The Armour Archive

Greetings,
I would like to hear peoples thoughts on this subject. We all know about the many threads concerning armourers being late or running off with peoples money but how about the other side of this. How about the flake customer or the customer who feels free to trash a armourer for things out his control. I feel the whole "customer is alway right" thing is way overrated, what if the customer is a total asshat.

Ron

You mean like a guy who orders a helmet and sends in measurements and then changes the measurements three quarters of the way through and when the helmet is almost done changes the ocularia to something strange and then when they get the helmet they say, "No, the first measurements were right" or "Dude, this totally doesn't fit. I want my money back!"

John
Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus
www.mron.org
Proprietor, The Compagniye Store

Well we have sort of an unoffical list of dud armorers, how about a wall of shame for the unreasonable customer?

The problem I have with the customer thing is it ends up being a he said/ she said in many cases. With the armorer, you at least in a lot of cases have a paper/electronic trail to show how you bought something and didnt recieve it.

However for the uberdick like Jehans example above, maybe we should have a warning system??

Tim

I think you just have to soak up the occasional flake. If you can afford to-no money upfront, wait until the order is done. Just don't take an order for anything you can't sell if they flake or become an ass.

Doing stock and only an ocasional custom seems to work well for me. I've even mailed things upfront,and told them to mail me the check when stuff arrived-I was never ripped off.

Here's the deal-if you dont take money down, they have no reason to whine. And if they become a goof case, you can just say "Oh well, I guess I'd rather not do this then-find someobody else."

Or like 2 weeks ago, when I got a rapid sucession of 5 phone calls to the effect of "I just tried to order from Illusion, they were unavailable, I need armour now, tough sh-- if you are booked up, I demand you take my order or else". Wow, after all the bad armourer post here, actually have potential customers demand that I over commit myself and screw my existing clientele, and 3 of the 5 were regulars here on the archive. I got speeches of "you are running a business, you must increase your load to whatever we throw at you". My response: good, from what you just said, usual business practices would call for a 10% price increase. I'm usually not good at prescreening clients, recently, I was persuing another armour job, after the potential client called me 17 times in one day to ask clarifying questions, I decided to just drop any interest in the job.

BTW, I do make money, places like stonekeep do not adversely affect my business, I just sold my 60th set of full arms on ebay this year.

Eric

Have you looked at how Illusion deals with this?

If you want something in less than a week-the price doubles. It drops down in a sliding scale from there, two weeks is half that etc..........

And as far as phone pests-he will charge you a 30 buck an hour "consulting fee" if you overdo it. For myself, I NEVER give out my phone number. It's strictly kept to email. I have a record of exactly what the customer said in case of any disputes- And I deal with them when *I* want to-not on thier whim.

And Eric makes them to spec...on time and is friendly.

Of course, as the wife of someone who does freelance illustration work, I totally get it when a customer thinks their $300 means they own you...

So I make it a point not to be an asshat to the one providing the service I could not in my wildest dreams do myself.

So to the all stars like Eric and Thorkil and Stanislav and Merc Tailor with whom I've personally dealt, and who communicate and deliver. THANK YOU!

I believe that the good outweigh the bad by far. We just need to vote with our wallets.

All of this bickering has really changed the tone of these boards of late.

Dev

Yes, I try to do all work through email so I have a record of everything discussed. That way they can't come back and say they requested x but got y. Haven't ever had to do that but it is good to be prepared.

I have actually sent stuff off before getting the money against my better judgement. I wanted to make sure the customer was happy and they had an event coming up or whatever. Almost every time I did that I got burned. Never heard from them again. I won't do that anymore.

I have also had people call me a theif to my face when they learned I was an armorer. Even though they had never heard of me before or done business with me. WTF!

I don't take any money before the project is ready to ship out. I have sat on armor for months on end before the check finally arrives.

I have also had snarky emails from people complaining that I charge too much. Why should I charge x when that guy charges 1/3 my price? Hm, let us see? I put over 40 hours in creating the piece, the other guy puts in maybe an hour or two. I charge about $5 an hour for my work and he charges $30 or more.
I tell them to buy from the other guy. They tell me they like the look of my stuff better but don't want to pay my prices and act like I am the ass.

I feel better now

Chris

I quote based on a formula Chris. Half the time I do a quote and never hear from a person again. As far as complaints about prices-I just ask people why they didn't buy from armorer "gettem on the field spun junk"

And get told,"But his stuff is so UGLY, and people LAUGH at you when you wear it."

