Inquiry (#1):
Hello: Twice I have had the Wok burner with tall stand and keg supports in my cart but by the time I get through the PayPal checkout process the items are out of stock. How does that happen? Once the items are in my cart why do they then become out of stock? Isn’t there a better way to handle this process?
Outdoorstirfry:
There are more people clicking into their carts than available quantity daily. Our web site will only remove stock and disable ordering after people pay successfully to the quantity available. The web site software is configured to allow 2 minutes of time for this check out process. This extra 2 minutes of time allow more people to click into their carts and results in empty at the end. Please try again. We have customers reporting that they have to do this continuously 3~4 weeks in order to get one successfully.
Inquiry (#2):
This is the second or third time I’ve succeeded in getting an order in and arriving at your Shopping Cart, only to find that I’ve been shut out because the unit is sold out. See attached screen-shot of Shopping Cart. I’ve been trying to place an order since sometime in April. This is a very balky, unfair, and frustrating on-line process. Feels like a lottery with all the odds stacked against the buyer.
The race to the shopping cart finish line was fun the first time around. By the tenth time, waiting for 10:30 a.m. (EDT) to roll around, it was nothing but aggravation. And, to be clear, the frustration ISN’T the inability to purchase the burner, it’s getting the item into a cart only to lose it thereafter. Seems to me that once an item is in the cart, you should be given at least 5 minutes (5 minutes!!) to provide credit card info and shipping address. Literally, while I was searching your shopping cart page for where to click to proceed with payment info, I got the dreaded error message saying someone had taken it out of my cart and run off with it. Please, just build into the Shopping Cart a guaranteed reserve on the item for some REASONABLE period of time. Your current system just generates a lot of customer bad will. That’s not what any business should do.
Outdoorstirfry:
Currently we have 2 minutes for each cart. These 2 minutes already enable people to continue to click into their carts, after allocated quantity is exhausted, with empty result at the end. If we enable it to 5 minutes, there will be many more people getting similar problem. Here are what we tried so far:
- We posted enough quantity for people to order from 2021/2 to 2021/4. We quickly found out that our lead time to ship slips to close to 2 months and customers expect (then complain) reasonable ship time after order.
- We start to limit daily quantity from 2021/4. Now customers are having ordering problem although we are OK in ship time.
Next we are not sure what we will try, maybe a long lead time waiting list. But I’m sure people will complain again.
Inquiry:
I do sympathize — you clearly are making an exceptional product and are experiencing the problem of too much success — an enviable problem.
Questions:
- How many Powerflamer 160s are available to order each day?
- How often do people not complete an order they began? (In other words, how many people don’t complete their order before the 2-minute deadline? My guess is not many.)
- If almost no one fails to complete an order, I would suggest you have your software determine availability by the number of people who click “Add to Cart” rather than keep accepting orders beyond the number of available burners (in my example, 15) during the two-minute grace period. In other words, assuming 15 PowerFlamers are available every day, the 16th person who clicks “Add to Cart” should see an “Out of Stock” message BEFORE the item is placed in the Cart. Then, if, say, two people fail to order within 2 minutes and lose their order, those two items are returned to availability, and everyone gets another chance to order those two burners at ~7:32 a.m.
As one of the complainers who is giving you headaches, that would seem a fair process that both reflects the reality of limited availability yet avoids the truly frustrating experience of seeing the desired product in one’s Shopping Cart, only to see it snatched away by a post-“Add to Cart” error message.
Sound fair? Maybe give it a try if your software permits. I continue to look forward to the day that I win the International Ordering Competition for a Powerflamer 160!
Outdoorstirfry:
We use Woo commerce. IT does not allow such manipulation. It always waits for a secure hand shake from Paypal that the financial transaction is completed before going to into “out of stock” mode. Thanks for all suggestions.
Inquiry (#3):
I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I was on the website at 7:25 and I waited until 7:45. I repeatedly tried to add to my cart and it never changed from sold out. I never saw any change to the website. It said sold out the entire time. I had preselected all features I want and was ready to add to cart once the 160 became available but it never did??? I never saw the status change.
Outdoorstirfry:
Please try refreshing the web page. After you see that it has stock, then add your options quickly to a cart. If you are among the first few matching the daily quantity and complete Paypal transaction within 2 minutes, you will have it.
Inquiry:
When I go to buy, do I have to click one of the tags on the site? I’m trying to understand what I am suppose to do since there is such a limited supply and they sell so fast.
Outdoorstirfry:
You need to go to our PowerFlamer propane 160 web page https://outdoorstirfry.com/product/powerflamer-propane-160/. See that it has stock, allowing to order (“Add to cart” button not grayed out). Choose your options and click into your cart to pay through Paypal.
Inquiry:
Holy crap…i can’t believe it… SOB!!!! I am so damn happy!! I got lucky I guess… wow!! Thank you!!
Inquiry (#4):
My brother and I living 2,100 miles apart have tried to order your PowerFlamer 160. I got as far as having it in the cart yesterday. It remained there until I deleted it this morning. My brother and I were on the phone this morning trying to order. His “stock status” change to 4 available, the status on mine NEVER changed. Was that because I had an item in the cart from previous day? I deleted it from the cart this morning. I worked in warehouse inventory control for 40 years and have designed computer purchasing systems and I just do not understand your ordering system and procedure. Not a very user friendly system. thank you for your time.
Outdoorstirfry:
Orders are taken probably right away after our daily post of quantity. This might just take a few seconds. However our web site software (Woocommerce) does not change back to “out of stock” before all financial transactions via PayPal are completed. Our software is configured to 2 minutes for each cart to complete financial transaction before time out. So the window of showing available quantity can be from half to 2 minutes of time. If you miss that window because of internet traffic delay, then you would not see the available order window.