All-Star Late Uniforms

[CheerBank]

If I paid $300 for a uniform and the teams had competed almost half of their competitions, I would be furious. My thought process is mosly financial. If a team has 10 comps, and 5 are performed without a uniform, it brings the cost of the uniform from $30 per competition ($300/10 comps) to $60 per comp! I don't revere a uniform. Just owning it is not enough. It is being used for its intended purpose. Coming through with the order EVENTUALLY is not enough. I would want it discounted for each competition missed. Can that be written into a contract?

Maybe that would actually be the best way to hold any uniform company accountable.

 

[SharkDad]

It's been my suggestion al along for gyms to have it written in the contract. If they don't ask for that then I am not sure how they are protecting their customers--the parents and athletes.

The entire sport has a buffer for the people making money and the people who pay it:

EPs, bow companies, uniform companies, etc all have their business practices but they mainly deal with the gyms.

Gyms are the ones dealing with late or poor service from the above. Some do it better than others.

Parents are the ones paying the bill--not the gyms. Therefore they get stuck with many different excuses and all the consequences because no one wants to leave the gym to show there displeasure of the late service or merchandise.

 

[xshannerzx]

xshannerzx that is awful :( you know those people knew they were bad when they sent them too.

That's my biggest concern... why didn't they test the graphic first to make sure everything fit right, and second, why did they let all of the uniforms print, and then send them anyway hoping we wouldn't notice? At this point I have no idea what to do, or who to go through if we can get our money back. Our next competition is January 26, so we have a little time, but not much.

 

[Rudags]

My problem with most complaints is facts. I can't tell you how many of my customers have called in to try and throw me under the bus this year because they didnt like a ship date I was giving them or tried to get a bigger discount than my pay grade allows. Thank goodness email saves.

The number one problem I have is on the coaches. You can ask ANY SINGLE ONE of my customers who ordered in June, July or beginning of August and they will be singing praise. However, ordering uniforms for your teams in September, October, November and even December (YES, I am still placing ALLSTAR orders) to me is unorganized.

When a typical season (to me at least) is November-April, how would ANYONE feel its okay to order in September? Then get upset when we tell them 9-12 weeks? Busy season for uniforms is Late August-November. Knowing that, after your tryouts, start designing.

Im not trying to throw shade by saying its 100% on gym owners, and i know there will be exceptions where mistakes have happened. I know a lot of people are promoting smaller uniform companies, and thats great. Free market is a good thing. However, wait until these smaller companies grow at the rate the big companies have and you will experience the same thing. IDK "Rebel Athletics" or "Karen" but I am sure she would agree some coaches just wait til the last minute to start artwork or order.

Ive seen several Facebook posts from people complaining about uniform deliveries and if I wasn't as professional as I was, I would put them on blast.

Remember people. There are THREE sides to EVERY story. Side #1, Side #2 and the Truth!

 

[kristenthegreat]

My problem with most complaints is facts. I can't tell you how many of my customers have called in to try and throw me under the bus this year because they didnt like a ship date I was giving them or tried to get a bigger discount than my pay grade allows. Thank goodness email saves.

The number one problem I have is on the coaches. You can ask ANY SINGLE ONE of my customers who ordered in June, July or beginning of August and they will be singing praise. However, ordering uniforms for your teams in September, October, November and even December (YES, I am still placing ALLSTAR orders) to me is unorganized.

When a typical season (to me at least) is November-April, how would ANYONE feel its okay to order in September? Then get upset when we tell them 9-12 weeks? Busy season for uniforms is Late August-November. Knowing that, after your tryouts, start designing.

Im not trying to throw shade by saying its 100% on gym owners, and i know there will be exceptions where mistakes have happened. I know a lot of people are promoting smaller uniform companies, and thats great. Free market is a good thing. However, wait until these smaller companies grow at the rate the big companies have and you will experience the same thing. IDK "Rebel Athletics" or "Karen" but I am sure she would agree some coaches just wait til the last minute to start artwork or order.

