A story about choices, cheap deals, and learning when to let go.
Last week, one of my teammates looked genuinely discouraged.
She had spent over two months working with a buyer — helping them choose the right umbrella model, adjusting specs, providing samples, staying up late for calls across time zones.
Everything looked promising.
Until the client wrote back and said:
“We’ve decided to go with another supplier. Their price is $2 lower.”
That’s it.
All that work, gone — over $2.
“We gave them everything,” she said.
“They asked, we delivered. How could that not matter?”
I understood her frustration.
But I also told her something I’ve had to learn, again and again:
“We didn’t lose the order.
We just weren’t their match.”
Because if a $2 discount is enough to change the entire decision,
then what we built wasn’t a partnership — it was a transaction.
And we’re not in this to win the cheapest deal.
We’re in this to build something better.
We used to try to please everyone.
When we started our umbrella business, we said yes to every project.
Small MOQs? No problem.
Tight budgets? We’ll try.
High-end brand umbrellas and $0.99 giveaway models — side by side? Let’s go.
We thought being flexible meant being successful.
But over time, that strategy started to stretch us thin.
Our production line was constantly shifting gears.
Our QC team had to check everything twice.
And the thing that hurt most?
Even some of our loyal clients started saying:
“The quality isn’t what it used to be.”
That was our wake-up call.
We realized:
Trying to serve everyone meant slowly failing the ones who trusted us most.
So we made a choice.
We stopped chasing every deal.
We stopped cutting corners just to “win” a quote.
And we started saying something many suppliers avoid:
“No, we may not be the right fit for you.”
We chose to focus:
- On quality that holds up under real use
- On relationships built on more than price
- On clients who see value — not just numbers
It wasn’t easy at first.
We lost short-term opportunities.
But we gained long-term clarity.