Case Study on Brand Ownership, Retail Experience and Customer Service
THE ENQUIRY
My company needed to purchase 300++ The North Face (NF) backpacks as corporate premiums. Upon going a NF boutique in Singapore, they are not able and unwilling to procure in these backpacks until their next official procurement trench. (p.s note loss of sales income from Singapore authorised seller!), despite the sales manager great service which (I must complement) to assist and listen to my request.
I hence contacted NF in Colorado HQ and was told to purchase these backpacks from Premium Sales Incentive (Premco) - a company in Colorado that wholesale more than hundreds of other brands ( p.s note again- loss of income from brand owner NF itself !)
My purchase experience from PremCo went downhill thereafter. I made my first enquiry in August 2022 and was given a quote. I stated my purchase was for export to Singapore.
Below is the chronological description of what happened
23 August 2022 - I asked PremCo Sales Rep what is the cargo size and dimensions as I needed these details to get a quote for shipping. It took me at least 3 emails to clarify the cargo size and even before I get to this information, the Sales Rep requested I fill up their Purchase Order (PO) template to confirm the purchase ( I scratch my head as I thought the buyer issues the PO, not the seller!). Nonetheless I did as instructed.
19 Sept 2022 – PremCo Sales Rep said they require a “formal PO” and the cost is USD 56. I replied saying “It's my first time I encounter cost for giving you a purchase order as this was also not communicated to me prior,” and asked him to explain the rationale.
He said “We require your UPS or Fed Ex shipping account number. You can avoid the 3.2% admin fee with payment via wire transfer.”
I replied “I will be paying by wire straight to GoPremco designated bank account, if you can advise what is the bank and account number.
I will be doing sea freight (and not Fedex or UPS as it's expensive to do air freight) and have identified my shipping agent, who will be picking up the goods door to door from your place…”
Sales Rep replied “We will either add the shipping cost to your freight forwarder or you can provide your UPS or Fed Ex shipping account number.”
I replied “Why is there shipping cost to my freight forwarder? I thought I am paying my freight forwarder to collect from your address so what is the shipping cost you are billing me?”
He replied “That was my mistake if you are picking up from our warehouse. In that situation there is no freight charge.”
THE SALE
During the final wiring of funds, PremCo finance churned out a formal invoice with sales tax included, when the sales rep did not advise or inform there will be any tax imposed in August.
I questioned the owner why I need to pay sales tax when goods are for export. They explained “Your purchase order states that you will be picking up the order from our warehouse in Colorado. This is the point of sale. You will be required to pay the sales tax if you do not have Colorado Resale Certificate. If your purchase order stated that you are asking our company to ship your order to a holding warehouse in the US to be shipping to Singapore later, the sale would be tax exempt.
Please let me know how you would like to proceed and if you will be revising your PO to ship to a location outside of Colorado.”
I replied “Can I pay the current invoice with the sales tax first then apply for the Resale Tax Certificate? Once I have that you can refund me the tax. Apologies we have to go this route because I submitted the PO twice but I was not advised of this extra tax if not I would have applied earlier in August.”
As above, told them I made my enquiry a month back and no one told me about the tax despite making me fill up their PO twice. Owner of Premco came into the email threads to assist, but they did not offer any explanation or apology.
During the wiring of funds, the finance gave a bank account name different from what the owner has given. I said “Please confirm the bank account name as Shelby previously gave me “PREMIUM INCENTIVE SALES Operating Acct” in the attached but you wrote “PREMIUM INCENTIVE SALES INC” below, so which is the correct one? Kindly confirm so I will not incur unnecessary charges thank you.”
After payment with much reluctance due to the newly imposed tax, my logistics went to pick up the backpacks and contact person was unresponsive and unreachable despite the owner’s personally telling me his appointed contacted was aware of the pickup. The owner also asked for our bill of lading, which after much correspondence again, I had to remind him that since I paid local tax for pickup from his warehouse, the bill of lading is actually irrelevant. There were 4 Premco employees in the email correspondence but it took more than 2 weeks for a successful pick up on 17 Oct 2022.
The entire sales process from order to pickup took close to 2 months to conclude.
During export, I had to fill up a form (Power of Attorney) for me to authorise the exporter the right to export the goods. I sent the form to Premco requesting them to be my witness in this form, however NONE of the executives got back with a reply.
Till now I have experienced the most painful process and worst management team and customer service in my life. It show this company has no regard and no appreciation for business given to them, and servicing customers is a chore.
THE BIG SURPRISE
Upon reaching Singapore, my team opened the cargo and found at least 17 backpacks had The North Face logo slanted.
I contacted PremCo owner himself to ask what’s their policy for faulty products. He said to ship back for a refund - no apologies given for their oversight on QC and inconvenience caused. No proper address of Hi, Hello, thank you. In fact he speaks like that all the time in past correspondence.
On 16 Jan 2023, I also contacted The North Face themselves to ask if a slanted logo on a backpack is deemed acceptable or not (ie pass QC). I said “I bought 303 Jester back packs from PremCo as advised by your company.
Out of 303, 17 backpacks have the North Face logo slanted as shown, please let me know if this is approved and QC by your company?
If I have to purchase 17 Jester backpacks directly from the North Face website, are you able to assist with a discount quote and free shipping to Singapore?