Style costs-that's the difference betwen Ferraris and Yugos.

I've posted a review of a really good customer in the past.

What do you say we post the occasional whine about a really BAD one Matt? Isn't turn about fair play?

I worked as a fast food manager for 6 years before I went full time, as soon as a client indicates that he expects that he can talk to me in a fashion similar to the counter help at a McDonalds, you can just kiss the relationship. I do charge McDonald prices on ebay, but I've learned some in shop efficiencies that still provide me with $40/hr gross on those items.

I love the ones who complain about my pricing being high, Hmmmmmmmm, let's see, fully booked for 16 months straight, turning down about 10% of potential work due to scheduling load, $75K a year gross, I think my prices are fine or a hair low. Another issue, is the calls for armourer's not taking orders if they don't have a slot open now as being a good professional business practice, well guess what, that is not considered a good business practice in the US. I schedule my future work as to not be more than 60 days out, ie, if I stopped taking orders tomorrow, I'd be clear in 60 days. This is a big motivator because I know that I will have reliable income for 2 month going forward, this keeps me in the shop my 40 hours and happy and hence productive/efficient. I am just now exploring farming out my elbow and knee cops, sorry the 180 elbow cops I dished/planished/polished was way too much this year.

Eric

ARMOURER ERIC wrote:I worked as a fast food manager for 6 years before I went full time, as soon as a client indicates that he expects that he can talk to me in a fashion similar to the counter help at a McDonalds, you can just kiss the relationship. I do charge McDonald prices on ebay, but I've learned some in shop efficiencies that still provide me with $40/hr gross on those items.

I love the ones who complain about my pricing being high, Hmmmmmmmm, let's see, fully booked for 16 months straight, turning down about 10% of potential work due to scheduling load, $75K a year gross, I think my prices are fine or a hair low. Another issue, is the calls for armourer's not taking orders if they don't have a slot open now as being a good professional business practice, well guess what, that is not considered a good business practice in the US. I schedule my future work as to not be more than 60 days out, ie, if I stopped taking orders tomorrow, I'd be clear in 60 days. This is a big motivator because I know that I will have reliable income for 2 month going forward, this keeps me in the shop my 40 hours and happy and hence productive/efficient. I am just now exploring farming out my elbow and knee cops, sorry the 180 elbow cops I dished/planished/polished was way too much this year.

Eric

You need to invest in a press Eric.

I don't do this for a living so when my "friends" want me to make something EASY for NOTHING and then want a full WARRANTY and MODS. forever. Then they wonder why I say no. I enjoy making armour but the MORON factor can suck the fun out pretty quick, aahhh but it's still cool!

ARMOURER ERIC wrote:I worked as a fast food manager for 6 years before I went full time, as soon as a client indicates that he expects that he can talk to me in a fashion similar to the counter help at a McDonalds, you can just kiss the relationship. I do charge McDonald prices on ebay, but I've learned some in shop efficiencies that still provide me with $40/hr gross on those items.

I love the ones who complain about my pricing being high, Hmmmmmmmm, let's see, fully booked for 16 months straight, turning down about 10% of potential work due to scheduling load, $75K a year gross, I think my prices are fine or a hair low. Another issue, is the calls for armourer's not taking orders if they don't have a slot open now as being a good professional business practice, well guess what, that is not considered a good business practice in the US. I schedule my future work as to not be more than 60 days out, ie, if I stopped taking orders tomorrow, I'd be clear in 60 days. This is a big motivator because I know that I will have reliable income for 2 month going forward, this keeps me in the shop my 40 hours and happy and hence productive/efficient. I am just now exploring farming out my elbow and knee cops, sorry the 180 elbow cops I dished/planished/polished was way too much this year.

Eric

Eric, get you a press.. Working a six man crew 180 pairs of elbow cops is just a long days work. Simple division and it would take you less than a week working by yourself. If you email me I can get my secretary to take a picture of mine. Its nothing comlicated whatsoever (or expensive)

Eric, get you a press.. Working a six man crew 180 pairs of elbow cops is just a long days work. Simple division and it would take you less than a week working by yourself. If you email me I can get my secretary to take a picture of mine. Its nothing comlicated whatsoever (or expensive)

Or just buy from me and spend your time doing the stuff that requires more skill than dishing.

E-mail me if you want a price list.

