Annoying web trading practices

arclight

arclight

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Does it not do your head in when you go to a website and place an order for goods.
You then get an email confirming your order.
Next thing another email arrives saying the goods are temporarily out of stock and will be dispatched ASAP.

Why cannot all companies be like Argos or Maplin and let you check stock availibility before ordering.
 
what annoys me is when you need a credit card to buy something... when some people cant afford a credit card... and they dont accept switch.
 
it annoys me when website owners go to internet forums to plug their businesses and assume that the owners of the forums are halfwits who dont know anything about the internet. The spammers of late have been so obvious. Make it a challenge!
 
arclight said:
Does it not do your head in when you go to a website and place an order for goods.
You then get an email confirming your order.
Next thing another email arrives saying the goods are temporarily out of stock and will be dispatched ASAP.

Why cannot all companies be like Argos or Maplin and let you check stock availibility before ordering.
Click to expand...


In a small way, defending these companies.

Many, if not most of them will rely on electronic stock control - their computer tells them they have one in stock and they accept the order. The chap in the warehouse goes to pick the order and finds that the computer was wrong; either someone's nicked one (happens a LOT in warehouses - makes shoplifting look amateurish!) or a faulty one was replaced without it going through the stock-control system or the last delivery was short. This even happens at Maplins and Argos. Most sites give you the option of cancelling the order so you can try elsewhere and if the issue annoys you so much, that's what I would suggest you do!

(I used to be a warehouse manager and did weekly stockchecks on fast moving lines to avoid this happening but even then, an unexpected large order for a normally slow line can cause problems!)
 
What annoys me more is sites where you have to 'log in' before you can even get a delivery charge out of them.
Once too often I did this only to find that the delivery was a flat rate £7.99 for everything, regardless of size or cost. TELL ME BEFORE I WASTE MY TIME ON YOUR SITE!!!

/rant. and breath
 
matty said:
it annoys me when website owners go to internet forums to plug their businesses and assume that the owners of the forums are halfwits who dont know anything about the internet. The spammers of late have been so obvious. Make it a challenge!
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DAMN you Matty, thats my idea for a bit of plugging out the window then :LOL: ;)


I agree about the delivery thing, I hate it when no amount of searching will reveal a delivery cost until you add the item to your basket and proceed to checkout, often even having to input your details before a delivery cost is shown - any website that does that automatically loses my business these days.
 
I'm inclined to agree with Richard and Yv with the 'hiding the delivery charge'. If I can't get to it reasonably quickly, then I'm off.

What really bugs me is when you order something (see OP) and then you get an order saying accepted, then get the 'sorry out of stock' email. I had that with one of my hubbie's Birthday pressies last year, a back order of 3 weeks and another week after that before it got delivered. He did like his 'un-Birthday present' though. If I was told it would be a 4 week wait, I'd look elsewhere or be happy (ish) with knowing it was going to be delayed.
 
Nod said:
In a small way, defending these companies.

Many, if not most of them will rely on electronic stock control - their computer tells them they have one in stock and they accept the order. The chap in the warehouse goes to pick the order and finds that the computer was wrong; either someone's nicked one (happens a LOT in warehouses - makes shoplifting look amateurish!) or a faulty one was replaced without it going through the stock-control system or the last delivery was short. This even happens at Maplins and Argos. Most sites give you the option of cancelling the order so you can try elsewhere and if the issue annoys you so much, that's what I would suggest you do!

QUOTE]

Not going to mention the firm here, because things worked out, albeit 4 days late.
However, I spoke to my CC company who said I had no legal right to cancel the transaction.
Obviously any good company would not expect customers to accept delay.
Lesson learned though. I'll check availability first.
Click to expand...
 
This is a hard one, and as a web developerI have seen the hard end of it..

Shipping
you wouldnt believe how complicated working this out can be:

A photograph costs how much to ship?
A framed photgraph.. How much more?
Say they buy 16 prints and 2 framed photographs?

Cool now we have some prices, then we find out they live in Switzerland..

Most shopping websites work out the packing and posting after registration, because the shipping fees vary a lot depending on where the customer lives> On top of that, in my simple example you can see that packing and posting fees for simple products like framed prints and prints could be very different. Do you ship 10 prints in 1 envelope? what about 11? etc..

Stock levels
Imagine you have a bricks and mortar shop and a e-store. You have 1000 products in yoru store, and 3000 products in your shop.

Lets use a widget as an example. you have 100 widgets in stock, but widgets are sold in a kit with Wotsits, of which you have 200 in stock

Do you do this: set your store to have 50 kits, and then say you have 50 widgets, and 150 wotsits to sell singularly?

What happens when on Sat PM you have a rush on Wotsits in the Bricks and morter store?

If you have 1000's in stock, and you sell a few daily, this wont be an issue. If you have 4's and 5's in stock, and you sell a few daily - you have a headache

There is also the scenario that 3customers all put the same product in the cart at once, and when the first one checks out, the product goes out of stock

So yes online stores are frustrating to consumers, but equally chalenging for shop owners!
 
Ashers said:
what annoys me is when you need a credit card to buy something... when some people cant afford a credit card... and they dont accept switch.
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Or simply don't want a credit card. Although they have their benefits what with insurance etc, I still don't like them and don't feel you have enough control over them.

Got the fright of my life many years ago when MBNA informed me that technically you can't actually close a credit card account completely. So basically if some company has got recurring payments attached to your card (insurance or something) they can keep taking payments until you get the company to stop - which may not be all that easy! To me I would assume that if you instruct your credit card company not to pay then that should be final, but apparently not!! :LOL: But that was a while ago so perhaps the rules have changed now...hopefully :)
 
I've just today cancelled an order for an item I ordered on 12/11/08.

