Aaron Pound 83's page

I used to work at IKEA both in customer service and later in the warehouse. Paizo, you have my sympathies on this unforseen issue.

I'm just going to throw another monkeywrench into the FIFO ordering system.

I understand what you are saying, but the real upshot is that I simply don't care about Paizo's technical problems. In the end, it comes down to this: I (and many others) placed an order for multiple products mostly very early in the time frame for this sale (I placed my order on November 16th), and because of Paizo's poorly designed inventory control system it is likely that many of us will not get the products we ordered that were in stock at the time, while many people who ordered after us will get those products.

This is a fundamentally unfair method of allocating product. And no amount of bleating about how difficult it would be to handle it otherwise changes this basic fact. The real problem, from my perspective, is that we detrimentally relied upon Paizo to fill our orders as placed. If I had known about this bass ackwards policy (which many other online gaming retailers do NOT use, like, for example, SJGames) I would have gone somewhere else and ordered from someone who didn't rob Peter to pay Paul on a regular basis. Now, at least one of the products I had wanted, that I could have gotten somewhere else had I gone elsewhere last month, are unavailable anywhere as far as I can tell.

And it doesn't help that when I placed my order, the product that turned out to be on back order was listed as available, meaning that until I came back a week and a half later to figure out why my order didn't ship yet, I had no idea that my order was being delayed for that reason. And I really had no reason to check before then, because Paizo had said that filling the orders would take a while, and then shipping would take several days and so on. So my order sat there, with no real reason for me to check on it, for days.

Really, I had grown to like Paizo. But this sort of policy for filling orders is entirely unacceptable. Unless changed, it is likely I won't be back. I'll order from someone else, someone who doesn't engage in this sort of practice, and who lists things as being out of stock up front, rather than me having to find out days later.

The items in my order say "pending" not "backordered." Is there a chance that I might not get some of the pending items?

Yes, that is exactly the problem being raised here. While your order waits for the backordered product to arrive in Paizo's warehouse, the products that you have "pending" aren't really being held for you. Anyone who places an order for those products after yours (with no backordered products) will have them shipped immediately, even if those are the last copies available anywhere. The status of that product will then be switched to "Unavailable" and you will be screwed out of those items even though you placed your order first.

Like I said, it is a crappy system.

Well, that's probably a big part of the source of our difference of opinion. To me, "Diane is none the wiser" is not equal to "Diane suffers zero penalty."

From any reasonable perspective, Diane has suffered no penalty. She ordered a product that someone else had already put a claim on - by ordering it first. She doesn't suffer any penalty by having to wait for a product to arrive that she didn't order first. The fact that you think she should be bumped to the front of the line is where I find your thinking to smack of fundamental unfairness, with the result that I find your system to be crappy.

My point is not that we can't communicate the delay—my point is that that shipment doesn't NEED to be delayed. Using the current method, Diane gets her package several days earlier than she would with the "first-in/first-out" method. For most situations, the method we're using genuinely is the better method. In this case, it's not working for some of you, and again, I'm sorry about that, but the alternative you're suggesting is just plain worse.

No, your policy is crappy. There is no way for you to argue that the way you handle things is anything other than entirely crappy. No matter how much you want to believe it is not.

If someone placed an order for a product first when it is in stock, they should not run the risk that that product would become entirely unavailable because a backordered product held up their order while people who ordered that same product after they did had their orders shipped.

It is simply unfair no matter how your slice it. I placed an order for a couple dozen GR products which was held up by a single item being on back order. While my shipment was waiting, one of the books I had ordered went from "In Stock" to "Unavailable". People who ordered that product after I did got theirs, and I was screwed out of a copy by your lousy, poorly designed inventory control system.

Your system is crappy. Your arguments that try to claim is is not are specious at best. Until Paizo changes this crappy practice, I am likely to not be inclined to order though you again. If it changes, I may come back, but until then, it is probable that you've lost me as a customer.