"In stock" "but not"

[aeron]

Sounds like pownalls .

[nimrod177]

lets try and sort this out because it's not quite as straight forward as everyone thinks. "A" product is on the website and says in stock. What it doesn't say is how many are in stock. But for arguments sake lets say there are three in stock. All of a sudden 4 orders are put through on the web and they are put on a pick list. Some one has to pick the items amongst several hundred other items that have all come through in maybe an hour or so. So in the first hour maybe two of that item have been ordered and the remaining orders are taken in the next hour or so. The picker goes and takes the two items from the shelf and puts them through for processing. Then they get the next order through and has to go and pick them to find only two are left from the 5 orders that are now on the system. The system updates every 2 hours so yes it may still show in stock but actually there are 5 orders for the original 4 items. Some customer will always dip out and until the items are picked and processed the system is updated to show nil stock there is nothing to be done and some one somewhere will be upset. Blame the banks for refunds as sometimes it takes several days for refunds to be returned to the payee. I know this for a fact as i quite often do refunds and some go through straight away and others take up to 5 days (working). An awful lot of retailers use the EPOS system and trust me on this it more often than it should throws a wobbly and says there is stock when there isn't the physical stock there. If the customer gets frustrated you have no idea how frustrating the staff that use it get. We are the ones that take the often shall we say "frustrated" calls and quite often rude calls. I have quite often had to phone a customer back to say sorry although the system says we have one but unfortunately we don't. Or that i have taken an order over the phone and gone to pick the item and it has been picked by another member of staff to complete another order. Until the order is picked and processed then the system still thinks there is stock left. I had this exact thing last week with an air pistol, showed two in stock one at one branch and the other at another branch. By the time i had contacted both branches both pistols had been sold. I then had to phone the customer back and explain that both pistols were sold and no longer available. Fortunately they were fine after i had phoned the supplier and they could get me one within the week. The customer picked it up this week. The system showed they were in stock for about two hours after they had been picked yet once processed they were out of stock.