A Difficult Account We have a client who is a large retailer in US. This is our first trade. Before we take his orders, we had asked him to waive the product test since the order quantity is two small, and he agreed to share the test report with the other client. At the beginning of April, I sent the other retailer’s reports to the buyer for review. He said nothing and released the sample approval letter (short for SAL) to us. At the end of May, I was told by the forwarder that they couldn’t accept the shipping order because there was no buyer’s signature and seal on SAL. Then I forwarded the forwarder’s email to the buyer and asked him to sign on SAL. However, he said: “Another retailers testing is acceptable as long as the testing protocols are similar to ours. You need to provide the protocol to BV for review and we can decide from there.” My god, different retailers have their own protocol and I was not sure that these reports conform to his protocol. I replied angrily: “You have never told us about this important point, if you told us before, we wouldn’t accept his orders. You must accept the exiting reports and release the final SAL to us as soon as possible. And any late shipment penalty caused by you must be waived.” He said nothing but insisted on the protocol comparison. Then I listed a summary about compared result and told him that which test we had done, and which test was not covered. But it was not something he needed, what he needed is a official comparison conducted by BV. The ship date is overdue, but we still missed the final SAL. I need to weight the alternatives. if I insisted on my opinion, the order may be cancelled at the end. If do as the buyer requested, I can image the result- inconformity and I must pay the charge of the protocol comparison to BV, USD200 in total. If I submit the samples to BV for full tests, the cost will be more than ten thousands HKD for four items. What should I do?