Ive seen several Facebook posts from people complaining about uniform deliveries and if I wasn't as professional as I was, I would put them on blast.

Remember people. There are THREE sides to EVERY story. Side #1, Side #2 and the Truth!

When people are looking to order uniforms, is there anything in the materials you send them that has that information? Or do you expect them to just 'know?'

I don't even mean this in a harsh/rude way, it's a legit question. I'm sure there are mistakes on both ends- on gym owners for waiting until the last minute, and uniform companies for promising and not delivering instead of being upfront about expectations and what they can handle.

 

[Rudags]

When people are looking to order uniforms, is there anything in the materials you send them that has that information? Or do you expect them to just 'know?'

I don't even mean this in a harsh/rude way, it's a legit question. I'm sure there are mistakes on both ends- on gym owners for waiting until the last minute, and uniform companies for promising and not delivering instead of being upfront about expectations and what they can handle.

I absolutely don't think you were being rude or facetous in anyway. I don't think we send out anything saying "order in June to be happy". I know that I spend my Feburary-July reaching out to gym owners about potentially checking out GK and making sure they got our new catalog. Anyone that I personally reach out to or have worked with in the past I make it VERY clear that it never hurts to get started on uniform designs early and I push them to order in June/July. I know GK assists in offering GREAT incentives about ordering early. Im assuming they will do it again since we did the past few years, but every June we offer FREE SHIPPING to our customers who order by that time. Its a great cost saver and can help the gym cut costs.

You are right in the sense that it can be everyones fault. It can be GK, it could be the rep, it could be the gym owner. The fact is, from a PR stand point, its always "GK" that takes a hit no matter who's fault it is. Do you think a gym owner is going to tell their gym full of parents and athletes "We won't have our uniforms the first 17 competitions because I waited to order in December"?

 

[SharkDad]

Rudags I know you're our favorite GK rep. I think most parents can handle the fact that you get a uniform late because it is ordered late. New additions to the team are great examples of ordering in December and I have seen later.

The part that I think really gets most of us is when it is promised by a certain date and arrives much later. I have also seen where that may end up being the gym owners fault. I will reiterate that if the parents let the gym owner know by demanding the discount, then the owner can either eat it if it's there fault or get the discount form the uniform company as would be fair if it's the companies' fault.

 

[Rudags]

SharkDad - There are various factors that can go into a "late" arrival from the dates promised. At GK, we have an estimated ship week listed right on our website. I have worked for GK for a little over three years and I can tell you that is is VERY accurate. Im not saying its 100%, but I am saying 9/10 the website will be correct. You can see that here:
GK Elite Sportswear - Estimated Ship Week


There are several factors on everyones parts that can go into a late shipdate:

*The Rep inputs the order in late.
*The gym owner doesn't pay on time
*The gym owner doesn't submit forms on time (Color Bleed Disclaimer, Credit App., etc)
*The gym owner keeps changing their mind on the design.
*The check bounces or credit card has a "per day" limit on it. This one happens more than I would like it to.
*The gym owner doesn't get back to the rep or GK fast enough with payment info or any questions or concerns.
*The gym owner wants to change the order after it has been submitted. If you want to email me a week after sayings "We just had three girls quit, so please remove 3 AS Tops and 3AS skirts, Thanks" - I have to communicate that we would have to cancel your order and I would have to re-enter it which could effect ship dates. Then the customer takes a week to get back with me to verify that she would like to do that. This one happens more often than one would think.

I'm not trying to be on the defense of GK and sound biased, but I will tell you, in MY experience, with MY customers (Whom I adore), 9/10 they waited too long to order or something above happened. Yes, 1/10 times I may have a mistake on my end, at which point I have to be upfront about it and say "I'm sorry, but I didnt get the order inputed fast enough for you and we missed our ship date." I just always get so irritated when GK gets flung through the mud when I know how 9/10 of my customers that are unhappy operate.

