Grizzly Frustration

[Joe Jensen]

First, I can completely understand the frustration caused by back orders specially when one wants a new machine. Here are some things that are affecting the popular machines:

1) Jointers and planers - we have the lowest prices with very good quality and the end result is we sell more than probably all other companies combined in USA. Therein lies the rub. While it is easy for us to place orders (we forecast orders based on running demand), it is not easy for the factory to keep up with the manufacturing process.

2) The main factory making these for us actually quadrupled in size into a new facility, but that actually slowed things down for a few months. In the meantime orders keep piling up and the back orders keep increasing. Its one of those things where things get worse before they start getting better.

3) Last year the Chinese government decided to crack down heavily on casting factories (similar to an EPA thing). Numerous foundries were shut down due to environmental issues. This caused a shortage and delay from the factories that remained open. Affected many machines - not just the popular ones.

4) We hate this situation as we keep losing sales from customers who cannot wait and end up buying an alternate unit. We have hundreds of containers ordered, but can only get a fraction of that a month of planers and jointers. There is no shortage of us placing orders. Making machines properly is quite complex and requires many, many different parts and castings from different suppliers. The factory is adding new German made CNC machines as fast as they can, but one cannot just add a few CNC machines and expect shipments to double right away.

The bottom line is that we are on top of the situation from our end, have no shortage of the ability to purchase and hold inventory and hate back-orders as much if not more than customers. These are not excuses, just facts and we are sorry it is happening. By the way, some customers cancel their orders and then re-order at a later date. This is a mistake as they go to the back of the line once they cancel. We are shipping everything that comes in right away. One might say this it is a good problem to have, but it really isn't. The goal of Grizzly has always been to ship all orders received within 24 hours and we have built warehouses to accommodate the cubic requirements. We have almost a million square feet actively in use and it frustrates us to have some unhappy customers. This is absolutely not an issue of keeping just in time inventory - we do not do that.

Thank you for your business.

Appreciate the direct response...joe

[Frederick Skelly]

Bonus point for facing the music.

Rob Lee of Lee Valley is an exemplary example who will handle customer concerns no matter how small or big it is.

Will more merchants -- big or small -- join the rank of these two gentlemen?

Simon

+1. Thanks Shiraz.

[Erik Christensen]

OK - while we are whining about grizzly backorders - I just called about expected date for next container of GO776 lathes as I ordered one last weekend and was told early march..... that is soooo not right - like telling a kid santa is going to be a few months late..... WAAAAAHHHH - I want it NOW!!!!!

killer lathe at an aggressive price point - no wonder they sell out. I look at it as a confirmation that I picked out the right thing if everybody else wants one

[Chris Hachet]

I am always pleased to see that Shiraz takes the time to comment here. Nothing like getting it from the horses mouth.

I have a shop full of OWWM but I want at least one Grizzly machine before it is all over.

[Chris Hachet]

This is unfortunate for supply in the short term, but welcome for the long term worker health and the health of China as a whole. Instead of ignoring the environmental cost of things like metals and batteries so that we can have cheap products in the west, these costs will become part of the product, just like they are for western made items.

This would make me feel much better about buying Chinese.

[Chris Hachet]

Bonus point for facing the music.

Rob Lee of Lee Valley is an exemplary example who will handle customer concerns no matter how small or big it is.

Will more merchants -- big or small -- join the rank of these two gentlemen?

Simon

I so wish there would be.

[Jim Becker]

Thanks for commenting, Shiraz. That's very much appreciated.

[Kelby Van Patten]

I own some Grizzly tools, and agree that they are good value for the price point. I also agree that their customer service could use some work.

I have reached out to Grizzly's customer service twice that I can recall, both with my 18" wide belt sander. The first time, they didn't respond to my e-mail, and after several days, I called. When I finally got someone to help me, they spent plenty of time with me on the phone and did everything I think they could do to help, and I was happy with the effort. But there's no reason why I should have gotten ignored for several days.

The second time was Monday of this week. I had another question about my wide belt sander. Maybe not the easiest question: I find the dust collection only satisfactory, and I was wondering if there was any reason why it would be a bad idea for me to add a second dust port, and if it wasn't a bad idea, if they had any suggestions on where I should locate the additional port. I sent that e-mail Monday evening. It is now Thursday evening, and I still haven't received a response. Someone should have gotten back to me by now, if only to say "we're looking into it."

I would still not hesitate to buy a Grizzly product if I'm on a budget for a given tool, and I would definitely recommend them to anyone shopping on a budget. But I'm at a point in life at which my time is tighter than my tool budget. So, these days, I find myself paying extra if necessary to buy from a company with more responsive customer support.

[Frederick Skelly]

I own some Grizzly tools, and agree that they are good value for the price point. I also agree that their customer service could use some work.

