Broken Data Protection Act and appalling service.

[jnz]

This is about 2 orders that have gone wrong on the same day.

First one; I had gone through scan.co.uk and filled my basket up to about £600. Paid and waited.
The site told me I should have the item by monday. Monday came and went, and no parcel. It was not untill thursday when I decided to email scan and ask what was going on. They replied saying an item was not in stock, and to choose a few options to replace/refund it. Ok, so why was I able to order the item in the first place? Why did they not email me when they found out it was out of stock? Now I have to wait untill next monday before I can have it again.

Second one; Forgetting an item I needed out of the first parcel, I went on the site again (this was on the same day I ordered the first) and bought 2 sticks of high performance RAM. Worth over £100, city link tried to deliver to an empty house. They didn't bother to contact the neighbors, even though we left a note on the door. They instead decided dump the parcel on the road 10 miles away from our house. It was only because a nice person had picked up the parcel that we knew about it. This person opened the parcel, and now have all my details. They rang scan.co.uk and scan.co.uk happily gave out more of my details to them over the phone. Dispite the fact the person's intentions were good, what if they weren't? Why is scan.co.uk giving my personal details to people over the phone?

Whether or not this is the fault of the courier (City Link), it's scan.co.uk's choice to use it; and they still gave out personal details. Now I don't know if this RAM will even work, that would of been a massive shock comming out of that van.

I'm not using scan.co.uk ever again, even though I had spent well over £1000 pounds there and was planning on another big computer build.

[jackvdbuk]

what details could this "man" possibly want, he already has your address what more does he need to give it to you?

sounds awful fishy to me...

[Disturbedguy]

Indeed, we know City Link are bad..but not bad enough to drop a marcel 10 miles away and in the middle of the road.

But to answer a question or two: -

so why was I able to order the item in the first place

Simply put, because there is more than you ordering. They could have had 5 of what you wanted in stock and when you ordered so did 50 other people meaning someone misses out, in this case you.

Usually you receive update e-mails staiting if an order was able to go through or not, im assuming you did actually check

[Ironbuket]

Indeed, we know City Link are bad..but not bad enough to drop a marcel 10 miles away and in the middle of the road.

Cant find the thread atm, but I remember someone talking about a City Link van driving off with the doors open by mistake. It would be easy for something to fall on the road in that way.

Simply put, because there is more than you ordering. They could have had 5 of what you wanted in stock and when you ordered so did 50 other people meaning someone misses out, in this case you.

Hmm... I always was lead to believe that it doesnt work like that, at least it shouldnt!
When you put something in to your basket it becomes unavailble for others to order, so it doesnt matter how many other people are ordering at the same time as you, whoever gets it in their basket first and subsequently checks out will get it. If you put it in your basket and dont checkout eventually it goes back in to free stock.

What can happen though is that maybe they had the stock numbers wrong (thought there were 10 available but find only 9 in the warehouse), one could have gone "missing". Or maybe they go to pickup your item from the warehouse and find its been crushed accidently by a forklist or something.

They rang scan.co.uk and scan.co.uk happily gave out more of my details to them over the phone. Dispite the fact the person's intentions were good, what if they weren't? Why is scan.co.uk giving my personal details to people over the phone?

I guess it depends on what details they gave out. If they gave them your home number or something, then yea that was a serious data breach.

I can remember reading quite a long time ago about when people would find a Tesco clubcard and ring Tesco, they would give out the persons home address and phone number so they could return it!... Tesco changed their policy to just asking the person to hand in the card to any Tesco store, which is much better.

Maybe Scan should have sent a pickup courier (even if it was a different company to City Link). Then after the dust had settled Scan could claim the money back off City Link.

[Mossy]

jnz

I apologise for the late delivery is it possible to let me know the Invoice numbers involved so that I can investigte exactly what has happened here. I am certain details would not of been given out to the person that they would not of already known from the Invoice.

Regards

[Barry]

sounds awful fishy to me...

I know jnz in person, if he says it happened then it did, hes not the sort of person to lie about something like this.

[rabbid]

"When you put something in to your basket it becomes unavailble for others to order, so it doesnt matter how many other people are ordering at the same time as you, whoever gets it in their basket first and subsequently checks out will get it. If you put it in your basket and dont checkout eventually it goes back in to free stock."

I don't think so, only when the order is processed and payment taken does the stock decrement? Probably someone can confirm either way.

[Saracen]

When you put something in to your basket it becomes unavailble for others to order, so it doesnt matter how many other people are ordering at the same time as you, whoever gets it in their basket first and subsequently checks out will get it. If you put it in your basket and dont checkout eventually it goes back in to free stock.

