SCAN.care@HEXUS
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How do you know they're real-time? CandCcentral doesn't show stock levels - it just shows "in stock" or not. But not how many?Originally Posted by GoNz0
If it was realtime, it could show actual stock levels, and while you're sitting there looking at the screen, and one sold elsewhere, your screen would update.
Nor, when a display shows "out of stock" does it actually mean it is. Some companies have systems where the "out" trigger fires when they reach a minimum stock level. So, if that level is 2, when item number 3 sells, it now shows as out of stock. PC World, for instance, do this with web orders, to allow for discrepancies between the stock level shown on-screen and the stock level physically present in a given store when you opt to collect. The same logic is used by some e-tailers, but because we're talking warehousing rather than store collections, the trigger levels will not be the same.
Even with candccentral, just because it shows "in stock" and that changes to out of stock when you order doesn't necessarily mean you got the last one. There may have been 5, or 50, in stock when you loaded the order page, but 5 or 50 other people may have been preparing to buy. As all of you hit the "order" button, some may be ordering from stock and get allocated, but others are too late. Suppose there's 45 in stock and 50 get ordered, perhaps in the same second or two. It will show all 50 that stock changes to out-of-stock when those orders get processed and update stock levels, but 5 out of the 50 won't get their item from stock, while 45 will.
Or, 50 are in stock, but the trigger level is set 50 to 5. As soon as the first 45 orders are processed and updated, the item will show as out of stock, even though it isn't. This leaves 5 in stock for personal visitors to the store.
In either event, the system in question would exhibit the appearance of you having got the last one, but you may well noit have done and it certainly isn't real-time.
By real-time, I'm talking about something like a stock trading system, showing actual prices (or stock levels in this case) on-screen, and as price changes, so does the screen display, real-time.
And even if you have real-time, you'll still get problems, when it turns out physical stock doesn't match system stock levels, for any number of reasons including the ones I mentioned last time. This is why companies do stock takes and why auditors audit them (well, one of the reasons why auditors audit them).
As for what Scan do or how their system works, I've no idea. But I very much doubt it's realtime, or is every likely to be truly so. It could be improved, I'm sure. But it's a major project to revamp stock systems. It's can be VERY expensive to do and, depending on business plans, can be a core business decision. Most multi-location stores, for instance, can't run without sophisticated warehousing and stock control and transfer systems. Get it wrong when you change it and at best, it'll cost a fortune. At worst, you end up out of business. So Scan isn't multi-location and I'm not aware of any thoughts of doing so, but nonetheless, you go very slowly and carefully when modifying stock systems, because it's expensive to do and even more expensive to get wrong.
It wouldn't surprise me if they're working on it. But it needs to be done right, and that takes time.
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