Our first guest blogger is Rolando Scapellato, founder of the high-end Italian neckwear company Dolcepunta.

This message is targeted to the many store owners and buyers who are losing their cool and starting to panic. I’ve personally had three episodes lately, and have heard of many others from my manufacturer colleagues, of irrational behavior by retailers.

Here's my latest: a destination store refused to accept delivery of my goods: a confirmed SS 2009 order made back six months ago, to be delivered as requested in March 2009. My delivery was right on target. UPS notified me the delivery was refused, told me I had five days to make a decision: either re-deliver it to the same destination, deliver it to another destination, or deliver it back to the sender (that's me, in Italy, having already paid for shipment and duty to the USA). Or, if none of these options was chosen, the goods would be "abandoned" and sent to the Customs warehouse and disposed of (Customs law).

So I called the contact person at the store, the same person who had ordered the goods through my agent six months back, and asked for an explanation. The contact person replied that the owners of the business had a new policy, and all orders coming in must have a Purchase Order number. "So?" I said, "Give the carton a PO number!" He replied that the owners were away, and it would take a couple of days to get an answer from them. When I asked how long this policy had been in effect, the person said about two months. I asked "Are you then refusing many deliveries without PO numbers? Or just mine?" He mumbled and didn't give me a clear answer. I said "Don't you think you should have supplied PO numbers to your vendors once this new policy was made?" Again I sensed his embarrassment as he mumbled unclearly, indicating that I was right. I continued asking "Don't you think you acted unprofessionally in this lack of vital information? And I noticed you placed a new fall/winter 2009 order with my agent, without a PO number. Why is that?"

Once I realized he was lost in nervousness and embarrassment, I was afraid he would hang up on me, so to put an end to the torture, I suggested that I divert the goods to our NYC showroom and "park" the carton until it receives a PO number via authorization from the store owner (which I believe will never happen, since a full week has now gone by, and daily phone calls made by my agent finds the person always in a meeting, phone calls never returned).

How will it end? First I will eat my goods; secondly I will cancel the new order; thirdly, should this account want to do business with me again, advance payment will be required. The other two episodes are not the exact same story, but are equally disturbing in terms of "loss of integrity."

Granted, we are all feeling the pressures of the economic crisis; we all need to make adjustments, small and large. But we should never, ever lose our integrity. When a store buys on credit, the store has a responsibility to the supplier who manufacturers these goods on a promise to pay. In these difficult times, the store should simply tell it like it is and open up to working it out without a one-way loss to either side. If they do this, manufacturers will show true partnership and work it out as best they can. For in the end, the Crisis will pass and be forgotten, but the side that gets hurt will not forget.