Refusing to supply – a brief checklist for your business

It might sound counter-intuitive at first – why would you ever want to refuse to supply a paying customer?

In most cases, when a potential customer is asking to buy your goods or services, you would probably think that you'd be unlikely to refuse.

However, there are circumstances where you may not want to supply a particular customer, for a wide range of commercial reasons. For example:

• you might have limited supply of product and need to be selective with the customers you choose to deal with;
• you might be the owner of the brand / goodwill in the product or service and have, or are considering, a distribution arrangement where the distributor doesn't sell a competitor's product or have reservations about the reputation of the potential customer. This is particularly relevant if the potential customer is going to resell your product or service;