Bridal Services.
I am sympathetic to the bride’s problem. As a consumer, I do exactly the same thing. I would go to the national electronic store to look at a camcorder. When I want to purchase a certain model, I would look on the Internet to find the lowest price. I am trading the benefit of a lower price with the risk of dealing with a merchant that may not resolve issues that I may have after making the purchase. I am also taking a risk that I may send them money and never receive the product.
While I am sympathetic to the bride’s problem, I ultimately have to protect my customers, which are the authorized bridal salons and NOT the DBS representatives. My initial decision was to have the bride go to an authorized bridal salon where we’ll ship the gown directly to the salon. We received many comments from the bride that they do not want to go thru another bridal salon because they are afraid that the new bridal salon may file bankruptcy as well. Obviously, these fears are unfounded but are understandable given the experience that they just encountered. Given the situation, we changed the policy to offer the bride the option to purchase the gown from us at the full retail price. As a wholesaler, I cannot have my customers thinking that I am competing with them for business. This policy enables us to protect our customer and still offer the bride the option of not dealing with a middleman.
Regards,
Mitch Yeh
[email protected]
Our response:
Mitch:
Thanks for taking the time to explain your policy on the DBS bankruptcy.
While we do appreciate your articulation of the reasons behind your decision, we must say that we are greatly disappointed. As you know, Martins/DBS has had a long-standing AUTHORIZED dealer relationship with Impressions and even advised Nick Yeh (the owner of Impressions) in recent years how to improve the company’s competitive position. Despite this relationship, DBS dealers and customers are being hung out to dry by the policy of charging full retail for the order, instead of the normal wholesale price.
Your camcorder analogy is good, except it has nothing to do with bridal. A customer order for a specific number of Impression dresses in certain sizes/colors is a SPECIAL ORDER---not an off-the-shelf camcorder. If you know of a web site where you can order six purple camcorders in various specs/sizes to be delivered on one date, let us know.
As a result, we can not recommend Impression in our books in the future, including BRIDAL BARGAINS (which has over 500,000 copies in print). And we urge all Impression consumers to replace any outstanding Impressions order with a bridal gown from David’s or bridesmaids dresses from a catalog like Chadwicks. We would urge you to reconsider this policy at once.
Alan & Denise Fields
Authors, BRIDAL BARGAINS
Dear Mr Fields
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Mitch Yeh and I am the Vice President of operation at Impression Bridal.
I have been monitoring the DBS/Martin bridal bankruptcies closely. I appreciate and applaud your effort in taking the lead role in helping all these brides get the dresses that they ordered through Discount Bridal Services.
I am sympathetic to the bride’s problem. As a consumer, I do exactly the same thing. I would go to the national electronic store to look at a camcorder. When I want to purchase a certain model, I would look on the Internet to find the lowest price. I am trading the benefit of a lower price with the risk of dealing with a merchant that may not resolve issues that I may have after making the purchase. I am also taking a risk that I may send them money and never receive the product.
While I am sympathetic to the bride’s problem, I ultimately have to protect my customers, which are the authorized bridal salons and NOT the DBS representatives. My initial decision was to have the bride go to an authorized bridal salon where we’ll ship the gown directly to the salon. We received many comments from the bride that they do not want to go thru another bridal salon because they are afraid that the new bridal salon may file bankruptcy as well. Obviously, these fears are unfounded but are understandable given the experience that they just encountered. Given the situation, we changed the policy to offer the bride the option to purchase the gown from us at the full retail price. As a wholesaler, I cannot have my customers thinking that I am competing with them for business. This policy enables us to protect our customer and still offer the bride the option of not dealing with a middleman.
Regards,
Mitch Yeh
[email protected]
Our response:
Mitch:
Thanks for taking the time to explain your policy on the DBS bankruptcy.
While we do appreciate your articulation of the reasons behind your decision, we must say that we are greatly disappointed. As you know, Martins/DBS has had a long-standing AUTHORIZED dealer relationship with Impressions and even advised Nick Yeh (the owner of Impressions) in recent years how to improve the company’s competitive position. Despite this relationship, DBS dealers and customers are being hung out to dry by the policy of charging full retail for the order, instead of the normal wholesale price.
Your camcorder analogy is good, except it has nothing to do with bridal. A customer order for a specific number of Impression dresses in certain sizes/colors is a SPECIAL ORDER---not an off-the-shelf camcorder. If you know of a web site where you can order six purple camcorders in various specs/sizes to be delivered on one date, let us know.
As a result, we can not recommend Impression in our books in the future, including BRIDAL BARGAINS (which has over 500,000 copies in print). And we urge all Impression consumers to replace any outstanding Impressions order with a bridal gown from David’s or bridesmaids dresses from a catalog like Chadwicks. We would urge you to reconsider this policy at once.
Alan & Denise Fields
Authors, BRIDAL BARGAINS