Martin,
If you're talking about the colour of the sealskin itself, this is just a case of the fact that the colour of materials will always vary with natural products like this. It depends on the species, youth, and character of the animal, the way it is processed, the season, and many other factors. (This is just the sort of thing I recently referenced here: http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/s...145/index.html )

If you mean the leather piece that restrains the front when it opens, this is a decorative piece that the sporran maker inserts for a dash of style. Using bright colours for highlights in this way is thoroughly traditional, and imho should be regarded as a positive feature you wouldn't find from lesser producers. Your sporran was made by the firm I'd regard as the world's most authentic traditional producers, and due to the process issue was hand-made by a family member. I don't think you'll find much better.

As for your comments about my explanations, I'd of course agree that it's the result that counts, and customers shouldn't have to be concerned about what's going on behind the scenes. And in fact most aren't, which is why we wouldn't generally enter into lengthy telephone conversations about internal matters when the main thing someone wants to know is an anticipated date. And particularly during a period of extreme busy-ness due to technical problems, our team is extremely busy trying to handle urgent issues, so won't always feel they have time for longer conversations than necessary. I understand that from your side of the fence this won't be how it seems, but I'd ask for a little understanding of what is necessary when running a business with many different customers with many different needs, and trying to give them all the best service possible in the circumstances.

I believe I did already state that I think we could do better next time about communicating realistic times via the web site, and my mention of the blog was because this is generally the best way to supply 'rolling news' with a link on the site pointing to it. Are you seriously suggesting we should email every customer with an outstanding order, every time the situation changes?. From my point of view this would simply annoy and alarm a lot more people, and waste a huge amount of our time that would be better spent fixing the actual issues at the time.

Thankfully we're through that wee crisis now, and we're pressing on with the very major investments I referred to which should ensure our systems remain robust enough to handle not just our current level of business but considerably more if we're lucky enough to continue growing. I'm always interested to hear and understand how things feel from our customers' point of view, which is a big reason I value this forum, and the opportunity to discuss things directly like this. I'll try my best to continue to provide 'real' responses, and hope that you'll accept we do listen and respond in the ways we judge best taking into account all the factors we are dealing with.