Quote Originally Posted by emaidel
I didn't mean to imply that price was left out, and you're absolutely correct in stating that if a buyer left it out, he'd be out on his a** in no time flat. What I'm trying to say, and perhaps didn't say clearly, was that unforseen increases in the cost of goods for a manufacturer, that would necessitate an increase in his price to any retailer is a normal, and entirely accepted manner of doing business. And, as your posting indicates, if a contract were indeed signed, then I'd expect a timeframe to have been placed on that contract (perhaps one year) and that in that instance, the manufacturer is indeed bound to hold up his end of the bargain.

This is turning into qute a mess, isn't it?
Not so bad of a mess,

Yes, a time frame is also included. 1 year is common. 2 years with a 3rd option sometimes too. When I was with a big company, anyone who wanted to raise their price before the contract was up got laughed at. When I was with small companies we couldn't really act the same way. We could kick & complain but ultimately, we had little choice & just tried to get as much compensation as possible. It's normal for big companies to take a hard line. And the little companies get the shaft. I'm not saying that what Wal-Mart did is nice. But it's typical of big business.
I remember a meeting I was in years ago. The Buyer in charge of a supplier had told them, "if you don't stock 50,000 gallons of this chemical, we won't buy it from you." When we stopped using that chemical, the company was very upset that they were getting stuck with all of this extra crap that they had no other customer for. Our Buyer told them, "we never told you that we would take any excess inventory off your hands." There was nothing in writing and that company got a screwin'.