Any business could have moved into this empty space next door yet what were the chances a packaging company would move in? Not only that they are financially solid so it was a no brainer to sound them out as a future client. Some say things happen for a reason and in this case I would go with that.
I have been pressurizing my business partner to give me the pricing for my next door neighbor warehouse client who are a packaging wholesaler/supplier. When I spoke to this lady last week Thursday I was hoping to give her the prices by Monday latest and have been avoiding bumping into her.
This evening I handed over the pricing and I can see what took so long as my partner has priced every single item. I thought he was only going to provide half a dozen for now, but he has done them all.
This company already had very good pricing so I was concerned what type of a saving we could make on their behalf. The good thing is they do big volume so even a small percentage saved on every item adds up to quite a large number.
The good news is she was delighted and the pressure is now on me being next door making sure her orders arrive on time. I never expected them to be such a big account and only realised that when I heard that this warehouse is their 3rd warehouse and more of an overflow, but most definitely not their main stock holding.
You can never presume and judge a business by it's appearance and have to rather pay close attention to the details. They have a fleet of roughly 10-12 delivery vans which tells you all you need to know. If they do a delivery to a client once per week and each van does 8 deliveries per day then they have roughly 500 clients. That for any business is a decent number and I am optimistic about the first order which I expect this week being the end of the month.
The packaging business is rather fickle and we know most manufacturers have had a rough time of sourcing raw materials ever since the lock downs. SASOL the largest raw material supplier is more out of stock than in stock so we have a supply out of Dubai and receive roughly 50 tons per week and the factory remains running 7 days per week. It was just the Johannesburg side of things that shut down as my partner who started this business had to prioritize his long term local clients in Durban first and there was o material to service my clients.
The factory had been mothballed for a good 18 months whilst raw material issues were sorted out. I basically walked away as there is nothing worse than letting clients down with empty promises after having spent months trying to land their business. This seems to be the case with this company as they have been struggling to find consistent regular supply and why they are so keen to get started.
Personally I wanted to only start this business relationship in the New Year which is now happening now. This is one of those accounts you only wish you had and it was on my doorstep so you just never know until you walk inside. This will make up for walking away from all of my other clients I had 4 years ago and honestly find this situation totally unexpected and why you have to remain positive.