I have reached out to Grizzly's customer service twice that I can recall, both with my 18" wide belt sander. The first time, they didn't respond to my e-mail, and after several days, I called. When I finally got someone to help me, they spent plenty of time with me on the phone and did everything I think they could do to help, and I was happy with the effort. But there's no reason why I should have gotten ignored for several days.

The second time was Monday of this week. I had another question about my wide belt sander. Maybe not the easiest question: I find the dust collection only satisfactory, and I was wondering if there was any reason why it would be a bad idea for me to add a second dust port, and if it wasn't a bad idea, if they had any suggestions on where I should locate the additional port. I sent that e-mail Monday evening. It is now Thursday evening, and I still haven't received a response. Someone should have gotten back to me by now, if only to say "we're looking into it."

I would still not hesitate to buy a Grizzly product if I'm on a budget for a given tool, and I would definitely recommend them to anyone shopping on a budget. But I'm at a point in life at which my time is tighter than my tool budget. So, these days, I find myself paying extra if necessary to buy from a company with more responsive customer support.

I've seen plenty of times where, despite the fact that they provide an email address for customer service, nobody monitors it. Don't know why. But it's been very common for me. Perhaps that's happening in your case.

Hope you get what you need!
Fred

Fred

[Tim M Tuttle]

I've been wanting to upgrade my planer & jointer so during Christmas I sold my 6" Jet and Dewalt 635 to a nice young fellow who is starting woodworking as a hobby. I had some extra Christmas money so I ordered a Grizzly G04543ZW 15" spiral planer and G0490x 8" spiral jointer. When I placed the order about 10 days ago, I was told the jointer is backordered and should ship around Feb 15th. Ok, I need to use it before then but I am willing to wait. Grizzly shipped the planer, it arrived today damaged. It looked like a forklift fork had pierced the upper portion of the crate and struck the planer. Not sure this was the right decision but I refused it without opening the crate, sent it back. I checked Grizzly's website and found that this planer model is now discontinued.
I'm thinking ok, I'll ask Grizzly to cancel both machines and purchase their 12" spiral jointer/planer combo. As I am looking on their website I see the 12" combo units are all backordered as well.
My gosh this is frustrating, what does a guy have to do buy one of their machines and have it delivered undamaged? I recall reading some other members stories about waiting 7 or 8 months on Grizzly backordered machines. Seems like you may need to plan a year in advance to be assured of receiving one of their machines.
This seriously has me thinking about cancelling the whole order and spending the extra money for a better grade of machine and service.

Go with Steelex or Shop Fox. Same machine, twice the warranty and still serviced by Grizzly CS. I got a Steelex ST1101 a couple of months ago. It arrived in three days with pristine packaging.

[Carroll Courtney]

Guys one area I do have to brag about Griz is over the years I have purchase from their catalog some tooling for my lathes,parts that works on other machines,etc.So the small stuff is ship and arrives in a timely manner.And like their machines at a good price,so there is other side to that coin

[julian abram]

Go with Steelex or Shop Fox. Same machine, twice the warranty and still serviced by Grizzly CS. I got a Steelex ST1101 a couple of months ago. It arrived in three days with pristine packaging.

If you know of a vendor that has an 8" spiral head Steelex or Shop Fox in stock ready to ship I would be interested in a link. These jointers are all in backorder with all the vendors I can find, just like Grizzly. I assume regardless of brand all the jointers are being made in the same factories, and they are all behind schedule.

[Jim Hager]

Check out Marks Machinery in Ft. Smith. 479-461-5079 He'll have Jet and Powermatic and I'm sure others as well. Fine man to deal with. Plus you'll get a lot better service from him.

[julian abram]

Jim thanks for the tip, I will check out Mark's. I've lived in NWA all my adult life and don't recall ever hearing of Mark's Machinery down at Ft. Smith.

[Simon MacGowen]

I've seen plenty of times where, despite the fact that they provide an email address for customer service, nobody monitors it. Don't know why. But it's been very common for me. Perhaps that's happening in your case.

Hope you get what you need!
Fred

Fred

Festool is another vendor notorious for its tardiness in responding to emails. You can find many examples of dissatisfaction about its lack of responses in its forum, hence forcing people to voice their displeasure there.

At the risk of being labelled a Lee Valley fanboy, I must single out this vendor as being the most responsive business when it comes to email inquiries. On regular business days and hours (9 to 5) other than weekends, I can usually expect a reply within two or three hours. With other vendors, 48 hours, if not more, is something I will accept.

There are two reasons why vendors don't respond to emails in a timely manner. A) They don't accord priority to that means of communication or B) They don't have enough staff to handle customer service communication.

Where available, I now tend to use Live Chat which is better than phone ("You call is important to us, but we are too busy to give a damn.").

Simon