String...
Of course alongside the larger plastic, electronic and fabric components there are a host of smaller bits and pieces that also need sourcing. String being one of them. Drawstring for the carrying pouch, to be precise.
This was one of the jobs on last Friday - find a drawstring supplier. Now most of us thought the big question about string was "How long is a piece of it". However, one supplier managed to come up with a new twist....."How expensive can it be!"
Having Googled we found a suitable roll of string and got a price per roll. Instead of the usual "Add to basket" or "Buy now" button we were directed to a webpage telling us how the supplier was trying to avoid fraud. So to avoid fraud we should apply for a "Purchase Form", which, when completed and either posted or faxed, would result in the supplier returning a 2nd form for us to fill in our credit card details.
With me so far? Think you've solved the mystery of "whatever happened to all those Soviet shop assistants after the wall came down?"
Time being of the essence I managed to cut out one or two steps by phoning the supplier. They obligingly emailed me back a completed proforma with a price. And not quite the price on their website.
First of all they had added a "Small order surcharge" of 60% of the value of the string.
Then a fee for processing our credit card - about 10% of the value of the string.
Then there was a "Handling charge". 100% of the value of the string.
Of course, there was VAT to pay. Fair enough.
But this string was starting to look expensive after all!
Of course to make the invoice look bigger, the whole number was converted to Euros. Of course this made sense. After all both their business and mine are based in the UK, famous for using GBP.
Well, at least they raised a laugh in the office.
But many, many thanks to the gentleman I spoke to this morning from a string supplier on the Wirral who had the item in stock and despatched it to us within an hour.