<story><title>Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]</title><url>https://www.modest.coffee/2022/12/how-we-got-grifted/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lisper</author><text>Others have pointed this out, but no one has actually done the math yet, so...&lt;p&gt;6000 &amp;quot;units&amp;quot; for $250,000 is $41&amp;#x2F;unit.  At wholesale.  For a product that retails for $16&amp;#x2F;bag.&lt;p&gt;It is just inconceivable that no one noticed this discrepancy.  This is not a &amp;quot;grift&amp;quot; by the distributor, this is an elementary and obvious fuckup by the producer.&lt;p&gt;In fact, it&amp;#x27;s so elementary and obvious that it would not surprise me a bit if this whole thing turns out to be a publicity stunt that succeeded spectacularly well, at least for a little while, because once the cat is out of the bag all the people who bought that coffee will realize that they are the ones who got played.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dtnewman</author><text>From the article:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;June 2022 comes, and the orders for this retailer start coming in from the distributor. This coffee was shipping to five distribution centers so we were receiving multiple orders. The orders were large but we thought we could handle it. Then the orders kept coming, spread apart by days.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;So it sounds like they had an initial agreement for 6000 units, but the actual purchase orders were coming in piecemeal.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s no question that these business owners made some stupid mistakes and probably failed to read the fine-print. On the other hand, when you are a small business looking to grow, you learn as you go along. And oftentimes you have about zero leverage with a multi-billion dollar distributor or a supermarket. You can&amp;#x27;t really ask them to change their legal terms from their boilerplate language because fuck if they are going to get their lawyers involved to change boilerplate documents at the request of a new manufacturer fulfilling a tiny order [1]. So you sign anyway and hope for the best.&lt;p&gt;[1] Reminds me of my friend who got a lucrative job offer from a large investment bank out of college, but wanted to adjust the terms in the non-compete section of their contract (something you hear suggested a lot by people here on HN). They literally laughed at him when he suggested it and said something sarcastic along the lines of &amp;quot;yeah, let&amp;#x27;s phone our legal team and tell them that the  first year analyst wants a personalized job contract&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Distributor cancelled an order and we need to move 30k bags of coffee [updated]</title><url>https://www.modest.coffee/2022/12/how-we-got-grifted/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lisper</author><text>Others have pointed this out, but no one has actually done the math yet, so...&lt;p&gt;6000 &amp;quot;units&amp;quot; for $250,000 is $41&amp;#x2F;unit.  At wholesale.  For a product that retails for $16&amp;#x2F;bag.&lt;p&gt;It is just inconceivable that no one noticed this discrepancy.  This is not a &amp;quot;grift&amp;quot; by the distributor, this is an elementary and obvious fuckup by the producer.&lt;p&gt;In fact, it&amp;#x27;s so elementary and obvious that it would not surprise me a bit if this whole thing turns out to be a publicity stunt that succeeded spectacularly well, at least for a little while, because once the cat is out of the bag all the people who bought that coffee will realize that they are the ones who got played.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>samwillis</author><text>There is undeniable an F-up on the producers part here, however I think you are assuming too much in your calculation. They don&amp;#x27;t say at any point the $250k order value was the initial order as they understood it. They explicitly state that they kept getting further orders past what they understood as the initial 6k units.&lt;p&gt;I think what&amp;#x27;s happed here is that as the order kept a growing they took on more debt to fulfil it. I don&amp;#x27;t think they believed the initial order was for $250k and that they were being payed more than wholesale per bag.</text></comment>