 

[SheCheersIPay]

I'm hearing from quite a few people who are late receiving uniforms.

I've always felt this would stop happening if parents required their gyms to hold uniform companies accountable for late merchandise like we do for any other expensive service we pay for: if you are late, the customer gets a discount or free merchandise. They can also show their displeasure by not using that uniform company anymore.

This is your money gym owners and parents, what do you think?

I absolutely agree with you. I think it should be a team effort. I think Gym owner's should have some type of contract to hold uniform companies accountable & Parents/Gym Owners need to have sometime of understanding BEFORE hand just in case something like this were to happen, because honestly you can't FORCE them to give you your uniform on time, you can only hope that they hold up their end of the agreement and represent their company well. I ALSO think that (because I have witnessed this SEVERAL times) when it's actually time to order uniforms and the gym owner says "money needs to be in at a certain time to PREVENT the delay of uniforms", that parents pay on time. It just makes the process so much easier.

 

[bestbackspot]

I don't understand why this is tolerated in the cheer world. In other industries, if there is a late shipment, people get fired, and discounts are almost always given.

 

[SharkDad]

Rudags thanks for that explanation and it will undoubtedly educate most on the uniform ordering process.

That 1/10 time is where people would like the company to start offering discounts or some concession. It's fair in all other business.

 

[mybabywantstotumble]

last year our uniforms from our previous gym took forever. the owners of the gym kept putting the blame on the uniform company. first i was told that the company shut down for two weeks over christmas and they were completely back logged. then was being told delivery dates that items never came. i would ask why they weren't pushing the uniform company and was being told that they were doing everything they could. i couldn't believe that any company would give someone the run around like this so i ended up calling the uniform company, said i was a team mom checking on my teams uniforms and the warm ups (which I had ordered and paid for in september and still hadn't rec'd by xmas!) and was told that the order had just been placed! the rep even gave me the date they received the order.

so as Rudags said, there are always other sides to the story. i'm not backing up the uniform companies, i'm just saying that i was furious with the uniform company and it turned out that our gym owners were lying to us. They obviously had cash flow issues and used the monies that we all paid them for uniforms and warm ups to pay other things and not order our uniforms...

 

[RaRaMama]

Rudags I think your post is point on, and for our gym (Iconix Allstars), we were dealing with "not GK". The problem wasn't that we started late. Our gym is new and opened in January. Our designs were finalized and a prototype sent by March or April maybe? The problem came in after fittings, when we were sent a proto for the mens uniform and the logo was extremely off center. Our owners complained and were basically told "Sorry, we can't do anything, its going to be off center like that". It then became a question of do we really want the men's/boys uniform to look "off" and be stuck with it for 2-3 years? Not to mention the production problems people have had in our area from them. High schools, allstar, etc...all with the same problems.

We went to Rebel and said "If you can do it by this date, great. If you can't, tell us before we go any further". They committed and they kept their committment-and produced a uniform that we are all very happy with. Every company starts somewhere, and like you said, free market is a good thing.

The other thing I think makes a difference is their ability (as I posted before) to say "We've reached our max capability for 2012". Knowing when to say when, and growing in a slow and steady way is much better than ruining the experience for both the customer and the company. What good is getting new accounts if you can't keep them?

That being said, I've never personally experienced any other companies other than these two. So, definitely not knocking any other company, sales reps, etc.

 

[CoachTamara]

What about if you are just flat out unhappy with your uniforms? In a normal business, you would expect a refund or a fix, but with these uniform companies everything is "custom" and cannot be returned. Although we will not use the same company again, we are also stuck because we have to reorder for new kids and use them again.

 

[RaRaMama]

What about if you are just flat out unhappy with your uniforms? In a normal business, you would expect a refund or a fix, but with these uniform companies everything is "custom" and cannot be returned. Although we will not use the same company again, we are also stuck because we have to reorder for new kids and use them again.

What are you unhappy with? Quality? The proto didn't match the final product?