Item still not turned up and I know why. He says he has to order 20,000 at a time so he's obviously been waiting to get enough orders up front to satisfy his minimum order quantity.

I reckon there should be a law (trading standards etc) prohibiting them advertising for sale when they don't have stock, if they cannot show you how much stock they have at the time you order. At least then it's your choice if you order or not.

A situation that will only get worse I fear in this time of recession and tough margins.
 
Richard King said:
This is a hard one, and as a web developerI have seen the hard end of it..

Shipping
you wouldnt believe how complicated working this out can be:

A photograph costs how much to ship?
A framed photgraph.. How much more?
Say they buy 16 prints and 2 framed photographs?

Cool now we have some prices, then we find out they live in Switzerland..

Most shopping websites work out the packing and posting after registration, because the shipping fees vary a lot depending on where the customer lives> On top of that, in my simple example you can see that packing and posting fees for simple products like framed prints and prints could be very different. Do you ship 10 prints in 1 envelope? what about 11? etc..
Click to expand...

I agree with what you say about stock levels - and I can understand how hard it would be for the shop keeper who also does mail order to keep the stock levels accurate.

I disagree with what you say about most stores requiring registration before post and packing is worked out - sort of. Yes, a good number do a more accurate calculation once you are registered - however all the ones I use give an idea of cost either when you click go to checkout or in the FAQ on the website.
A simple 'UK standard 2-3 day delivery - £X.XX' is often enough to get an idea or (As many stores do) put the high level breakdown cost and policy about delivery on the FAQ.
It really isn't that hard. (OK, for your example it is ;) )
 
What annoys me is people who whinge about online stores, but won't get up off their fat arse and go to a highstreet store instead. They expect to pay f*** all, get it delivered the next morning when they wake up (but not before, god help us if the posty arrives when they're in bed), then complain because the box has a slightly dented corner, or the poly bag is wrinkled! :D
 
CopeImages said:
I've just today cancelled an order for an item I ordered on 12/11/08.

Item still not turned up and I know why. He says he has to order 20,000 at a time so he's obviously been waiting to get enough orders up front to satisfy his minimum order quantity.

I reckon there should be a law (trading standards etc) prohibiting them advertising for sale when they don't have stock, if they cannot show you how much stock they have at the time you order. At least then it's your choice if you order or not.

A situation that will only get worse I fear in this time of recession and tough margins.
Click to expand...

I agree and personally I find it quite misleading and can be abused in order to maximise cashflow and minimise risk at the consumers expense as they don't have to front any capital for stock.

Come to think of it, we could all setup online businesses selling anything with no risk! lol Nah, I'm sure there'll be a regulation somewhere stopping repeated instances of no stock.... :shrug:
 
RichardtheSane said:
I agree with what you say about stock levels - and I can understand how hard it would be for the shop keeper who also does mail order to keep the stock levels accurate.

I disagree with what you say about most stores requiring registration before post and packing is worked out - sort of. Yes, a good number do a more accurate calculation once you are registered - however all the ones I use give an idea of cost either when you click go to checkout or in the FAQ on the website.
A simple 'UK standard 2-3 day delivery - £X.XX' is often enough to get an idea or (As many stores do) put the high level breakdown cost and policy about delivery on the FAQ.
It really isn't that hard. (OK, for your example it is ;) )
Click to expand...
I whole heartedly agree with you. Unfortunatally the moment you give an indication, you are protentially misleading people - if the final figure turns out to be different

As I said before this is a truly hard subject. One store I recently set up has product fields including:

Weight
height
Width
depth
Items in a box (i.e. if it is going in a mixed box, how many can you put in)
Number of boxes required (if it is a product of parts split accross several boxes

When you throw in the mix that certain postcodes in the UK (highlands and islands) are more costly to ship too AND the store ships internationally - any logical person will soon figure out that if DHL require ALL that info to price the job, the real figure is utterly determinant on what the user placed in thier cart and where they live

Part of this revoles around the psyche of the store owner. Im not saying I condone any of the pratices. For me it makes more sense to say P&P is absoloutley free, and build the cost into the product price... Unfortunatally, we live in a headline age, where traders live and die by undercutting "the competitors" by a few pence on the headline price, hoping that the real total price is ignored. We see this a lot on E-bay, where P&P is say £10.00 and the product is £4.00... The reson for this - to flood the first 5 pages with the same product over and over again to push out the competition, and to catch the mug's that cant add up 2 numbers quickly
 
Had the same with Bristol Cameras just this week, ordered item then received Out Of Stock notification. They say ~5 days so I'll give them this week before I moan too much :|
 
Google "Drop Shipping" and see what you get..
 
My pet hate is when retailers disable the back button on my browser so I can't leave the store :(
 
Richard King said:
This is a hard one, and as a web developerI have seen the hard end of it..

Shipping
you wouldnt believe how complicated working this out can be:

Etc.

So yes online stores are frustrating to consumers, but equally chalenging for shop owners!
Click to expand...

When I give my custom to a supplier I am not remotely interested in their problems and difficulties.
I expect to pay a fair price and receive the goods promptly, without fuss and complications.
 
Edtog said:
My pet hate is when retailers disable the back button on my browser so I can't leave the store :(
Click to expand...

Yes that really p**** me off too
 
arclight said:
When I give my custom to a supplier I am not remotely interested in their problems and difficulties.
I expect to pay a fair price and receive the goods promptly, without fuss and complications.
Click to expand...

Spot on they should have their business sorted before they start trading.
 
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