Do Your Research (aka Buyer Beware)

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Consider this a cautionary tale, and a reason why impreciseness in terminology (which is rampant in the tartan world) can be so hazardous.

We (the Scottish Tartans Museum) had a phone order placed by someone who wanted a kilt in a certain tartan that was not generally available and would require custom weaving. This person wanted a full eight yard kilt, in heavy weight. With the tartan being custom woven, it was going to be an expensive kilt.

The tartan requested is actually a fairly simple blue/gree/black tartan with a white stripe. No special complicated colors, etc. The client requested the tartan in the modern colors. Easy enough.

We had the cloth woven, had the kilt made, and it was recently delivered. Here's where the saga begins. We get a complaint from the client because the tartan was woven "too dark." It should have been lighter. The client sent links to web sites picturing the tartan, all in lighter "ancient" colors.

The client claims that we are at fault for not knowing what the tartan is supposed to look like.

Of course this client is confused as to the color terminology of the tartans. The images sent were all of the ancient colors. The client requested the modern colors, which is what we provided.

In the client's defense, of the three web sites linked to, two of them simply showed the image labelled "X tartan" while one (Scotweb's store, as it happened to be) actually labelled it "X tartan, modern" despite the fact that the image shown was clearly in the ancient color scheme. No wonder the client was confused.

However, in our defense, there is no way we can be responsible for mislabelling of tartan images on other companies' web sites.

In the client's defense, we did not ask for images verifying the colors desired before we had the tartan woven. In our defense, it's a fairly simply blue/black/green tartan and the client seemed fairly knowledgable on the phone and specifically requested "modern" so we never felt that verification was required. Now we know.

In the end, what we provided was exactly what the client asked for, but what the client asked for was not exactly what the client actually wanted. All because of confusion as to the color scheme of the tartan.

Lesson -- never assume people know what they are talking about when it comes to tartan terminology, even when they seem like they know. Always send an image of what you want for verification, especially when requesting expensive custom work. Even when it seems like an obvious, easy tartan, it never hurts to verify.

I would never have thought this would have been such an issue with a simple blue/black/green tartan in the modern colors, till I saw Scotweb's site showed an image of the ancient colors, labelled "modern". My client most likely saw that, and assumed that was what we would be providing. As I said, we cannot be responsible for what is shown on other web sites, but now that I see this, I understand where the confusion came from.

[RockyR]

Just out of curiosity, how was the 'dispute' resolved? Did they keep the kilt or did you accept the return?

I've had a few similar type situations, so I completely empathise. It's not easy when you are a small company working on small marjins to allow for any / all returns (like this one).

[Dan R Porter]

This is another sad story of internet education. or as we call it here, "Wiki-education." How sad. Its a mess out there!

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Just out of curiosity, how was the 'dispute' resolved? Did they keep the kilt or did you accept the return?

I've had a few similar type situations, so I completely empathise. It's not easy when you are a small company working on small marjins to allow for any / all returns (like this one).

I'm still in communications with the client (which is why I didn't mention any names or even the tartan specifics). But I have to say while on the one hand I generally want to do all I can to satisfy a client and make sure they are happy with their purchase, especially for an expensive item like this, I don't feel like there is very much I can do unless I want to really take a wash on the kilt.

The truth is that there is really very little profit margin in an item like this. I don't know if people realize this or not. I think the general perception is that "I'm buying a really expensive item, therefore the merchant is making a lot of money from this sale." Not true. When you tally up the cost of having the cloth custom woven, then shipped to the kiltmakers, the cost of making the kilt, then shipping to us, the amount of profit we actually make on a kilt like this is amazingly small. We actually make more money when we sell an casual kilt in a stock tartan, even though that kilt may cost almost $500 less.

And I wish we sold a million kilts and could afford to take back an item, no questions asked, and just absorb the loss into our budget. Sadly, though, our budget doesn't allow for that, which is why we generally handle this kind of thing on a case by case basis.

