I'm in manufacturing and one of our industries is in making spare parts for Oil&Gas. Before covid we would typically see 30-60 day payment from our customers, but since covid it has ballooned from anywhere from 75-120 in some cases with the big boys.

We've managed to negotiate payment terms from 30 to 60-90 days with the majority of our suppliers and have kept within those terms to the T. In the past three months or so, and definitely accelerating recently we've been getting a rash of emails from vendors that they're going to have to drop terms to 30 days.

We've had no issue paying our bills, haven't taken on any debt, our D&B profile hasn't changed, we've had nothing sent to collections, business is great. It's not specific to any category of products either; we've seen it from suppliers of raw material, to the companies we buy our cutting tools and pallets from.

Anyone else seeing this in their sphere?

Our primary customers are XOM, Oxy, Chevron, BPx, Atmos ...they're pretty much all 60 day invoice terms but then they all add their ticketing/receiving checkpoints. With XOM and Chevron that effectively makes their payment terms "whenever the hell we feel like paying you."

On the other side, we pay 60 to our suppliers. We pay earlier for discounts and several of our suppliers have pushed back on discount terms. All I can read into that is they're happy with their working capital situation or their credit facilities are cheaper than the discounts I'm demanding.

I did get a 3% discount to move from 60 to 5 days on one of our vendors the other day which I was shocked about. It's all over the place...I don't see any definitive trend either way.

Couple years back I started getting POs from customers extending their terms from 30 to 60 or even 90 days. Sometimes customers just started paying late and when we inquired payment status they just simply stated that THEY changed their payment terms without any conversation from us. I have pushed back every single time now and have only lost one small PO because of it.

I have even offered net 2 15 to most, and none of them take advantage of it.

I imagine the big boys like Chevron and the like use their status as a negotiation tool to secure those terms. If you don't like it they'll find someone else.

Has anyone ever tried to push back on a big client never paying them? How did that go?

Are you one of the characters in Landman?

I am in manufacturing as well. The clients associated with these manufacturing businesses are all 30 day and we don't get much pushback on those terms. Some pay late and as others have stated those clients lose their leverage on pricing. So, not much stress from those clients. The vendors for the manufacturing business are all 30 day and get paid on time without incident.

Alternatively: I also have a small-town hardware retail business. The vendors/suppliers for that business are under cash flow stress. The days of small mom and pop retail stores are over as shoppers are mostly cost-conscious above all else. The suppliers to those mom and pops are feeling the stress and are increasingly more aggressive with collecting payments. These changes have occurred within the last 12 months, and it does not bode well for this sector.