10/22/08 Due to health issues and events beyond our control we are no longer accepting orders or new accounts. You can still check the status of an existing order or email ordering@onthetop.com if you have questions.
10/2/08 We have begun the process of shutting down the business. The redtag site has been removed from the site list. The redtag inventory will be unavailable shortly. After that point, if we receive an order for a redtag item we will not be able to fill it. The wigs will no longer be at our location. Our only option will be to notify you that the item is not available. This mostly pertains to people that have open shopping carts that are not submitted.
We do not have a fixed date as to when we will be no longer taking orders. We are in preparation to move from Sutter to Yuba City. Once we have the details of the move I will post them here. We are trying to make sure everyone is taken care of, however we have found a couple of errors already to our dismay. We truly apologize there is quite a bit going on here and it is making things difficult to do timely. Please bare with us.
9/11/08 Mike again. Just to let you know. Many of the suppliers are on minimum inventory levels so they are not stocking most colors. This is due to the slow economy. It seems like we can get less than 1 out of 4 that we try to purchase. It is very hit and miss. They are also unable to provide stock lists to us. Availability is on an on call basis.
9/10/08 Mike here. Mostly due to Karen's illness we will be shutting down the business soon. Other contributing factors are that the suppliers are not stocking much in this slow economy. So even though we are getting orders, we are only able to fulfill a fraction of them. This extra difficulty is not setting well with Karen. She is frustrated for not being able to work and frustrated that when she can the suppliers are often unable to fulfill the orders.
We will keep holding on for now and trying to do what we can. The writing is certainly very clearly written on the wall.
One other seriously troubling issue with the wig industry is the poor attitude many of the suppliers have with the Internet Resellers. They have created an illegal price fixing requirement for Internet Resellers. I have addressed this issue before in the topic Minimum Price Requirements. However, now we are finding out something equally disturbing is going on. Selected Internet Resellers are being given special consideration and are not being forced to post minimum prices and when the supplier is confronted about it, they just ignore the Internet Resellers. These acts are clearly anti-consumer and anti-competitive and are very clearly illegal by Federal Law in the United States. The FTC should be involved but we were told they were understaffed and we should pursue legal council on our own. This is an industry wide issue that one Reseller will not be able to afford to address. Until the FTC does something to straighten out the wig suppliers the industry is in big trouble.
Wig suppliers often have an MSRP Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. This is generally based on a calculation from wholesale cost to the reseller. What is supposed to happen is this MSRP is only a suggestion. To prevent price fixing a reseller can by law charge their customers whatever price they wish. Usually resellers mark down products to encourage higher numbers of sales and when a balance is found between price and quantity the reseller will find a price where they make the most money per month on a specific product. This is the free market system. The suppliers have decided that Internet Resellers are selling their wigs too cheap and are forcing the prices to be artificially raised above what the Internet Reseller would desire to charge. This means customers pay more for no reason and sales volumes drop as well. It is unclear why they would pursue such a tactic when it reduces the volume they sell by a greater amount since all Internet Resellers are effected. As a business we can sell unadvertised products to customers at whatever price we wish. As long as a standard visitor does not see the lower price it being considered OK by the suppliers.
Here is an actual problem we ran into. I will leave the names out for legal reasons. We had a customer that wanted to purchase 10 wigs same color same brand same style. They were already a preferred customer so we could give them any price we wished as long as we made enough to make it worth our while selling them. The MSRP on these wigs is $359 and the Minimum Internet Reseller Price is also $359. We have a preferred price of $220 which is quite a bit lower. No problem, the customer asked us if we could reduce the price because of the quantity 10. We did some figuring and the price came out to $176. Then the customer said X website has them up for $159. Sure enough I checked and there they were over half the Minimum Internet Reseller Price. We contacted the supplier and they said they weren't supposed to do that but they would not force them to change it because they do so much volume and they are right next door to the supplier. Let me make these numbers clear...
Minimum Internet Reseller Price $359x10 or $3590 + shipping. This is what we are supposed to be selling these wigs for according to the supplier.
Our Preferred Customer Price $220x10 or $2200 + shipping.
Reduced further pricing at our discretion $176x10 or $1760 + shipping
Company X website everyday price $159x10 or $1590 + shipping.
Furthermore Company X states they will beat any price by 150% of the difference. So lets say we really want to get this sale. We drop our price to $149x10 or $1490 + shipping. Company X states they will take $159-$149=$10 multiply by 150% for $15 off their price or $144 each times 10 or 1440 + shipping.
So we want to sell wigs for a living. This supplier is the ONLY source of this brand. We want to sell their wigs. We want to offer a competitive price but are not allowed to. We can drop the cost to our customer by over $2100 on this order and still can't get the order because of the games the suppliers are playing. What motivation does company X have to do a good job? None everyone loses.
7/16/08 Mike as usual. It has been a real troubling time for Karen and I. Karen was just getting over her voice issue when all of a sudden she started to gain water like crazy. We tried several things to see what might be causing it but no luck. I took her into emergency so they could figure out what was going on and after CAT scans, xrays, blood test etc. they are still not certain what is wrong. They did find a couple of tihngs were off so they began treating her for those things and the thyroid medication seems to be helping. However, due to the water weight she has put on she gets tired very easily. She can't get up without help or talk on the phone. She has more tests they need to run but they need more money than we have to do the test. So we are in a waiting period for now. Although her condition is serious it appears that the possible causes left are mostly treatable. So we are thankful for that.
4/24/08 We regret being forced to make this decision but we will not be offering Beverly Johnson wigs until further notice. Nearly every order we try to place with them the items are either out of stock or discontinued. Since we can't fulfill our customer's orders we see no reason to offer them for sale. We have been very patient with them but many customers are getting mad at us because Beverly Johnson is not stocking the wigs they want. We have been stuck in the middle but we have just corrected that issue by removing them from our website.
3/27/08 Mike again. Karen still has this ongoing voice issue. It is getting better but just as soon as she starts talking too much it goes out again. Hopefully she will get over her voice problem soon.
2/27/08 Mike here. Karen has a persistent problem with her voice, so some days she can't answer the phone. If you would email her instead it would be better. She is trying to save her voice as much as she can. Some suppliers don't take orders by email so she is trying to keep from talking unless it is to those suppliers. Sorry for any problems this may be causing.
1/5/08 Update. We are back in business again so we will be answering phones again Monday. We did some order processing today 1/5. The suppliers are not open so we can't check product color availability until Monday so there is only so much we can do today.
1/5/08 Mike here. We have been without power since 6am Friday 1/4 due to bad weather. 1.2 million people were without power in Northern California where we are located. Our phone system would not work without power and the web server had no power. Fortunately, our email service is on a national carrier so we will receive all emails you may have sent us. We are staying with relatives so when we return we will try to get caught up on things. Please be patient.