The Chef Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 Time for me to have a bleat! I don't know if anyone else has these issues or if it is just me being over melodramatic. I regularly (say once a month) do large overseas orders for parts and stuff for the guys at my site. Helps us all to combine the shipping and bring that cost down a little bit. My usual store is WGC and on the whole they are pretty good, their website is user friendly and when you do finally get in touch with a real human being, their responses are usually timely and accomodating. BUT.... on a large order (say in excess of $1000), there is inevitably something out of stock that the website says is in...... This is where the problems occur. By the time you've played some email tennis (usually 24hrs between each bat!) and finally got a response, some more of the bits that were in stock, go out of stock, and you can then rinse and repeat this situation ad infinitum. I don't want store credit..... I don't want it will be restocked in 2-3 weeks please try later.... I don't want just order the bits that are in stock.... What I would like is Thank you for your order, Your total will be $xxx.xx, some of the items are currently out of stock and will take x days to come back in (or they are discontinued, or we don't know of a restock schedule due to the china factory being raided), at which point we will invoice you and then upon payment ship your order to you. Am I being picky? or does anyone else share my overseas ordering woes? If there is anyone in Kowloon.... I can see a fantastic scheme for you. Link to post Share on other sites
farrasdevell Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 ^amen^ Link to post Share on other sites
Lightbulb Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 Send them and email to confirm they have the bits in stock before ordering? Link to post Share on other sites
RSM Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 Hardly being picky though I think its a slight flaw in how WGC do things in sending you a quote for everything and shipping based on everything you want, you go pay for it and as you say, something that the site says is in, is actually out. I think I have 20USD store credit due to a gearbox shell being out, I'd have preferred simply being charged for what was actually available. On the flip side, ran into a similar situation with e-hobby and they asked what I would like to do, opting for the parts to be sent on at a later date I found they turned up about 3 weeks after the original package after they said their restock would be within 14 days. I think another thing that leads to the 'oh, this is actually out of stock' moments is the fact WGC seem to keep quotes valid for 60 days from the time of the invoice e-mail turning up. I wonder if things could be improved if they cut this down to 7 days and when an order comes in, it gets bundled together but not packaged for shipping and the stock is marked out so stock levels on the site show what is available. If payment is received then the stuff gets shipped out, if not then it all goes back into stock on the quotation expiry. Maybe they do something similar already but with the number of orders being received in a 60 day period it seems its quite open to finding things have ran out after they've been paid for because there is inadequate tracking of inventory. Link to post Share on other sites
reaper16 Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 amen, even US retailers have this issue. Link to post Share on other sites
Rob15 Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 I think another thing that leads to the 'oh, this is actually out of stock' moments is the fact WGC seem to keep quotes valid for 60 days from the time of the invoice e-mail turning up. I wonder if things could be improved if they cut this down to 7 days and when an order comes in, it gets bundled together but not packaged for shipping and the stock is marked out so stock levels on the site show what is available. If payment is received then the stuff gets shipped out, if not then it all goes back into stock on the quotation expiry. I was going to suggest the same thing myself, but I remembered that I (and I know other people do) send various orders with different combinations of products and with different shipping methods selected to compare quotes which would quite quickly tie up all their stock and impact their sales, really to solve this they need an online shipping calculator and a system that only accepts orders once the payment is made. Cutting it down to 7 days does seem a decent idea though and could stop them from suddenly running out of products....possibly, hard to say without knowing exactly how they run their system. Link to post Share on other sites
Azulsky Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 As soon as you put a Quote in for WGC they adjust their inventory count or only once they have gotten payment? Link to post Share on other sites
Shriven Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 Why would they adjust their inventory if you've not bought anything? Hundreds of people ask for quotes just to see how much it would cost. Link to post Share on other sites
Stealthbomber Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 Don't WGC already offer several options along these lines? Last time I ordered from WGC there were tick boxes for stuff like:- - Cancel my order if an item is out of stock. - Complete my order only for the items which are in stock. - Send in stock items with additional items to follow. - Contact me for further instructions. Do they not have something like this any more? Link to post Share on other sites
The Chef Posted November 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2009 Well, to be perfectly honest chaps, my current state of affairs is actually with RSOV, because WGC don't have a gun I want in stock.... (and neither do RSOV now I've played email tennis!). Basically, I noticed an item was out of stock. So I emailed them (as per their email for availability bit on their webby). I included a full list of the items I was after (neatly arranged on an Excel Document), and asked what the total shipping would be for all of them. I then pointed out the 'out of stock items' and requested when they would be back in. I get the wait 2-3 weeks standard response. This I do, they are not in stock, I email again, at which point I find some other bits out.... I ask if they can source from another store close by that has it in.... They say yes... (which is nice). I again ask for a quote. They say, well order the bits on the website and we'll add the quote afterwards. Fine... I try to order (some more bits out by this point....) and I then have to pay! Well I've not completed my order yet! and you just know that anything after this will be left to go stale. So currently, RSOV are missing out on a four figure order because they can't get their customer service in place. I mean hell, I don't mind waiting a while whilst it comes back in, I just want to get it payed for and have the confidence to know they are getting the order together to get it out to me! So, if anyone is in Kowloon, and fancies grabbing the bits I want. Then I'm all ears. If you can blag it cheaper locally, then you can keep the difference as your commision! WGC can be troublesome, but at least Leo Tam (I think thats the guy I normally speak to) is helpful and seems to actually read your requests for information. Anyway, I am nearly ready to sack the whole order because it's proving a mite annoying. Link to post Share on other sites
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