Had someone contact me asking for large quantities of an item I stock, but in different sizes. I explained I'm not really equipped to to do wholesale orders of that nature, however I could get what they want, it would just take several weeks, then gave them a quote. After quite a bit of back and forth, I went ahead and arranged for an order.
In the end, I spent the most I ever have on a single item to import a large quantity (postage alone was close to AUD$300), and - big surprise - when I let them know they'd arrived yesterday, they were "sorry, but...."
I'm mostly salty because I had to divert a lot of money to this one item and forego getting in other, needed stock, to accommodate them. The items will sell regardless, I just never would have dropped that kind of money on the product without their insistence.
And I know everyone will say "get a deposit" and / or I only have myself to blame for not doing so etc - I understand and even agree with the practice of getting deposits etc, plus recommend others do it, but I'm not mad about the money anywhere near as much since I know the rest of my customers will be more than happy to buy them, it's just the disregard and fact that I've had to let other customers down to be able to supply this one. (I tend not to ask for deposits for items I can easily sell whether or not the customer goes ahead with a purchase because I hate the stress of having a financially invested customer when the supplier lets me down in some way, which has happened a few times in the past after I took money up front. I do get deposits if I can't sell the items otherwise, of course).
Venting now to make sure I don't send the email reply I wrote. 🤣
