- Thread starter
- #21
ed the head
Well-Known Member
Thank you for your perspective. I figured I wasn't alone among our community as far as TNS problems.I appreciate you posting this.
I ordered from this vendor in April and didn't pay for the insurance. I've been sending things internationally for half a century (I started importing electronics products from the US in 1971 as a teenager) and have lived in dozens places in the US, Canada, and overseas and have never lost a package. Given that, I figured that my order wouldn't have any problems.
I was wrong.
TNS sent an envelope that got to Chicago and then disappeared. I asked them to replace the order and they refused. As a result, I will never buy seeds from TNS again. That's a 10 or, perhaps 20, year revenue stream of which they will receive exactly $0.00.
I have some insights as to why they don't replace lost orders and I believe it is a defensible business decision. In a nutshell, their decision is based on the belief that the cost or replacing the order ($25 for a $125 order?) is greater than the potential profit from me as a customer.
Given that it was my first order, they have no track record so they use a default "customer profile" based on their own data, based on data from sites like this one, and a host of other issues. My theory is that most of their customers, like many of the memberships here, are not decades-long customers. I suspect that their average customer places a few orders and then is not heard from again. That's not a knock on TNS; my conclusions are based on a variety of factors including the nature of the business (most of the customers for cannabis seeds were breaking the law until just a few years ago), the fact that the market is an incredibly new market (due to changes in cannabis laws), and that the audience here is relatively young (the younger you are buying habits and habits, in general, are more in flux).
Adding it all up, it's extremely hard for anyone to know what the seed vendor market will look like. Compare that to products such as housing, clothing, or automobiles and it's apparent that the risk factor is pretty high in selling cannabis seeds. So, they err on the side of caution and devise business practices accordingly.
And I've devised my business strategy according to the data on hand. I know I will never buy seeds from TNS again
I know that there are dozens of other seed vendors and I know that the only time I've ordered seeds and not received the order was from TNS. But having a package get lost is highly unlikely to happen again in my lifetime so, one could argue that there's no reason to not order from TNS, right?
Nope, because another thing I know is that TNS will not replace lost seeds unless I pay significant cost for "insurance" so that brings me to another thing that we know - I know I will never buy seeds from TNS again.
Back to your issue — I hope that your situation with TNS gets resolved quickly and to your satisfaction. Keep us posted.
Even after @420 intervened, all I've gotten from TNS was an email where they claim they will send a refund. I am supposed to get an email confirming my refund was sent. I have yet to see this email, or the refund.
Unlike you, I was a repeat TNS customer. I was a happy and enthusiastic supporter of their business. I even referred people there.
It seems TNS undervalues their their return customers too.
Very sorry for your troubles. As to TNS, I have little sympathy. $10-$15 per seed seems more than ample margin to my eyes.