Poor Service from Scan

[azrael1]

I made a order for various components including a case / Cpu / Fan / Memory / Motherboard last( 16/06/06 ) friday at 3pm ish. I get an email saying that it would be dispatched that day. Naturally I was happy with that. I also then procced to place another order with Aria for other components such as hard drive / power supply and Graphics card.

Monday ( 19/06/06) turns up and no delivery apart from one from aria. I call up Scan at 9am and ask them why the delay, they tell me they are out of stock on the AMD processor even though it was in stock at the time i placed my order. this was due to so many orders. I was offered a lower level in stock cpu but i declined. I asked them to remove the CPU and send the rest of the items.

The person i spoke to agreed and it wouldnt be a problem and it would be shipped that day for next day delivery. I then locate an in stock cpu from another supplier Microdirect which I order and pay more for next day delivery so I would have it in time for Tuesday. I receive and email from Microdirect confirming despatch and that it would be with me for Tuesday daytime.

Then at 7pm Monday night I receive an email from Scan saying that my order has been delayed due to the sheer amount of orders they received today. They say my order will still be next day depending when it finally gets picked and dispatched( eta wednesday 20/06/06 i guess at the earliest ). ( even though I had called 9 am in the morning ? )

So I have been put to the back of the queue ( maybe cause I had free delivery ? ). Im just shocked at the poor service compared to aria and microdirect.

UPDATE 20/06/06

I got contacted by customer services now saying that the case I wanted was out of stock and that they would offer a alternative case ( silver instead of black ). I declined and asked them why couldnt they have informed me at the same time when they told me the CPU was out of stock as I could have ordered the Case from microdirect at the same time as the CPU. Now I have to spend another £10 for delivery from microdirect to get the case I want.

TBH im expecting an email tm saying that some other component i ordered that was in stock at the time is now out of stock. Scan seems fine for ordering 1 part but multiple parts and problems seem to arise. Overall this whole experience has made me shy away from Scan.

However to Scans credit - customer service Rep David was helpful and polite throughout the whole process and I can't really blame them for the dreadful online stock system.

[Steve A]

Having free delivery has no baring on when the order is dispatched, as most people on here will tell you, the delivery date given is an estimate we never garantee next day delievery due to the sheer amount of orders placed in any particular day, if you PM me your invoice number i will chase this up today ...

Regards

[azrael1]

Hi,

Have PM you,

Thanks for the quick reply

Dave

[azrael1]

Updated Info

[dave87]

I don't work for scan, but I have had dealings with them and many other IT supply companies (when I worked in IT)

To be fair as orders arent picked untill there is sufficient quantity of all the components you have ordered, then between the time of you ordering and deciding to remove the CPU, it is entirely possible that another product has become Out of Stock.

The Scan guys however usually do their best to help in situations such as this but they cant magic things into stock...

[azrael1]

Yes but I called up at 9 am that morning to remove the CPU and the Case was still in stock.

When it got picked at night time it was out of stock. Yet surely if the stock system was functioning properly it should have been reserved for me as I had placed the order a day previous to that. Noone else should have been able to have brought one as i had already reserved it when i brought it.

In my previous company I worked for it was 100% important that our stock system was always updated so people could not order non existant stock.

[Chris P]

I would like to assure you that our online stock levels are accurate and do reflect real-time the saleable stock levels on our database internally. However, it is possible for stock levels to diminish quickly if there is a huge demand for the same product at any one time. I will try to give you a scenario which should illustrate my point:

Our website shows “in stock” for an item which we have 5 saleable stock for, then 10 people order this product around the same time during the day. The orders all progress chronologically through our systems to the payment stage within a few hours, which is the stage where our database allocates stock or back order stock to invoices. The first 5 customers whose payment is successfully taken are allocated the 5 pieces of stock we have on the shelves and the other 5 would have stock allocated on a back order, in anticipation of new stock arriving in the building. These 5 customers would be emailed with a “delay notification” email later that evening, which will include a lead date for new stock to arrive in from our suppliers.

I would imagine that this type of scenario is the one which has caused the delay in your order. The stock indicators on the website are there purely as an indicator of what we have physically available at that moment in time. We give our customers correct information, to the highest degree of accuracy possible in such a fast paced and fluctuating environment where stock turnover during the day is massive. I would like to assure you that stock issues of this nature are rare although unfortunately a largely unavoidable hazard when dealing with such unpredictable sales demand. We base our stock levels internally on estimated turnover of stock but if this demand is higher than expected, then out of stock items can occur. However, as we have excellent and efficient connections with many suppliers and distributors across the UK and internationally, we are usually able to replenish our stock very quickly where needed. In this case clearly there has been some unexpected delay/issue which has prevented us from obtaining stock from the supplier for you and for that I apologise sincerely. We certainly do not wish to provide inaccurate stock information or cause disappointments for any of our customers.

Also during the space of payment being authorised and the order being picked it would be entirely possible that an order was placed over our reception for collection taking the last stock, meaning once your order was processed stock was depleted.

For your future reference, we are in fact completing a massive building project to our warehouse at the moment, which will also encompass large improvements to our stock system. We are aware of the problems that large scale distribution has brought as we have grown hugely over the last few years, and we are now investing time, effort and money into making improvements in the necessary areas. This is mainly based on staff and customer feedback, using particular examples of stock problems to identify the areas for improvement.

Again apologies for any inconvenience caused

Regards