On to the topic at hand. I follow alot of the practices described- no deposits, sticking to e-mail etc... I look at this way: the customer deserves to get what the expect when they're told they'll get it but I get to decide who's a customer and who isn't. Act like a dick and I'll show you the door.

Cet wrote:Eric, get you a press.. Working a six man crew 180 pairs of elbow cops is just a long days work. Simple division and it would take you less than a week working by yourself. If you email me I can get my secretary to take a picture of mine. Its nothing comlicated whatsoever (or expensive)

Or just buy from me and spend your time doing the stuff that requires more skill than dishing.

E-mail me if you want a price list.

Or that

I have a powered press that will put them bottle jack toys to shame. It pumps hydraulic fluid hundreds of times faster then a person could with a pump handle. I could put stonekeep to shame...but why would I? I need that like I need a hole in the head. So many other jobs where I could make a lot more money for doing a lot less work. Sometimes I wonder why people do this for a living but it is fun.

Here are some pics of my press.

<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/6848/h16s3ac.jpg" border="0"width="800" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a>

<img src="http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/2734/newpress9me.jpg">

Cet wrote:On to the topic at hand. I follow alot of the practices described- no deposits, sticking to e-mail etc... I look at this way: the customer deserves to get what the expect when they're told they'll get it but I get to decide who's a customer and who isn't. Act like a dick and I'll show you the door.

I agree.. Its only happened every so often, but we post our turnaround times clearly on our website (whether its 2 weeks or 4 weeks). We have had customers email my secretary with rude language after 1 week wanting to know where their product is, and she politely refers them to the turnaround page and tells them when their package is actually supposed to be completed. Most of the time they reply apologetically, and no harm done, but in the rare instance they reply with more rudeness or even vulgarities, the next email they receive is from me explaining that I am the owner of this corporation, and I have no desire to do business with them, and their credit card was refunded 5 minutes ago.

Its happened probably 4 times in the past 6 years since things really got rolling, but in the case of someone ordering the wrong size, or when they get something they didnt like it, we just have a refund policy. Send it back we refund the money. That is an advantage of being high volume, non custom, because Iknow it just goes back in our instock and it wont stay there long. Like I said we are talking approx 4 packages in 6 years too.

Even though thats the way I can do it, a custom guy who puts so much effort into making the product exactly to a customers specification, and spends so much more time and effort on a project, I feel they need some kind of protection. Theres always the higher price for completed projects, but I would feel they would need more protection than that since that higher price is for the extra labor time working on that one project, and the chances of them finding another customer who wants that exact product with those exact specs, at a custom price, would be almost impossible. Since most custom armorers are individuals, thats even more reason they need some kind of protection against a really unreasonable order.

I love to go to custom armorers sites and drool over their work that they get to put so much time into. Most of what I learn I cannot apply in my own for simple logistical reasons concerning end product price, but at times thats not an obstacle so its always good to look and learn. And for the most part, except for making "armor" we arent even in the same business really . Sometimes I am jealous that they have more time to be creative (and are so talented), but then again the business part of a custom armory would scare me to death without certain policies in place to protect the armorer.

Actually Mike, I don't know exactly what your paying your guys but based on the time frame/crew size you listed above you might be money ahead by buying dished pieces from me and havign your 6 guys assembling and polishing. . I don't recall ever sending you wholesale pricing.

That's why I am getting out of custom and going to stock Mike.

It's boring, but easier. And thanks to minotaur for reminding me that I need to do some welding on my power press upgrade today.Number one machine should be running on an air over hydraulic by the first week of next.

Speaking for myself:

I do it for:

1) Fun
2) felt like there was a need
3) im retired
4) keep my employees paid and provide as many jobs as i can
5) give back a little to the sca
6) be able to donate to sca groups and st judes.
7) customer appreciation letters
pride of walking out on a field and seeing a lot of my armor on people and knowing it came from me.
9) friends I have acquired along the way
10) anything I forgot and again Id say FUN

I do it because I love the art of the craft. I'm a techie.

I'm not so much into the whole sca thing......I'm a little too serious and costume nazish to want to hang around people with green tennis shoes and armor made out of pickle barrels-and my health issues make camping out a real nightmare.... (such as a hernia)

I prefer to just stay at home and make gear. I like the idea of both being able to advance my craft-and improve the look and the feel of the sport for my clients. I may not attend much these days-but I still like to give back.

