B 8.0
Nothing is swapped without asking
Not for something cheaper, and not for something more expensive either. If an item on your order is short you get a telephone call before it ships, and the four options below.
A specimen that is not the one the lesson was built on is not a favour, however generous the substitution looks on the invoice.
This is worth stating plainly because the opposite is common. A supplier is short of 3–4″ plain frogs, has 4–5″ double-injected ones on the shelf, sends those instead at no extra charge, and considers the matter handled generously. Then a teacher opens the box the morning of the lab and finds specimens that will not fit the trays, bought against a worksheet written for a smaller animal, with vessels filled that the lesson does not mention and the students will ask about.
The same is true in the other direction. A plain specimen substituted for an injected one is cheaper and arrives on time and destroys the lesson it was bought for.
So the rule here has no exceptions: we do not change the species, the grade, the size, the holding fluid or the pack size without speaking to you first. Not to save you money, not to save the delivery date, not because the alternative is obviously better.
B 9.0 What happens
Four options, and you choose
The call comes before the order ships, not after. Whoever answers has the shelf in front of them and can tell you what is actually available rather than what the system thinks is.
-
O1
Wait for the original
We tell you when the item is expected back and you decide whether that still lands inside your lab week. Where the answer is a firm date within your window, this is usually the right option and nothing else changes.
best fit -
O2
Take a named alternative
We name what is on the shelf and say plainly how it differs — a different size band, a different grade, a related species — and what that does to the lesson. If it costs less, you pay less. If it costs more and the difference is ours to absorb, we absorb it rather than invoicing you for a substitution you did not ask for.
priced on the call -
O3
Split the delivery
Everything available ships now and the short item follows when it arrives. Sensible where one line out of six is holding up the rest of a term's material. We do not charge twice for shipping when a split is our shortage rather than your change of mind.
no second charge -
O4
Cancel that line
Drop the short item and take the rest, or cancel the order entirely. No charge either way, because nothing has shipped. If payment has already been taken it is refunded on the terms in the payment and refunds policy.
no charge
B 10.0 Avoiding it
How to make a shortage less likely
Shortages are not evenly distributed through the year. They cluster in the two weeks when every biology department in the country orders at once, which is late August and early January.
Order earlier than feels necessary. Preserved material keeps indefinitely once it is sealed and stored properly, and owl pellets and instruments keep forever. There is no reason to order those in the week you need them. Three to four weeks ahead is comfortable; six weeks at the start of a term is realistic.
Say what would be acceptable in advance. If you are content with either size band, or would take a related species rather than wait, say so on the quotation and we will note it. That is a decision you have made rather than one made for you, and it turns a telephone call into a line on a document.
Name a real deadline. “Before the end of term” and “before the 14th” produce different decisions. Tell us the date the lesson happens and we will tell you what fits inside it.
On the quotation
- Acceptable alternatives
- Named by you in advance, so a shortage does not need a call.
- Hard deadline
- The date of the lesson, not the date you would like delivery.
- Split allowed
- Whether we may ship what is ready and follow with the rest.
- Contact for shortages
- Who to telephone, and whether they can decide or have to ask somebody.
All four are optional. Filling them in converts most shortages from a conversation into a decision that has already been made.
Check availability before the purchase order
Telephone before the paperwork starts and we will tell you what is on the shelf today and what the realistic date is for anything that is not. That is a two-minute call that prevents most of what this page is about.
Niles Biological, Inc. · 9298 Elder Creek Rd, Sacramento, CA 95829