Another despatch on its way to you ...

[A.S.]

It may not look very impressive, but 30 pairs of P3/Compact 7/SHL5 takes several days to build ... and half fills a medium size van. These will fly out of London tonight, arrive in the Far East tomorrow, cleared customs in 3 days and all sold within 7 days.

Due to my staff taking their long overdue, and essential annual holidays, I personally loaded every single one of this 800kg+ consignment into the van myself. That's customer care!

Just time for a cup of tea, then on with hand-making the next batch!

[macolive]

Oh wow! A couple of boxes that look very similar to those landed on my doorstep a couple of months ago!

All sold? Lucky devils!

[since13]

...Just time for a cup of tea, then on with hand-making the next batch!

Help from Greece!

With all the respect Sir, (and I understand that it's not polite to start posting here with such a question, but I hope to your understanding), I'm waiting since third week of March for my Super HL5... Local dealer had told me that I would have them by the end of April, then by May the 20th, today he told me that I have to wait another month (!!!)...

Can you please let me know what is going on? Because I can't trust him anymore, I'm afraid that in a month he will tell me to wait another month.... When do you think will arrive next batch to Greece?

my best regards

[A.S.]

Umm. I see your problem and I apologise for keeping you waiting.

Let me talk generally as I do not know the details of your case, and the office is closed for annual holiday until 9 June. So in general there are three reasons that could slow-down delivery ...

1. Harbeth UK factory slips behind for various unfortunate reasons. For example, we are working flat-out to clear the backlog of Monitor 40.1 orders. In the time it takes to build one pair of M40.1 we could build two pairs of SHL5 - so we are always trying to balance the waiting time for the M40.1 against the orders we have for the other models.

2. Despite explaining regularly and clearly that we have a long, long order leadtime and that we can not, and will not queue-jump customers, some of our markets just can not work with us on this and place orders on us far too late for their customers. What can we do? We are not mind readers (unfortunately) - we can not guess what model a market may need, and what veneer. Harbeth distributors who plan and place orders on us 6-12 months ahead (many do) are in a much better position to get on-time delivers from us, Our intention is that there should be enough stock in the distribution system to handle local needs.

3. Harbeth global sales are rising and no matter how hard we and our distributors work, there is just not enough being produced to keep all customers satisfied.

[since13]

Dear Mr. Shaw,

Thank you very much for your honest reply, although I still don't understand why doesn't he (Greek disrtibutor) told me from the start that I have to wait three or I don't know how many months, but instead he said "in two weeks", then "in another two weeks", then again the same...
Obviously he didn't make the order to you when I ordered from him, but he was waiting to find some more customers to make a bigger order...

I think HL5 is the last component I'm going to buy from him.

[A.S.]

Before you tackle him (he is a very good man) it would be better to check the facts with him please. Two weeks delivery from us for a brand new, unplanned order on us is utterly impossible. Many of our piece-parts (including cabinets) are on 12-15 week lead time and that lead time determines our entire manufacturing cycle. Some of our customers have orders placed on us into 2009 (7 months ahead) and clearly we have to process orders in strict sequence. Please do talk this through with your local distributor just in case there is some misunderstanding.