I choose my customers, i choose what i build and who i build it for.
My customers know what to expect from me in regards to quality and time needed.
I almost always meet my deadlines, if i should be late i maintain communication.
I make my customers aware that the unexpected can delay an order, but for the most part I'm spot on.
I will accept a return for a full refund on any item for any reason what so ever. The customer gets a 5 day examination period, and the item can't be modified or drilled full of holes.
If it's a strange item or the customer has requested something i might find to be a hard sell i will accept a return and will place the item "in stock". The customer gets their refund when that item is purchased.
I feel out a customer based on e-mail communications and on occasion turn down a comission if sense an incompatibility
Doing the above and sticking to it has pretty much made all my experiences good one. 3 flakes in all the time ive done this. Thats pretty decent.
So i am not a customers bitch because that person is filtered out.

Cet wrote:Actually Mike, I don't know exactly what your paying your guys but based on the time frame/crew size you listed above you might be money ahead by buying dished pieces from me and havign your 6 guys assembling and polishing. . I don't recall ever sending you wholesale pricing.

Please dont get mad when I say this, but I have wanted at times to farm out stuff to other armories, and then just kind of manage this big supermarket of armor thing. I tried it with helms but it just didnt work.
Andre is having better luck I think.

I looked into buying cops at one time, but when I sat down and figured out the cost of materials per square footage added to the labor costs of exactly how long it takes a trained employee to make a pair with our machinery, it came down to $6 a pair of steel cops. That part in itself is probably not enough to throw us way off the mark, but now that we make 2 different "bodies" of the cops (gothic and nongothic), and then on top of that both of those bodies can have about 6 different styles of fans, Ive created an inhouse dilemma actually where keeping a whole lot of cops ready made isnt such a great idea anymore. Theres too many variations.
At this point when I look at the next order on the board and it has a cop style we dont have on the shelf, I can simply tell an employee to go make it, and he should be handing it to me within 15 minutes.
On the flip side of that, If I came to th next order and we didint have that cop, and I had to call ya and say "hey man, I need such and such fan style in such and such size", its still gonna only take you about 15 minutes to make it, and it probably wouldnt cost me that much more pricewise. BUT, Id have to wait a few days for it to get from New Jersey AND shipping would cost probably more than the cops.

If you were a couple miles from here, just think what we could do.
Ive actually tosssed around in my head, since I have so much land, of the idea of this big armoring compound, where its all a part of the same website and we are all in the same location, but everyone has their own building, is able to buy materials wholesale on a massive scale, then everyone is paid for their end product from the main "management" part of the company which takes care of incoming orders and website promotion etc. Everyone owns their company but its all working together.
Thats like a pipe dream cause you know there would be too many obstacles and problems, but doesnt the dream of it all sound so cool?

No problem Mike. I was basing my estimation on your website price of $19pr for fanned cops and that you sell below your cost. My retail for fanned cops in mild is $15 and whoesale is a few bucks less than that. I know you operate at a loss but I'd be happy to help you run at less of one.

Cet wrote:Act like a dick and I'll show you the door.

When you talk tough like that, it gets all the other armourers all tingly and stuff.

-Tasha

Greetings,
I would like to thank MJBlazek for making this thread possible, if he had not sent me a stupid PM telling how full of crap I am and how the customer is always right I would have never started this thread. I wanted to show him the other side of this so keep your thoughts coming. The truth is that there have always been asshats (like MJBlazek) who expect to pay a Yugo price for a BMW and after a deal where the armourer was late partly due to delays that he caused and the armourer spent extra time making a better product than he ordered or paid for he still bitched and ignored posts that showed that he is full of crap. He is saddly only one in a long line of bad customers that should be shut out of ordering anything from anyone on this list.

Ronald

"Here is another little business nugget for you. Remember, you don't just lose one customer, you lose 5."

But if they are all dumbasses, you have lost five headaches.

Ronald

I rarely do armoring for money, but I've learned some valuable lessons from this community that I've been able to apply to the garb business. I won't say I've never disappointed a customer- there have been two or three people to whom I promised things, but whose projects simply faded away or were back-burnered indefinitely- but these have been few and far between, and there was never any money involved up front. I've never taken money and not delivered, and I've never failed to respond to communication or ducked anyone (that I know of). If there's one point that this board has hammered home for me, it's that reputation is everything, and the surest way to drag one's rep through the shit is to start taking money on spec for things you haven't even started, let alone completed, and then start taking money from more orders to keep yourself afloat in order to finish the backlog. It only snowballs from there. I don't ever see my business becoming a garb superpower like Black Swan or Revival- I'd much rather refine my craft part-time and enjoy the process than make assloads of money. I'm reluctant to even take downpayments on things; I sometimes feel like a rabbi turning away a would-be convert. If I refuse to take his money three times, and he still insists on paying me something in advance, then... maybe.

