Client Q&A - Stock availability

I have been very bad over the last few months.  My last post was back in June!  Exceed is growing and I have had no time to even think about writing a blog article.  However, this morning I wrote an email to a client and thought, I get this question all the time!  Then I realised, I have hundreds of great articles but all in emails to clients who ask great questions. 

From now on, if a new or existing client asks me a good question, I am going to throw it in here.  This is my first of many to come.

This morning a client wrote to me:

Since we are integrating our new website to our inventory software, what should happen when a product with a variation, is out of stock.  Should we show the item is out of stock and provide a date when it will come back in stock, or have it disappear and remain this way until stock is available?  For example, many of our products come in 60 ml and 120 ml sizes.  How should the products display when the 60 ml product is temporarily out of stock?

My reply:

There is no best practice approach in answering your question.  In many instances your supply chain should dictate your answer.  If your stock can be quickly replenished, I would always show stock as being “in”.  In your case, since your stock comes from overseas, this is not realistic.  When you have variations in a product and one is out of stock, it is best to hide that product.   People will automatically go for the size that is available.  There are a few reasons for this approach:

1.  By displaying a product variation with a due date you are potentially losing sale.   Why would you ask a new or existing customer to wait to do business with you?  In the physical retail world, if the Warehouse was out of a product, do you think they spend time putting up signs everywhere indicating which products are out of stock.  No way, they would be putting the next best option in front of the customer. 

2.  By potentially displaying a variation as being out of stock with a date when it will come in, you are unnecessarily cluttering the page.  The purpose of the product detail page is to close the deal.  Don’t put road blocks in the way of the potentially new or repeat customer.

3.  By displaying a date when the product comes back in, you are heavily reliant on your supply chain and internal processes to deliver!  The stock must be delivered to your warehouse on time; your inwards team must effectively receive the stock and hand over to your date entry team which must input the order into inventory so it can update the website.  If you commit a time to the customer, you better not be late!  This is a potential credibility killer and a burden on your operational team. 

4.   When people buy online, it is all about instant gratification.   Don’t think your brand will save you online.  If a customer wants one of your products and it is out of stock, they will not wait until it comes back in, or fill out a form so you can call them back when it is in stock.  They will go back to Google and find your products someplace else.

I hope this helps,

Greg