Vendors, did you not get the memo?

Color me astonished.

At no time in the past fifteen years have I seen such a chasm between vendors who “get it” and those who don’t. The ones in the former camp are adjusting minimums, reorder requirements, and program rules; the ones in the latter seem to think that forcing retailers to buy deep and reorder large is still a successful business model.

Now, before anyone on the vendor side of this gets up in a wad, I’m not talking about casepacks or 10¢ items; this is happening across all product categories and all price points. I’m talking about companies who refuse to accommodate the realities in retail, carrying a “Take it or leave it” mindset into their booths.

Bottom line: Everyone is hurting right now. Everyone needs cash. And everyone needs to give a little to get through the next eighteen months:

• If a retailer wants to carry your line at a smaller level than would have been the case a year ago, take the order. That’s a customer you can build into a larger account later, after the market stabilizes.

• Make reordering easier, even if it means temporarily kicking reorder minimums and below-minimums out the door. Retailers don’t have the financial wiggle room to pad orders for the sake of getting the two things they actually need.

• If you make it hard for buyers to do business with you, they won’t. They have neither the time nor the patience to deal with companies who have their heads in the sand…or in the clouds.

I know shipping a series of small orders is a pain. And I know there’s a lot more vendor expense to it than simply ordering smaller boxes. But I also know retailers have begun to apply the same “take it or leave it” concept to companies that don’t cater to their customers’ needs. There are a lot of small, nimble lines out there ready to grab their accounts and treat ‘em right.

Which they will.