And in this case, the client was very specific on the phone about wanting the "modern" tartan. We had no reason to believe there was going to be an issue.

In hindsight, the client was most likely looking at the image on Scotweb, which shows the ancient colors, despite being labelled modern, and just assumed that was what the "modern" tartan looked like and that is what they would be getting. But we just can't be held responsible for an error on someone else's web site.

As a side note, sometimes we can tell when talking to someone that they are confused as to the proper terminology, and we make every effort to clarify. I had a phone call once from someone looking to buy garters to match their "ancient Bruce" kilt. They wanted to know if the "ancient red" garters were orange, as they appeared in the photo on our web site. I said yes, because in the ancient colors, red fades to orange. He said it wouldn't match his kilt because his kilt was red, not orange. I asked if his tartan might not be modern Bruce. He assured me it was ancient Bruce. I told him then the ancient red flashes should match. Again, he told me his kilt was red, not orange. So I told him to order the modern red flashes. But, he argued, his kilt was in the ancient colors. Obviously we were miscommunicating. I finally just said, "When you look at your kilt, would you describe it as red or orange?" He said, "red." I told him, "Ok, I'll send garters to match" and we just didn't worry about what they were called. :-)

That wasn't the case with this kilt order. The client seemed very certain on the phone about having the tartan woven in the modern colors, so that's what we did. I never saw any reason to doubt them. Usually when people are confused as to the colors of a tartan, they are calling a tartan "ancient" when it is not. I don't typically encounter confusion over the term "modern" being applied to ancient colors.

[Dianne B]

That's sad, for all parties involved!

As a buyer, if I were going to order anything "custom" for which there was no illustration on the maker's web site, I would certainly submit a picture and say "Like this!" (to heck with names) on the assumption that the picture would be passed to the weaver as reference. If the final product looked somewhat close to the picture, good enough.

If I was REALLY going to be fussy, I would ask for samples of the various yarns so I could see the shades of colours - but then again I have done some weaving so I know how hard it can be to get exact shades of colours.

[ccga3359]

Matt it's sad to hear and unfortunatly there is a customer that is not happy with his experience with STA even though you did every thing possible. i recall when you made my kilt in MacLachlan ancient we had a discussion over which colour garters. In my case the ancient red was too orange and the modern red was too red. Fortunately I have both and now I can wear the hue that matches my mood that day. I hope that the customer can look beyond the colour shades and see that he as a one of a kind work of kilted art.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Matt it's sad to hear and unfortunatly there is a customer that is not happy with his experience with STA even though you did every thing possible. i recall when you made my kilt in MacLachlan ancient we had a discussion over which colour garters. In my case the ancient red was too orange and the modern red was too red. Fortunately I have both and now I can wear the hue that matches my mood that day. I hope that the customer can look beyond the colour shades and see that he as a one of a kind work of kilted art.

Thanks Grant. And that's the thing, I inspected the kilt before I sent it out and it's really a great kilt! The tartan is lovely, the kilt is very well made. It's one anyone would be proud to wear.

BTW, I assume you meant STM, not STA, above.
~M

[The Barry]

That sucks. Why would you put so much money down on something so haphazardly researched? So much for "the customer is always right"!

[Colonel MacNeal]

Let the fool and his money remain parted.

[ghostlight]

I wouldn't have expected you to do anything differently if I were the customer in this situation. If he didn't request a swatch (or link you to the tartan he wanted if no swatch was available or request yarn samples if no link and swatch were available, etc.) he brought this on himself. You wear a lot of hats in your business, but I do not believe that "Mind Reader" should have to be one of them.

If a customer is going to represent himself to you as someone who knows what he is talking about, he should make certain that he knows what he is talking about. If he is not certain and does not ask important questions, he gets what he asks you to provide. There is no shame in asking questions.

In any event, this person took delivery of a nice kilt. This is both a good learning opportunity for him and a good opportunity for him to start saving for a second kilt.