I don't think so, only when the order is processed and payment taken does the stock decrement? Probably someone can confirm either way.

Only Scan could confirm it, but I'd guess you're right.

If you decrement stock when people add to the basket and stocks drops to zero as a result, then someone else comes along and tries to actually buy (as opposed to just adding to basket) they'd be told no stock was available. Some people might wait, but a good percentage would leave the site and order elsewhere. And if those that added to their basket then didn't order, a sale would have been lost unnecessarily.

Besides, what's to stop me, running a small shop with an excess of XYZ monitors in stock, from adding a load of bogus orders in basket at Scan to "reserve" all their stock, to increase the odds of me selling mine?

I don't know how Scan's system does it, but I think you're right, and I'd be astonished if it decremented stock just because someone added to the basket. The system might (or might not) decrement stock that way for a phone order or a customer physically present, and it'd be a less daft in that situation, but I'd be amazed if it did it for online orders.

[Ironbuket]

I'd be astonished if it decremented stock just because someone added to the basket.

Now you mention the scenario of someone putting all the stock in their basket and preventing anyone else buying anything, I can see the sense in it not working that way. However, im sure I read somewhere in the past (on another site) that it did indeed work that way (maybe not for Scan).

I did a Google search to try and find out how shopping carts work with regard to stock, but am finding it quite hard to get any details about whether stock is or isnt reserved when you put it in your basket.

The only thing I found so far was from a slightly dodgy looking software developers site, but at least in their basket software stock is reserved if its in your basket. Havent found any sites that say it isnt yet, Ill keep looking.

Heres the link

Shopping Basket
Adding a product to your shopping basket will automatically reserve that product, preventing any other shopper from purchasing that product. You can only purchase items that are in your shopping basket.

As Saracen said, perhaps only Scan can confirm one way or the other. It might just depend on what shopping basket software they use, maybe some reserve the stock and some dont.

[synaesthesia]

Forgive me if I'm missing something and being a little bit curious as to the meaning of this post but, why would any person who picked up your parcel supposedly from the middle of a road somewhere have to phone Scan?
The parcel would be fully addressed already.

[Chris P]

I can confirm stock levels are not ordered simply from someone adding an item into their basket. The Saleable stock level would only alter once payment has been authorised.

[Chris P]

jnz

As Paul has requested we do need more information so we can look into this issue for you and also for ourselves, because even though how surprising that City Link would simply leave a parcel in the middle of the road?, if this is accurate then we certainly need to know, which driver did was and why they did this?

We will need either your invoice number or real name and post code, which can be posted on the forum or alternatively please feel free to call and ask for me.


Regards

[Blackbadger]

I can confirm stock levels are not ordered simply from someone adding an item into their basket. The Saleable stock level would only alter once payment has been authorised.

This in reality does not appear to be the case.
If you make a order online and everything is listed in stock. The payment is authorised and you get your e-mails confirming this.
If you then check the site the items are still listed in stock an hour later, however frequently you may still get a out of stock message later that night after office hours, which leaves you in a predicament.

Having a accurate real-time stock level system is as discussed before hard to implement as there are multiple points of sale etc. What could be done, is have maybe a indicator giving a range of what the stock is at, just mention 50+ 10+ 5+ <5 etc.. so people would have a better idea.

Also if someone wish's not to wait for items to come back into stock after ordering, which were advertised as being available.. Refunds should be instant, it is possible, however it currently takes a few weeks with scan, which leaves people on a tighter budget no options.

[Funkstar]

Also if someone wish's not to wait for items to come back into stock after ordering, which were advertised as being available.. Refunds should be instant, it is possible, however it currently takes a few weeks with scan, which leaves people on a tighter budget no options.

This is going way OT now

What is also an issue for some is not being able to amend or cancel an order online, you have to wait for office hours and you need to email or phone customer services. Frustrating.

Any way. Lets leave thsi thread for jnz to get his issues sorted out.

[Chris P]

Blackbadger

Of course there are variables involved such as stock discrepancies, but this is even more of an isolated case than was previously the case. But ultimately my response was to clarify that stock levels do not change when products are simply added into a basket.

We have no plans to list numeric stock indicators.

In a perfect world everything that could be physically accomplished instantly would be, but in reality it's not often the case when you deal with multiples and I can only assume that you feel that refunds from SCAN take a few weeks from the handful of threads where it has, more accurate would be to say that more often than not this is not the case and ALL refunds are processed within a reasonable amount of time, of course if you have an issue now or in the future I am here to help

As an example a customer wonders why we can't dispatch our bespoke systems in 1 day, of course our build team is more than capable of building and testing a system in 1 day, but I don't think it is realised that we are a system build and there is therefore a booking in system and therefore a lead time.

