Huh?

[Allison]

This is my first topic, so please forgive me if I mess up with this 🙂

Anyway, I live in an extremely small town in central Ontario, and today my sister and I went to Midland, the nearest town, to shop. There happened to be a lovely curio shop there, and I thought “hey, I wonder if they have Windstones!”, being as I’m a newly-minted, largely-Windstoneless addict. We walked in, and there stood a Rainbow Emperor, along with a few small gargoyles. I was so excited, I found the store owner and asked her how often they got new pieces, and was it possible to order some through her.

Her answer: “They don’t make Windstones anymore”

…huh? I told her I was a member of this website, and unless I’m delusional, it seems as though Windstone was not only still in business, but that they had all sorts of new stuff. She then muttered something about them not selling in Canada anymore, and then something about the Canadian distributor being closed.

This all sounds like hogwash to me, but I thought I’d post this story here so someone could please set me straight! Also, if this lady was clueless, do any of you kind Canadian visitors know of any good stores around the Barrie/Orillia area of Ontario?

Thank you 😀

[Allison]

[Maria]

The Canadians will be able to clear you up a lot better, but I do remember somebody saying the Canadian distributor was backing out of Windstones…

[Allison]

Greater Basilisk wrote:

The Canadians will be able to clear you up a lot better, but I do remember somebody saying the Canadian distributor was backing out of Windstones…

Crud, that would not be very good 🙁

[gryphondreamer]

Greater Basilisk wrote:

The Canadians will be able to clear you up a lot better, but I do remember somebody saying the Canadian distributor was backing out of Windstones…

why? and why does windstone need a canadian distributor?

[Maria]

Somebody has to import the Windstones en gros for the stores. But I need to step back now, cause the rest of this over my head. 😆

[Lupin]

The lady was absoultly totally clueless or just a plain old idiot who doesn’t want to do the work of possibly orderihg direct and probably was getting herself ripped off seriously by a middleman and you have pointed out to her exactly how stupid she was!!

Or Maybe she’s just that baddly computer illiterate that they scare her that much she won’t touch them with a ten foot pole!!

TC maybe able to find out better about if we really need to have an importer, and I think there’s some one on here who maybe a Canadain Dealer themselves. But I can’t remember for a fact.

[gryphondreamer]

arya, did you end up buying anything that was there?

[Allison]

Greater Basilisk wrote:

Somebody has to import the Windstones en gros for the stores. But I need to step back now, cause the rest of this over my head. 😆

Thank you 🙂

[Allison]

gryphondreamer wrote:

arya, did you end up buying anything that was there?

No, there were no pieces that I was looking for, there were only about 6 pieces in total. I had intended to ask what the price of the Emperor was just to gauge what the rest of the dragons would be up here relative to him, but the lady was so short and rude, I just left after asking her those questions.

[littleironhorse]

I can tell you the exact story because I asked the very same thing of Windstone last year…

What happened is that Windstone stopped selling to their Canadian Wholesaler, Kalyn Imports I think it was, because they could no longer afford to sell to them at a lower price.

The way they used to work was that they would sell to Kalyn Imports at wholesale price, and Kalyn would re-sell to Canadian distributors.

But since Windstone used to sell to Canada through a wholesaler, they actually have no idea exactly which Canadian stores carried their line. And since Canadian dealers used to deal with this wholesaler and not Windstone directly, they have never really had any contact with Windstone and may in fact be completely unaware of the situation.

I would suggest sending Karen or Susie the contact details of this store so that they can try to re-establish the line of communication and maybe start ordering new stuff.

In any event, if Susie puts them on the dealer list it might generate sales for them and get them interested in continuing to carry the line.

[Allison]

Ah, thank you! That really does help to clear this up. I wasn’t very trusting of the lady I spoke to, one because of her attitude and two because she tried to convince me that Windstone was completely closed before she gave me the distributor story.

I’ll get some contact information for the store in question and let the folks here know about it. I’d love to get a store set up in Midland, whether it’s this one or not, with Windstones for myself and my friends! 😀

[dragonmedley]

I had the same situation last year too with the Green Earth store in Burlington. When I told her she could order direct from Windstone, she wasn’t too gongho about it because of the duty. However, under the free trade agreement, store don’t have to pay duty on stuff like that.

I had called her 3 times about it, but I haven’t heard back from her. I’ll try to drop in and let you know if I was able to convince her and share my arguments with you if I am indeed successful. I also need to email Susie or Karen to find out if they do have her info.

If we want stores to continue to carry Windstones in Canada, we’re going to have to get out there!

Read my books! Volume 1 and 2 of A Dragon Medley are available now.
http://www.sarahjestin.com/mybooks.htm
I host the feedback lists, which are maintained by drag0nfeathers.
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[Allison]

There was a Green Earth store in a Barrie mall that I once visited, but they only had a few candle lamps when I first went, and then they “re-vamped” their store and stopped selling most of the figures I used to buy from them. They only really sell cheap trinkets and scented candles now.

I’m more than willing to talk to some of the stores around where I live to see if they are interested in carrying Windstones. Yes, the towns around here are small, but this is cottage country in the summer, and all the city folks are here looking at antiques and statues on the weekends. I hope this works!

[littleironhorse]

Don’t forget, if you do talk a store owner into carrying Windstones, you can get free stuff for!

http://www.windstoneeditions.com/help%20wanted.htm#collectors

[Author]

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