Reserved Item Sold

[purplecat41877]

Yesterday, a customer came for an item that she reserved but it was sold to another customer since the item had no name on it and it was the last one. It turned out that my service desk coworker found the item at one of the checkouts and put it at the desk.

I looked around the front end where it would possibly be but came up empty handed and I eventually had to admit defeat. I did apologize for what happened and the customer understood that it wasn't my fault and that I did what I could.

[lordlundar]

See, this is why we never put items on hold for more than a day anymore. That and the fact that the stupid twit that asks never shows up because they buy it somewhere else and we can't sell it.

[Ree]

We do reserved items all the time.
Literally 20 or more in any given day.
A large majority of it falls on me to keep it straight, as reserved items are supposed to be kept in the warehouse.

That's fine when everyone does it correctly, but I can guarantee that every single freakin' day, I am going to run into a problem with someone who has done their own thing and messed up, and it's left to me to solve the mystery.

We have staff who set items aside and don't put a name on it, or they put a name on it, but they don't reserve it in the computer, so it stays in stock, and someone else will resell it, not knowing it was supposed to be reserved.
Or...the customer will come in to the service desk and say they're picking up their order. They do a lookup and find nothing in the system...who do they call? Me!
Then it takes about 20 minutes of searching and running around from department to department to try and figure out what's going on.

We have cashiers who ring the item through and hand the customer an invoice for pickup, but they don't attach a customer's name to it. It's OK if they come around immediately, because we have usually been warned ahead of time, and we have it ready, but at least once a day, we have that customer who decides to come back for it later that day, or even days later, or they try to load it, and it won't fit in the vehicle, so they have to come back. They will walk in a few days later saying they're picking the item up, and we have no information in the computer. (If I happen to be around for the original attempt to pickup, I know what's going on, because I will get a name and phone number, as well as an ETA for the pickup, but often, it happens over a weekend when I am not there, and I know nothing, because nobody got a customer name!)

I hate reserves, but they're a fact of life in business if we want to offer full service.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If it were up to me, we would not reserve unpaid merchandise for anyone.

See, we have people who will call all the stores in the area, asking if we have a particular item. Then they will ask the price. Then if we have the item, they will ask us to put it on hold for them to pick up.

Also, for some reason, whenever another store calls us asking us to put something on hold for a customer, that customer then never shows up. So again I wonder if they're calling other stores and the customer goes to the one that's closest or just decides to go someplace else.

Maybe I'd make a horrible manager who doesn't understand business, but I'd prefer to satisfy the customers who are actually in the store before the customers who may or may not come to the store. It kinda sucks when somebody asks you if you have a certain item, and you find 2,3, maybe even 4 of that item in backstock, but you can't sell any of them because they're being held for various people.

[sarahj]

At the department store my mum works at, they hold things until the end of the day. Many stores around here will put your name on a bit of paper and put it under the counter with an item, then put it back on the shelf after closing if you don't come back. But sometimes these things get moved to the storeroom, and are found during stocktake, then must be discounted like 80% to get rid of them. Mum got me a sheet set for $10, down from over $100, that someone 'reserved until close' months beforehand. So reserving things isn't bad for everyone.

[Dreamstalker]

We had an Ebay purchase sitting on the hold counter for a week because the buyer said they'd be in to pick the thing up (it had been paid thru PP, I know local pickup with PP is risky but he'd paid before he asked). It got shipped the other day as I find an email "I paid shipping through paypal because I havent heard from you" (thank you PP for ensuring that any seller using exact shipping gets shorted on that)

It got shipped, but his claim of not hearing for us for a week was bull as I personally sent out the invoice and "yes you can pick it up, we just need to know when you'll be in" emails.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

But sometimes these things get moved to the storeroom, and are found during stocktake, then must be discounted like 80% to get rid of them. Mum got me a sheet set for $10, down from over $100, that someone 'reserved until close' months beforehand. So reserving things isn't bad for everyone.

Good Lord, if that happened in my store our store manager would be curled up on the floor in the fetal position .

One time I came across a golf bag in the backroom that had been pretty expensive--at least $75 I think, maybe even $100--that scanned at $6 or so because it went on clearance, didn't get to the salesfloor at all, and kept getting marked down.

Sadly this happens much more than we'd like, and protecting our margins is one of the things corporate is placing an emphasis on.

[repsac]

I remember some doozies from when I worked with Lowe's.

two really stick in my head though.

1.) A customer came in and ordered a special type of door for his house. This thing was huge and cost over ten thousand dollars. Major special order that. Well it came in, only to have the customer decided that he didn't want it anymore. He wanted a different type of door. (Note: this one ended up being our fault. Apparently he had told the doors associate he wanted a different door before the first was ordered, but the associate didn't change the order.) That door set ended up on a lumber cart and stood in the lumber department for the longest time. About three months later, the thing sold. For how much you ask? Little over two thousand dollars.

2.) Customer came into the store and ordered a special type of oven. Double oven type with one above the other. The thing came in and was sent out to be installed. Somewhere between point A and B, an installer dropped it or set it down hard, causing a small plastic cover to pop loose and break. This cover cost about one hundred dollars to replace, and would have been done at cost to the store. However, the customer decided that they wanted a replacement oven and the store caved, doing so. This first oven then, which I think cost a couple thousand dollars new, goes out on the floor. A few weeks later, I'm poking around the special order sales (clearance) screen on the computer and I see this oven listed. I called my dad and he ran up to purchase it. We got the oven for one hundred fifty dollars...

Edit:

I remembered another as I wrote this. While I worked for Moore's, we inventoried this story in Bamberg South Carolina. (look it up. should be a Peebles now) The store was an ancient type, made up of apparently three older stores merged together. It also was the only store I knew of that had a second floor. Well, since there was some old stock up there too, we had to inventory all that. Heading up after finishing my own work and looking to help, one of the other guys calls me over. He's got this shirt in front of him that's ringing up three cents. Employee cost was a penny. The shirt, put out for the 1995 olympic games, was still hanging on its original rack. This was in 2001. The color had faded to a near white along where the rack was, and we were afraid it might crumble if we touched it. What was worse, we found a large number of items that dated back so far that they didn't even have barcodes.