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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Catalog Woes

Things are getting whacky at the Call Center. In past Xmas Peak Seasons, when we run out of a product, that's it. It's gone. Nada until next year. Once in a great while, if retail has some huge stockpile, then corporate transfer some of it over to the catalog and we'll briefly have an item back in stock.

But not this year. oh, NO. Somehow, someway, someone is deciding that more things are to be transferred from the retail stores. We have been warned to start an order for every call. Never assume that what was gone yesterday and gone for the last couple of weeks will still be gone today. It's insane.

There is one item (besides those darn Xmas stockings) that we've had alot of calls for, a slumber bag. There's a boy/blue version and a girl/pink version. The pink one has been gone for quite some time now. The blue version sold out a couple of days ago.

Now, I do always have a test order screen up at all times in order to enter item numbers, especially for the No Longer Available and Permanently Out of Stock ones (NLAs and POSs). Everytime the NLA or POS comes up, it generates a report at corporate so that they know how many times an attempt to order is made. Helps them with future orders to vendors.

Anyway. I'm given the item number for the slumber bag. I've already had people earlier in the morning to called to order it. But it's gone. BOTH colors.

But LO! Suddenly it has become available!

"Ohmigosh!" I exclaim.

"WHAT?!" exclaims the woman back at me.

"We've got them!" I say, hardly believing my eyes.

"Oh, my gosh, that's wonderful. I called last night and you didn't have them then. They told me to try again later."

"We didn't have it earlier this morning!" I'm shaking my head. "Let me check inventory..." I quickly go to another window on my PC "... we've got 18 of the blue, still no pink," I tell her, "let's get this thing ordered while it's still available."

She agrees and I place the order in record time. It's for her daughter, and for once it's a customer who doesn't care that her girl isn't getting a pink thing.

I check the numbers again and it's down to 15. This is insane.

8 Comments:

At 12:16 AM, Blogger Doug The Una said...

Wow. Is all this driving you nuts?

 
At 7:20 AM, Blogger Tom & Icy said...

Slumber bags, eh? With heating cost soaring this winter, maybe parents are planning on turning down the heat at night. Those things must be warm.

 
At 7:51 AM, Blogger Fred said...

Insane, to say the least. It seems like you have to deal with way too many out-of-stock issues.

 
At 7:57 AM, Blogger TLP said...

Yeah, of course we talked about this yesterday over coffee. I don't get the whole thing.

 
At 9:29 AM, Blogger Trucker Pete said...

I get anxious just reading about that!

 
At 9:46 AM, Blogger Minka said...

So, by now there are no slumber bags left by now?! And just when I was about to place an order for a grey one with golden letters! Bugger.
Try to stay sane :)

 
At 10:49 AM, Blogger Saur♥Kraut said...

Wow, it must be a heckuva sleeping bag! What's in it, bells and whistles? Jeff Goldblum? If it's Jeff, I'll take it.

 
At 1:26 PM, Blogger OldHorsetailSnake said...

You ever think of selling yourself, say, 50 of some hot item, then jacking up the price for an eBay sale? (Oh, I know it wouldn't be ethical. But, look, if you're interested in Making Your Pile....)

 

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