I am able to show you the paid invoice I made to Premco for the 303 backpacks, to prove that I am indeed purchasing wholesale from them initially and coming to you as the last resort because of the faulty products which I have no choice but to absorb the cost and trying to keep my additional cost of purchase at my lowest if you can assist.
The North Face customer service replied “ Thank you for contacting The North Face. Here is the contact information for our PremCo department who will be able to better assist you.
Phone: 303-771-2942 or 888-236-2359
Email: salesdirect@gopremco.com
I replied NF customer service with the following
“Thank you for your response. I am surprised The North Face itself as the brand owner is not able to verify if a slanted logo on your backpack is an acceptable product or not.
Indeed PremCo sold me the bags but to me they are your representative wholesaler whom in my opinion provided me the worst service in my entire career.
I was hoping your brand team or production team could step up and give an opinion on your own product, rather than pushing the responsibility to PremCo, whom I don’t know what’s their relationship with your company.
The point of seeking help from the customer support is for a question to be answered from your company and not be directed to another party - PremCo in this instance, carries 100++ over other brands of products and do not even bother to QC these expensive Jester backpacks before selling to me.”
The North Face customer service replied “Thank you for contacting The North Face. I am very sorry for the issue, but with the order being placed with Premco, you will have to contact them directly to have this taken care of.”
I replied NF customer service again with the following on 18 Jan 2023 “thanks for the reply. I understand orders made with PremCo will have to be directed to them, in the instances of refund, claims etc. However if you look carefully at my email, I am not asking for a refund from The North Face official company.
I am asking 2 simple Questions which do not need to be directed to a 3rd party.
1) Look at the photo of the logo on the backpack - is the slanted logo acceptable by your parent company? In other words, do you consider this a faulty product? If it's not within your capacity to make a comment, please forward this to the relevant department for an opinion.
YES or NO
If YES, I will seek refund from PremCo. If NO, I will happily keep the bag.
2) I would like to buy additional 17 Jester black backpacks directly from your official website. Are you able to talk to your sales/ promo team to give me a discount and provide free shipping to Singapore?
YES or NO
thank you, I trust the above 2 Questions are not-related to PremCo and please do not ask me to refer to them again for answers.
COUNTERFEIT GOODS?!
There was no response from The North Face Team, until I wrote back to them again on 31 Jan 2023.
“the email below has not been answered. I am giving your team another 2 working days to respond. If I am not able to get an answer if these attached bag with slanted logos are acceptable by your parent company, I will post the photo of the bag on social media to ask for public's opinion.”
The North Face replied “Thank you for contacting The North Face. The only way for us to tell if the product is counterfeit, would be to have us authenticate that product in our Warranty Department. Once we receive the product, one of our product specialists will evaluate and authenticate the product. Once we send the product back to you, it will have a letter either stating it is authentic or counterfeit. Unfortunately we are not able to do this with pictures. Here are the instructions:
Please print out our Warranty Return Form and send the item to be evaluation. Here is the link to the Warranty Return Form.
When sending the item in, please follow these steps to ensure timely processing of your item:
Please ship to us prepaid. Collect packages will be refused.
Please insure your package for full replacement value.
Please clean your item prior to sending
Please mark the areas in question on the product with colored tape or masking tape.
For further information on our warranty policy and repair guidelines please visit our Warranty/Product Guarantee page on our website.
Also, I'm sorry but we don't ship internationally. Again, thank you for contacting The North Face. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please let us know.”
I replied “thanks for reply. I am surprised now you are even suggesting the Northface goods that I bought could be a counterfeit, when I bought from Premium Incentive Sales (Premco), as per your recommendation last year.
I have taken photo of the labels that were pasted on the carton boxes, just to show that the backpacks are shipped all the way from Colorado to Singapore. There is even a customer PO number indicated on one of the sticker, so you can verify my purchase with them. I do think you being in America can communicate faster with Premco your appointed wholesaler also in America, in this transaction much faster than I do, and I do not think I even need to do this verification of authenticity for you.
Also, I think you have missed my point - I was asking if the Northface logo on the backpack look slanted (and not if it was a counterfeit), but you have avoided answering this for the longest time. I wonder why.
I also think it's ridiculous and terrible customer service for me to be ABLE to send backpacks over to you, and you telling me you are NOT ABLE to ship internationally ?! We are living in a modern world with sophisticated logistics and why would you even think a one way transaction is even acceptable to me when I have bought 303 backpacks at one go - more than any normal consumer would in a normal day.
I suggest you escalate to your upper management, before it becomes a PR crisis.
P.S Do check out the attachment for the photos.
The North Face replied “Thank you for contacting us back. I apologize for the frustration this has caused, and I am happy to look into it further for you.
After taking a closer look at the photos of the jester backpack you sent, I do agree the logos may have a slight slant to them. Due to this, I have reached out to Premco on your behalf, and they recommend sending the details of your order and the issue with these 17 backpacks in an email to customerservice@gopremco.com.
At this time we would not be able to facilitate having the backpacks replaced through our ecommerce site, due to only shipping within the US. Again, I apologize greatly for the inconvenience and frustration this has caused.
If we can be of more assistance please contact us again. We would be happy to help.