LuAnn, I talked to Pacific Headwear and most of thier account are setup by sales reps and to prevent from having too many accounts in a certain area they limit the amount of accounts they open per area and then refer people to those accounts in their area. She said since I am in Oregon and as well as they are they just opened my account direct. If you or anyone else ever needs pacific hats and can't get them let me know and I will order them on my account and drop ship them to you. I told Pacific Headwear I was going to do this and they didn't seem to have a problem. I won't markup the prices at all you just pay shipping and the cap price and I have case pricing . Aaron Sargent The Linen Barn linen@xxxxxxxxxxx 541-770-2957 Medford, OR ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom D'Auria To: amayausers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 8:23 AM Subject: [amayausers.com] Re: Sanmar I agree with Roland. As I said on a prior email I have a HUGE advantage in having Sanmar's Cranbury distribution center being 30 minutes from my home and my job. I am in there about twice a week to pick up small orders while I let the ones over $150 come to my house free freight. I have had some minor problems - shorted an item a few times, bags with dirt on them, but being able to pop in and getting to know the folks there has saved me from even doing returns at times. I just hand them the defective item and they run in the back and get me a new one. Noi waiting for credits or new items. As Roland said, they don't stock all the colors and I send them frequent notes asking them to stock specific items and/or colors. I find them far more friendly to deal with than Alpha. Roland -as for case pricing, I joined NNEP when I started my business 2 years ago and I get case pricing at a bunch of places with no minimums. I placed only 5 orders with Alpha last year for a total of about $1300 and I get case pricing from them through NNEP. I think your business is huge compared to mine, so the $200 for NNEP each year might be well worth it to you. I highly recommend Sanmar. Tom Dauria Mr. Sew & Sew "Roland R. Irish III" <signman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: I've been using Sanmar over 6-7 years after repeated, weekly problems with NES (now owned by Alpha, who is now owned by Broder) and then Alpha discontinuing my 'case price status' because I hadn't increased my purchases by 15% a year. Not even a notice they were doing it-I just happened to double check an invoice. Rep from Sanmar stopped in (I think the only time I've seen him in years) and said they would give me case price, no minimums, free shipping over $150 or so, except for sale items, AND monthly billing. I've stayed with them since-even talking customers out of a preferred house brand with Alpha into something else from Sanmar. Free catalogs from Sanmar, priced or unpriced, with our company info on it...just pay the freight, free website link and when I get around to it-THEIR web tech will help me fully customize the website-including 'web ordering' through them. Have I had problems? Yup...once in a rare while someone will goof and short me a shirt or send the wrong size-and every time-they next day air the replacements, and send a shipping label for the returns. Credits do take some time to show up but they do get there. My only complaint with Sanmar-they don't stock all available colors, like Gildan tees-they leave off a few colors and of course, THAT is what the client wants because they check out other websites and see the color there. So I had to keep my account active in Alpha and Broder. But the customer has to foot the bill for freight and I eat the difference in price to keep the client. Doesn't happen often but it does. If you don't have an 'account executive' (an inside 'contact person' you can call direct) at Sanmar, then ask for one- this gives you a real person to call, the same person each time, that will get to know you and your account. Compared to the problems I had with NES, then Alpha...Sanmar has been a gift from the supply gods to us. Even drop shipping to contract jobbers for large embroidery jobs-done instantly everytime. Roland