Having said that- let me confess publicly that I still owe two outfits as payment to the lady who did my website. This is the only instance I can think of to date where I've taken full payment for something up front and haven't delivered yet. She isn't on the Archive, but I figure if I own up to my fault in front of witnesses, it'll motivate me that much more to get my ass in gear.

Klaus

I armor for me, have never sold a piece that I made unless it was something I used and then decided I didn't want or need anymore. I will never make a piece of armor for a "customer" because my real life job can tie me up for 40 hours or 70 hours in any given week and I never know which it's going to be.

I did want to point out a couple things from a customer side of this to maybe clarify the armourers position for people reading this.

Armour is expensive..... so where cars when I was a gear head.... I have a passion for this so it's what I choose to spend my disposable income on. I do not understand people bitching about prices, you can buy things for next to nothing (god bless Stonekeep and Ashcraft Baker for getting people on the field) but if you want quality pay for quality. The longer it takes to make the better quality product the more you should expect to pay for it, period.

Armourers are like any other service provider, as a customer of any service provider I expect to know what I am getting for my money and to receive that... nothing more, nothing less.

Will

pride of walking out on a field and seeing a lot of my armor on people and knowing it came from me.
9) friends I have acquired along the way

Stonekeep and I see eye to eye on somethings anyway. I'd expect a heckuva lot more sitting down talking rather than being limited to online monoloques.

Even though thats the way I can do it, a custom guy who puts so much effort into making the product exactly to a customers specification, and spends so much more time and effort on a project, I feel they need some kind of protection. Theres always the higher price for completed projects, but I would feel they would need more protection than that since that higher price is for the extra labor time working on that one project, and the chances of them finding another customer who wants that exact product with those exact specs, at a custom price, would be almost impossible. Since most custom armorers are individuals, thats even more reason they need some kind of protection against a really unreasonable order.

I love to go to custom armorers sites and drool over their work that they get to put so much time into. Most of what I learn I cannot apply in my own for simple logistical reasons concerning end product price, but at times thats not an obstacle so its always good to look and learn. And for the most part, except for making "armor" we arent even in the same business really . Sometimes I am jealous that they have more time to be creative (and are so talented), but then again the business part of a custom armory would scare me to death without certain policies in place to protect the armorer.

Stonekeep also has a greater understanding of my end of the business than I gave him credit for. My apologies Mike.

We don't need a wall of shame. Too many folks think the impersonality of forums allow them to be asshats. Let them continue. I have *my* list. I'm sure other armourers have private lists of folks who if they won the lottery still wouldn't be able to place an order.

Of the last 8 kabuto I've made, 1 the guy disappeared. It took a while to move the hat to a new customer too. No money down so he lost nothing. I lost time but that's part of the business. For all I know he was military, deployed to Iraq, and didn't get to come back to his family.

I have *2* unfilled orders. 1 is *7* years old. I lost the meaurements, I lost him. If he ever contacts me and wants the helm I'll start right away, but as far as I have heard he quit years ago. The other is a show piece for a good customer. It's *close* but little details and imperfections keep holding it back. ( It WILL be done soon Guillaume. I promise)

Cet wrote:No problem Mike. I was basing my estimation on your website price of $19pr for fanned cops and that you sell below your cost. My retail for fanned cops in mild is $15 and whoesale is a few bucks less than that. I know you operate at a loss but I'd be happy to help you run at less of one.

Yes.... but... I do that to send more people to you for cops.
If I sold cops for even 9 what would that do to your business?
Thats kinda your niche, I didnt want to mess it up.

Mike,

the other option would be to have Cet direct ship to your customer without showing his name on the return address. Granted that would only work for the most basic style as I'm sure he isnt' going to want to mass produce your current variety of fan designs, etc but it would give you one less aspect to have to worry about if he does your simple cops. I work in logistics, third party direct shipping is VERY common in every industry without the end user knowing it. We have a pick and pack operation that sends out cosmetics, rugs and a variety of products for a rather famous travelling circus type show... people to go their web page and place an order, we box it and ship it with their paperwork. Obviously you would have to work out a communication mode to know what Cet had on hand at any given time when taking orders but it's feasible.

Will