>Our Site:1 speakers are lovingly handcrafted. We make them one at a time, to our customer's desired spec, [...] If all goes smoothly, this process takes about six weeks.
>Amazon relentlessly pushed us to accept lead-times that were typically only four days, and sometimes demanded fulfillment of orders in as little as 24 hours--including delivery.
Amazon is not really an appropriate distribution platform for 6-week custom-made-to-order products. Maybe there's another well-known retail site that caters to that type of vendor but it certainly isn't Amazon (or Walmart).
One way for Princeton Audio to become compatible with Amazon's short lead times is to run some sophisticated projections (e.g. "demand planning") on the most likely customer combinations[1] and build an inventory of those ahead of time. (Sell semi-custom on Amazon with immediate delivery but fully custom on Princeton's own website with 6-week wait.) However, that requires a big capital investment -- and the hassles of managing inventory.
[1] PA's website shows 32 possible combinations (4 woods x 4 metals x 2 batteries) so maybe prebuild and sell only the most popular 3 configurations on Amazon.com
>Amazon relentlessly pushed us to accept lead-times that were typically only four days, and sometimes demanded fulfillment of orders in as little as 24 hours--including delivery.
Amazon is not really an appropriate distribution platform for 6-week custom-made-to-order products. Maybe there's another well-known retail site that caters to that type of vendor but it certainly isn't Amazon (or Walmart).
One way for Princeton Audio to become compatible with Amazon's short lead times is to run some sophisticated projections (e.g. "demand planning") on the most likely customer combinations[1] and build an inventory of those ahead of time. (Sell semi-custom on Amazon with immediate delivery but fully custom on Princeton's own website with 6-week wait.) However, that requires a big capital investment -- and the hassles of managing inventory.
[1] PA's website shows 32 possible combinations (4 woods x 4 metals x 2 batteries) so maybe prebuild and sell only the most popular 3 configurations on Amazon.com
https://store.princeton-audio.com/products/site1-bluetooth-s...