Let my approach this from my side of the sales counter.

This is the age of information. Instant information. Forums like this, Facebook, e-mail, eBay and websites. You can order stuff from around the globe. You can also communicate with people in any country or area.


If you are a manufacturer, retailer, consumer or are just looking around and you see a negative report you will almost immediately go some where else. Gone are the days of one little kilt shop where the people there seem to know only what is on the shelf and have never heard of another item. Where if you are looking for something you have only the choices in front of you. Gone are the days where your local shop is the only source of information about what is out there, how good or bad it is and how does it compare to something else.

Want a Kilt? Well heck, there are at least 52 manufacturers and retailers mentioned on just this forum alone. Take your pick.

To those of us behind the counter, it means our customers are far better informed than they were just a couple of years ago. They know what they want. They also know about how much it should cost compared to somewhere else.

Has anyone ever noticed that all over my web site, on almost every e-mail I send, and quite often in my posts here there is the sentence -"If you have any questions remember I am only an e-mail or phone call away."

Why do you think I started to ask customers if they have Skype? Instant, free communication with video. A customer can actually watch their kilt being made.

If there is any manufacturer or retailer out there that has not caught on to the idea that everything they make, everything they sell will be reviewed, seen and talked about all over the world they better wise up right now. or soon they will be out of business.

Those same places also need to understand that an e-mail from a customer is not an inconvenient intrusion into their work day but the way communication is done today. I spend at least an hour each morning reading, going over and answering correspondence. I don't even turn on my sewing machine until that is done. It is my belief that if I do not respond to my customers communications I won't need to ever turn it on again.

Yes, it's an intrusion. Yes it is sometimes unpleasant and irritating reading all the stuff that is so simple and easy to write when you are sitting in front of a monitor in your robe with a coffee at your side. I get e-mails from people who write just because they don't have anything better to do. OK. Fine. But that is how business is done today. Deal with it.

A customer today expects instant communication from the people he spends money with. Leave it till tomorrow and you'll have a second one waiting when you come in, in the morning.

OK enough rant. Back to your regularly scheduled youtube.