At a rough guess I'd say 90% of cafe people looking for a new supplier themselves "demand" the equipment and all manner of "freebies" be given up front almost before they even intorduce themselves to you, so that puts them straight into contract zone, and most of them will sign without a problem despite the indignation of what is really only a small number of vocal outsiders that only look at the academics of the discussion and are not actually involved. And after that, a surprising number of suppliers we hear of that apparently say they dont do contracts and will "give" the equipment without obligation from the client......end up having contracts. It seems the "we dont do contracts because we hold you with our high level of service and expertise" crowd are selective with who they do and dont get to sign contracts. Its the same as in the other thread where the "we hire and fire our clients" idea was being discussed, there is more BS in the market than you can poke half a dozen sticks at, so you never know the truth unless you are one of the protagonists. For the rest of it you are asking several questions. a) top ten reasons to change a supplier...(any supplier not just coffee)....some kind of irreconcilable difference which is really only known to the individuals and is pertinent only to their situation. The truth is then somewhere in the middle Just one eg, client sends out a message the product was not up to scratch....possible ACTUAL reason.....they werent paying their accounts on time or not at all, the supplier got serious about asking for the money, client got indignant (despite they sold the coffee on but have not paid the supplier). I am afraid this question cant be answered as if its some kind of top ten quiz. b) Would you rather be approached or do you want to do the approaching.....Again, an individual circumstance depending on the real / private reason for wanting to change. c) Equipment "freebies" and contracts : answered first above 😉 Any other comments, Yeah as already stated, sorry but this cant be answered as if it were some kind of marketing quiz. At the moment the market I believe, is slowing quickly and its going to be a bloodbath out there with cafe's going out the back door and taking their suppliers with them. Suppliers that cut off credit will have all sorts of crap levelled at them most of it actually untrue, and when someone says you do what is best for your business, the same goes for the suppliers. Cafe clients are very very and did I say very demanding, many of them for a very very and did I say very small nett worth. The demand for "instant" service of any kind is out of control, they demand instant attention as if they are the only client in the world, but in the main they pay slowly and well past 30 days, when they are not refusing to pay something over some perceived grievance. When a client gets to that level, you find their suppliers back off and the client goes elsewhere because "the supplier couldnt deliver service and product to my standard". I sense there is always some undertone of roaster / supplier bashing in (all) these sites, and cafes are often portrayed (indirectly if not directly) as the "little ausie battlers" that are at the mercy of "the big guys" that want them to sign contracts and whatever. Sorry but that's more than one sided, this topic has kinda got under my nose, and there is always more to everything than meets the eye of outsiders looking in on something where they dont know the machinations of what's actually going on. And by the way, by and large this site is very fair to suppliers so dont take all this the wrong way please but at a guess, I'd say the market research is going to be flawed if you dont get opinions from both sides. I think I will finish with a very pertinent example for the "I wont sign a contract" crowd: True story. A high profile business goes through the motions of investigating to purchase some very very expensive pieces of equipment. They can see these are going to be of great benefit to their business and they are going to buy outright. Investing in the equipment will help them save real dollars in higher efficiency in their operation. Negotiations and trials in their business take some months. At the end, they start procrastinating and backing away from the deal. The reason they are procrastinating, is because now miraculously, they've changed their mind, are no longer prepared to buy and want the equipment placed "on loan" by the supplier. However they want the equipment, eventually sign a contract, and on the basis of that contract, the supplier then buys the equipment in AND LEASES BACK from a finance company or bank. The deal takes months to come to a conclusion.....how much wasted money in time while playing games? If the client renigs on the supply contract some time during the term, the supplier then wears the rest of the lease payments for equipment that he cant reuse straight up and / or is not bringing him the return to make the repayments. These shenanigans on the part of clients are quite common. If the supplier doesnt sell to and LEASE BACK all these pieces of "free equipment" from a lending institution (on the basis of an approval due to having a contract with the client), he ends up paying for them out of his working overdraft, on which he is paying interest. Also, he ends up tying up and making unusable a huge chunk of his available working capital ie, he wouldnt have the money to trade and pay his bills. And then, where would all these cafe's get their "free equipment" from? Hope that helps.