Hope this helps...

[Saracen]

...

If you then check the site the items are still listed in stock an hour later, however frequently you may still get a out of stock message later that night after office hours, which leaves you in a predicament.

Having a accurate real-time stock level system is as discussed before hard to implement as there are multiple points of sale etc. What could be done, is have maybe a indicator giving a range of what the stock is at, just mention 50+ 10+ 5+ <5 etc.. so people would have a better idea.
....

Again, I don't know what Scan's system does. But a common technique is to have a couple of trigger points in the stock system. The first works on a "just in time" basis, and compares predicted lead time to stock levels and re-orders when stock levels hit the trigger point that says "order now or you'll run out". The problem is, that process assumes a fairly predictable sales levels and lead time. If you get a surge of orders, or at the other end of the process, if resupply takes a lot longer than anticipated, stock levels will run low .... or out.

But there's a conflict between having a stock level sufficient to guarantee availability, and at the same time, keeping prices low. Scan work hard to leep prices low, and mail order is a very competitive business. For evidence of that, see the frequent threads on price match requests, and comments about people splitting an order, because they get get a pound or two off by buying some of it elsewhere. You need to convert all the sales you possibly can in order to keep volumes up and get best pricing, but at the same time, if you carry too much in stock, it has a habit of going down in price and you end up having bought your stock at a higher price than your competitors and therefore can't compete with them on price ... or making a loss on those items.

So it's always a case of trying to keep just enough stock in place to meet orders, without carrying excess stock levels because doing so not only costs you in stock (and insuring it), but leaves you open to loss of margin when prices fall.

So, if you want a supplier that's going to keep enough in stock to be fairly sure they don't run out when faced with a surge in demand, you're going to be looking at a supplier charging higher margins. That's one reason (though by no means the only one) why the likes of PC World are never going to successfully compete with e-tailers on price .... because all those stores all holding their own stock levels implies much higher stockholding costs and risks. They run a different business model, and have a different cost structure.

And that's why many/most stock systems have a couple of trigger levels. One triggers that reorder point, and the other marks the item "out of stock", even though it actually isn't. That trigger point, say for instance, 2 items, will mark the item out of stock when the third one sells, "suspend" the item and not accept further orders. That allows an amount of cover to protect walk-in sales, and to cover discrepancies. That is certainly the way Actinic Catalog, for instance, works. It's also certainly how PC World do it.

But you have to strike that balance. If you set that "suspend" level too high, you turn away sales you could have made. Set it too low and you get a large number of irate customers who find something they thought was in stock actually isn't.

And, of course, key in all this is transaction levels. If you get 10 items a day where you end up out of stock on something you accepted an order for, it's probably a serious problem if you only take 100 orders a day and so 10&#37; are problems, but much less so if you took 10,000 thousand orders.

Until and unless a supplier has a genuinely realtime system, and a stock system that genuinely has no discrepancies at all, you're going to be exposed to this issue to one extent or another and the only question is to what degree. During my days doing stock checks as part of an external auditor's company audit (for a very large Chartered Accountancy practice), I did stock checks at everything from corner shops to huge multinationals and I can't remember a single instance where there wasn't some level of stock discrepancy.

Finally, a lot of people in this type of thread seem to think that a major overhaul of Scan's stock control system, and its links to order processing, is necessary. But I wonder how many have any idea of how expensive that could be, how much disruption it could cause and how big a risk it is that getting it wrong could be devastating to a business? And, given all that, how many would be prepared to see prices go up to pay for it?

Oh, and when comparing an "in stock" marker at one site, to a site that says it has 1,000 in stock, do you know it actually has? Is that 1,000 items in stock at that company's own warehouse, or some distributor stock level working a drop-ship system? Or do you know that they don't just add 800 to their real stock level, and trigger the reorder process at 800, just to make it look like they have a lot more in stock? After all, if they've got all these vast stock levels, they must be safe to deal with? Yet, do they? We don't know unless we have access to internal stock reports. Maybe some do, maybe some don't. But can you necessarily trust those claims? And do they actually, really tell you anything more than "in stock" or not?

Also, of course, if those stock levels are accurate, you're giving a savvy competitor a view of some information that could be commercially sensitive, which is another reason why, personally, I'm a bit sceptical about some claims of stock levels.