One of the differences between middlemen in the Scottish goods industry is that some -guessing very few - maintain a warehouse with stock ready to ship.

The others just take our order and forward it on to the manufacturer. Sometimes they have the manufacturer drop ship directly to us (yes, its happened to me), sometimes they have the manufacturer ship to them and they reship to us. Sometimes the middlemen wait and group our orders for the same product for better pricing from the manufacturer.

These middlemen without stock (though you'd not know it from their websites) are at the complete mercy of the manufacturer's schedules so they have no way to predict when our goods will arrive. Its even worse then they are holding our orders waiting for other orders for the same product before placing the orders with the manufacturer. They'll never admit to that.

Its much akin to middlemen who sell hand sewn kilts but subcontract with anonymous kiltmakers. Once the order is passed on they too are at the mercy of the kiltmaker's backlog, health, fabric delivery, et.al.

Much gratitude to the men on this board who share their experiences so that we can learn how different businesses providing Scottish goods actually operate and include that knowledge in our decision making process.

An example of a well run middeman operation is the Scottish Tartan's Museum which maintains stock on some items like Lewis Kilt Hose, and forwards orders on other items like L&M custom designed sporrans. STM works closely with manufacturers that can be trusted and they hold delivery times and warn of delays. So it ain't all bad...its often very very good. We just need to sort the various businesses out. So again, a hearty thank you to those like Forrester Modern who share their experiences.

Ron