November 29, 2011 "There has been a price increase on all the Wested jackets as leather prices have been going up and up and Wested had not increased there prices until now. This had to be done as all leather and sheepskin have gone up about 4 times in the last 18 months and finally we had to do this."

Dear Peter, dear Gemma,

My order has reached me. The jacket is cut perfectly and the modified action flap is amazing. You should really make it again like before. Many fans would be happy about it.

But, what are you doing?
I’m shocked by the quality of the leather! First of all, the smell. My previous jackets smelled of fresh leather. It was a pleasure to wear them. Your new leather smells – I can’t describe it any other way – like a chemically-treated pair of shoes from a discount store.

Next, the strength of the leather. I’m pretty irritated. I ordered a jacket in September 2011, before your price increase. The leather (Lamkskin) of this jacket was fantastic. It was precisely the quality that I know and expect from Wested. You have told me that the price increase has to be done, because, I quote, “as all leather and sheepskin have gone up about 4 times in the last 18 months and finally we had to do this.” I understand that completely. And I think it’s good that you raise your prices to keep your quality. But you have not.

The leather of the jacket from my last order is pretty thin. Much thinner than the leather of my jacket, I ordered in September 2011. When I take a deep breath, I can see from the outside, what I carry in my inside pocket! I honestly don’t know what to say. I have no words for my disappointment. It does not work, that you increase your prices to keep your quality. But then, despite higher prices you go down with the quality. There’s only one of the two. Finally, the leather itself causes, that the jacket doesn’t look like hand-made or high quality. The jacket looks as if it were made by synthetic leather. And I paid £215 for it.

I respectively ordered lambskin leather in September and December 2011. Why does these leather looks so thin and differs so much from each other and from the leather that you have used in the past? Do you now uses multiple split leather? And why did you not inform your customers about such a change? I’m really unsatisfied with this jacket, wich is alone because of the leather quality.

I had to express my frustration in the German Indy Fan Forum. Other fans were just as shocked as me and some have their orders at Wested postponed for now, until I publish news about the new leather quality.
For me, Wested was currently the only provider of high quality and authentic leather jackets, especially for the Indy jacket. There are no similar products worldwide. Your new product policy risks the satisfaction of many customers, who were previously convinced of your quality.
Finally, I can’t believe that my last jacket is really worth the money and I want to directly ask wether you see a way to find back to the quality with wich you’ve been convinced earlier? I would like to exchange my jacket for one with the quality I’m accustomed to expect from Wested.
I await your response.

Sincerley,

Im Sinne der Wahrung der Privatsphäre fasse ich Peter's Nachricht sinngemäß zusammen:

Er ist sehr enttäuscht, dass ich den Vorfall direkt ins Forum getragen habe, ohne ihn vorher zu kontaktieren. Das hilft nicht weiter und schmälert seine Bereitschaft, mir in meiner Angelegenheit zu helfen.
Die Lederqualität habe sich offenbar nicht geändert, aber es wurde aus irgendeinem Grund angenommen, dass ich dünneres Leder haben möchte. Wohl, weil dies von anderen Kunden in letzter Zeit häufig bestellt wurde.
Der Geruch könnte muffig sein, wenn die Sendung und somit das Leder naß geworden sein.
Ein Problem sah er noch darin, dass ich immer per Email bestellt habe und nicht das Formular auf der Webseite genutzt habe.
Ich soll die Jacke jetzt zurückschicken, damit er sie sich nochmal genau anschauen kann.

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your message.

First of all, I apologize for my hasty action of publishing the incident directly to the German forum. But I was shocked and frustrated and looking for opinions and experiences of other fans to find out what went wrong. Please imagine that since August 2011, I’m trying to get a jacket, that matches my expectations. I was patient and sent a lot of emails to Gemma – who doesn’t probably want to see my email adress no longer - just to make things right. Even the interim price increase didn’t make me angry. As I wrote, I think it’s very good to raise prices in order to ensure quality.

Right, because one can select only fixed sizes in your order form, I made my orders via email every time. So I’ve made it even by my first order in 2001. That worked always very good until my last order. But I'm absolutly not angry, that the order which I placed in december was lost at first. On the contrary, I understand very well that Wested has many orders to process in december. This is not the problem.

So far, I’ve ordered all jackets until now as Custom ROLA with dark brown lambskin and got always the same thickness and quality, wich I also was expecting this time. You might have consulted me about the thickness of the leather in order to avoid misunderstandings or - because I had nothing else stated – could have used the standard strength. And I did not specify in my order that I’d like to have a jacket with thinner leather. I just wanted a less deep action flap, which was prepared very well so far.
As I mentioned in my last email, it’s alone about the strength of the leather.

The smell has now become a little better. It may be that the order has become wet. However, I didn’t notice a hole in the envelope.

I don’t want to be an disagreeable or ungrateful customer. But if I understand you correctly, it was decided to use thinner leather without my request or agreement. For this reason, I was shocked by the strength of the leather, because I didn’t get the jacket I had ordered.

Thank you for your offer to inspect the jacket. Since this is probably a wrong item, it will certainly amount to an exchange. What additional costs should I expect (for example shipping to England, etc.)?

As I described the case in the forum, I will of course also about the service and the courtesy of Wested. I’m a fan of your jackets for 11 years and I will continue to be. Whenever someone asks me for a good manufacturer of leather jackets, I recommend Wested without reservation. And because I wear the product of your fantastic work every day, there are a lot of requests. I hope that reconciles you a little.

I look forward to your reply and remain with best regards,

2. Ich hätte nicht geschrieben, dass ich das im Netz verkündet habe etc. bzw. hätte erstmal die Antwort abgewartet. Fand ich auch beim ersten Lesen (verstehe mich nicht falsch, ich kann den Ärger verstehen) eine reichlich unfaire Vorgehensweise...

EDIT: Er zeigt sich schwer enttäuscht, daß der Vorgang hier in einem Fan-Forum dargestellt wird, ohne daß man dies vorher mit ihm besprochen hätte EDIT-ENDE (...)

Zu deinem Fall kann ich nichts sagen, aber er legt wie du schreibst scheinbar die Vermutung nahe, dass Peter anscheinend nur antwortet, wenn man (wie auch immer) ordentlich "Druck" macht. DAS ist / wäre natürlich eine service-mäßige Bankrott-Erklärung, wo wir wieder beim Anfangsstatement wären...Nichts für ungut.;-)

Also dieses Statement finde ich auch nicht ganz in Ordnung. Wenn wirklich viele Kunden das Leder so dünn wollen dann heißt das nicht dass alle das so wollen. Man hätte dich ja auch fragen können in diesem Fall.