Stock levels frustration.

[sonofsammo]

One of the most frustrating things I have found with this hobby is using online stores.
You think you've found what you're looking for, only to click through to find out it's out of stock.
So why, oh why, oh why do online airsoft retailers not either
a) Remove stock that's not available for sale (or order)
Or
b) Include an "in stock" filter ?
The only place I can think of that does the in stock filter is Urban airsoft uk. And it makes the whole thing less annoying!
It can't be that hard to implement, surely?
 

 

[Jedi_Master]

You may be looking at the wrong sites, for example Fire Support have a filter button for "Is In Stock".

https://www.fire-support.co.uk/

I understand shops offer 'eye candy' to draw you in to their site but you are right it is frustrating that they do not have filter option.

 

[Rogerborg]

It is flipping annoying.  I expect they're hoping to get search engine traffic directly to individual guns, and once you're there, maybe you'll buy something else.

I doubt that it works much, and I've yet to see any site that actually has a sensible "This is out of stock, but how about..." alternative recommendation.  But it only needs to work once to be worthwhile.

 

[Lozart]

One of the most frustrating things I have found with this hobby is using online stores.
You think you've found what you're looking for, only to click through to find out it's out of stock.
So why, oh why, oh why do online airsoft retailers not either
a) Remove stock that's not available for sale (or order)
Or
b) Include an "in stock" filter ?
The only place I can think of that does the in stock filter is Urban airsoft uk. And it makes the whole thing less annoying!
It can't be that hard to implement, surely?
 

It's not that hard to implement if you can be bothered. Unfortunately most airsoft retail websites are developed by airsofters with no real concept of web design. As above though - Fire Support have an "in stock" filter too.

It's not just airsoft though - if you ever use www.hueys.co.uk you'll have the wonder of seeing many an item shown as in stock until you try and pick a size, then it's out of stock. I actually tried it with a few items and found that despite the initial page load saying it was in stock, EVERY size was out of stock!

 

[Druid799]

Drives me demented when your after a particular item , you do a google search the list comes up AND it’s out of stock everywhere ! :angry:

Zero one has an in stock ‘button’ on there site but you still have to go in too it to remove all the out of stock items your self .

One of the many reasons I like buying from Taiwan Gun is if something’s out of stock , you won’t find it for sale , you can only find it in the re-stock section , it’s no longer listed in the sales section ! Now if they can do it why can’t the rest ? 

 

[E21A]

Having this problem at the moment trying to find a madbull propane adapter!!! 

 

[Robert James]

https://airsoftnation.co.uk/stockchecker/

 

[Gepard]

Whenever I've emailed PatrolBase asking when their stock will be back in I never get a response. Do they even use their email system?  <_<

I wish search results would just display whether something is in stock or not before clicking the website. Actually, there's probably an extension for that somewhere. 

 

[Asomodai]

Having this problem at the moment trying to find a madbull propane adapter!!! 

https://www.fire-support.co.uk/product/madbull-propane-adapter

 

[messy]

It is flipping annoying.  I expect they're hoping to get search engine traffic directly to individual guns, and once you're there, maybe you'll buy something else.

I doubt that it works much, and I've yet to see any site that actually has a sensible "This is out of stock, but how about..." alternative recommendation.  But it only needs to work once to be worthwhile.

its not so much maybe you'l buy something else, its all about the traffic. How high your website gets listed in generic searches depends largely on the amount of traffic you get which means when you don't have much traffic to begin with, people will only discover your website through a specific search, so they put on loads of products (preferably ones the most popular sites don't have) so that they have a chance of appearing on the first result page.

It is indeed extremely annoying and some sites really take the piss with it but I suppose they are just playing the google game - if they didn't they wouldn't have a chance.

 

[sonofsammo]

Splashed on the front page - Krytac LVOA-C
Guess what?
Only Krytac they have in stock that I could see before I got bored? Vector.
That's just wasting people's time.

View attachment 33942

 

[E21A]

https://www.fire-support.co.uk/product/madbull-propane-adapter

Must have literally just restocked that then! Checked at weekend and didn’t have any. 

Thanks 

 

[CES_williamson]

Hopefully I can shed some light on this

Not really an issue we run into a lot but has happened a few times,

Even though we check our stock levels thoroughly all the time, sometimes sadly things do slip through the net and either marked incorrectly as in stock or not marked as low-stock when needed to, so that we order more in, this happens rarely though.

A more common culprit of this issue is for example when someone orders a two-tone gun and we only have one of that RIF left, this will make the two-tone version (usually a sprayed RIF, so the same stock) out of stock but not the black version, so this needs to be done manually and if someone orders the RIF (non two-tone) in the small time it takes to manually sort out the stock levels it will still go through and we then need to contact the customer and get the order canceled and refunded.

The fact we run into this issue every so often, even as a new retailer I can imagine it being worse for the guys who have been around longer!

When retailers are completely out of stock of a range of items from the same manufacturer etc and just dont update the website is just being lazy but sometimes small items or individual ones slip through the net no matter how hard we try! 

 

[steakandpotato]

Whenever I've emailed PatrolBase asking when their stock will be back in I never get a response. Do they even use their email system?  <_<

I wish search results would just display whether something is in stock or not before clicking the website. Actually, there's probably an extension for that somewhere. 

Lol a buddy of mine e-mailed them in regards to an out of stock item - took them ~4 weeks to reply, then said it won't be in stock for 6 months.

I laughed hard.

 

[Lozart]

Hopefully I can shed some light on this

Not really an issue we run into a lot but has happened a few times,

Even though we check our stock levels thoroughly all the time, sometimes sadly things do slip through the net and either marked incorrectly as in stock or not marked as low-stock when needed to, so that we order more in, this happens rarely though.

A more common culprit of this issue is for example when someone orders a two-tone gun and we only have one of that RIF left, this will make the two-tone version (usually a sprayed RIF, so the same stock) out of stock but not the black version, so this needs to be done manually and if someone orders the RIF (non two-tone) in the small time it takes to manually sort out the stock levels it will still go through and we then need to contact the customer and get the order canceled and refunded.

The fact we run into this issue every so often, even as a new retailer I can imagine it being worse for the guys who have been around longer!

When retailers are completely out of stock of a range of items from the same manufacturer etc and just dont update the website is just being lazy but sometimes small items or individual ones slip through the net no matter how hard we try! 

I think a great deal of the frustration comes from being used to large inline retailers that have the infrastructure in place for live stock tracking. That kind of setup just isn't viable for most airsoft retailers!

 

[Adolf Hamster]

i do suspect if it's a marketing tactic- making their stock of guns look much bigger than it actually is.

hence why i preferr the local, as well as being pretty decent on price you know if it's on the wall you can buy it, even if it's the one that's actually on the wall.