Chris writes:
I just wanted to say I love your magic store. But, (and it is a little but) I have no idea when out of stock items will be back in stock. Now novatech.com have a little nifty thing under the out of stock sign/label that says when its in stock again might be worth considering getting something similar. I only say it because I have wanted Sleight of hand for beginners for my daughter for a long, but every time I look it's out of stock. Please tell me when items will be in stock again?
Dear Chris,
That's a great idea and I'd love to add that feature to the magic shop. I think the main issue for us is that we often have no idea when an item will become available again.
Unlike large PC component companies, most magic items are made by small independent creators as a hobby. They don't tend to have a manufacturing schedule. Often magicians just making another batch if and when they feel like it. When will they make more product and ship it to us? Your guess is often as good as ours!
Unlike almost every other magic shop, our inventory is live and updated dynamically. It feeds in data from manufacturers if they make stock level data available to us. Because it automatically restocks items as we run low, if an item shows as completely out of stock, it's generally because the manufacturer has run out of stock too, not just our warehouse. As soon as they let us know that more is shipping to the warehouse, we update our inventory that same day.
Originally we simply removed items from the site as they sold out, but feedback from customers suggested that they didn't like that, as they would search for an item and assume we didn't supply it. Manufacturers also became worried that we had dropped their item and would contact us to ask why we didn't feature it on the site. Customers searching google online still wanted to read about the product and check out the suggestions for other items we include on the product pages. They also like that we prompt them to contact us to be reminded when more become available. So now, we show a notice suggesting that the customer contacts us and we can set up a reminder to contact them when more product becomes available. We can usually email them as and when we get restock information.
Ideally we would be able to get restock dates from manufacturers for each item and we could display that. I'll look for a way to include that information for larger suppliers that can offer that data.
I really like your idea about suggesting similar alternative items. I'll add that to the development work list!
Best wishes
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