Although it may not seem like it, let me assure you that myself and Void Eagle are not the same person! :-P
I don't know how many times I've read his posts today and thought that he's thinking on the exact same wavelength as me. :-)
Olaf the Stout
Chief Technical Officer
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You're out doing your grocery shopping.
Look, we all know that analogies can only be stretched so far, and these analogies have been stretched well past the limit.
I have to go back to the bottom line, which is this:
Switching to "first-in/first-out" would solve a problem that rarely occurs. It would *also* increase the average order fulfillment time across our entire website—I'd suspect perhaps even by a couple of days. And that's quite simply not worth it.
You're right—we *could* potentially code an entirely new order processing system that we could switch to whenever we think we're in a situation like the Green Ronin sale. But given that we're not currently aware of anything remotely like that coming up, and given that it's a task that our one developer could probably spend months on, instead of adding other features that people have been asking for, it's just not a viable option.
It's possible we can communicate more effectively about what's going on during the checkout process, and we probably will see what we can do about that. But we also don't want to make people think the sky is falling when, way more than 99% of the time, it isn't falling.
Really, this is the first time in YEARS of sales that this has been an issue of any significance. And it's only a problem because we have lots and lots of people ordering the same exact products that our distributor doesn't have enough inventory on. I am saddened that it's making people unhappy, but I stand behind the fact that the system we have provides the best service for almost all of our customers almost all of the time. I also believe that that's more than I can say for most companies.
By the way, Olaf, you wondered about the strategies of other e-commerce operations. Well, I can assure you that I've had orders cancelled by more than one professional web store, and it has happened in ways that suggest to me they have similar issues when mixing limited-availability products into a strategy that's primarily not limited.
(Obviously places like Ticketmaster are first-in/first-out, but then the vast majority of their business is limited-availability, so it's the right choice for them.)
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Although it may not seem like it, let me assure you that myself and Void Eagle are not the same person! :-P
I don't know how many times I've read his posts today and thought that he's thinking on the exact same wavelength as me. :-)
Lmao, there've been a couple times when I've thought "damnit, get out of my head!" :)
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Switching to "first-in/first-out" would solve a problem that rarely occurs. It would *also* increase the average order fulfillment time across our entire website—I'd suspect perhaps even by a couple of days. And that's quite simply not worth it.
I've gotta disagree with you here. I while the minimal benefit of the current system is nice (we've all probably benefited from it at one time or another), I think it is several outweighed by the punishment it inflicts when the edge case does come up. Whereas the FIFO system is inherently fair, if slightly slower in some of the cases.
You're right—we *could* potentially code an entirely new order processing system that we could switch to whenever we think we're in a situation like the Green Ronin sale. But given that we're not currently aware of anything remotely like that coming up, and given that it's a task that our one developer could probably spend months on, instead of adding other features that people have been asking for, it's just not a viable option.
I agree that would be a bit excessive, but I don't think it'd be necessary either. Most of the current order path could remain the same, you'd only need to be able to set a switch (either store-wide or by item) that changes how orders are processed. Heck, you could probably even reuse most of the current code that deals with that, just reordering the relevant steps. Now I'm obviously over-simplifying here, and I've never seen the code, but the basic premise isn't that complex.
It's possible we can communicate more effectively about what's going on during the checkout process, and we probably will see what we can do about that.
That would go a long ways also, since if I'd known this was how you filled orders in the first place, I would've very carefully though about how my order was being packaged.
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Chief Technical Officer
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But it happens with zero penalty also, especially if Diane knew from the get-go that her order was going to take longer. As I stated earlier, if the product page she saw said it was going to take longer, she'd probably even be none the wiser that the order right before hers would've gotten it a few days earlier.
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."
But whether she's aware of it or not, the net effect is that if we were to change to that system, the average order turnaround time would go up, and more and more people would complain that it takes us too long to ship their products, no matter how forthright we are about the timeframe. And, I believe that would happen in numbers far more than the number of people affected in the current circumstance. It's a Sophie's choice, and I choose the plan that doesn't potentially delay the most orders.
Seriously, though, if anybody out there can come up with a method that would prevent the problem we're having here—but also doesn't make Diane wait three days for no good reason—I'm all ears. Fair warning: I believe such a design would be worthy of Doctoral theses and technology patents. (And "carry more inventory" is not the solution. If, at the beginning of this sale, we'd added all of our inventory, all of Green Ronin's warehouse inventory, *and* all of our distributor's inventory, we still would have had this problem, albeit to an admittedly lesser degree.)
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I also apologize if I seem unduly irrational. I am just really irritated and I think I am letting my emotions get the better of me. I was excited about Skull and Bones, as silly as that sounds. Its like coming down for Christmas when you are 8 and discovering socks and pajamas when what you really wanted was a Nintendo or the latest He-man action figures. :) Yes that did happen to me, why do ask?
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Chief Technical Officer
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I don't think it'd be necessary either. Most of the current order path could remain the same, you'd only need to be able to set a switch (either store-wide or by item) that changes how orders are processed. Heck, you could probably even reuse most of the current code that deals with that, just reordering the relevant steps. Now I'm obviously over-simplifying here, and I've never seen the code, but the basic premise isn't that complex.
It would require a fundamental rewrite. Heck, even if it were easy, just figuring out how to manage the transition between methods would take a while.
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CEO
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Hey y'all:
This thread breaks my heart. :/ When Chris Pramas asked us whether we would help Green Ronin out by sponsoring the clearance sale of his d20 products, I really thought that we were doing a favor to not only the paizo.com customers, but to gamers all over the world who don't have a local store participating in the Green Ronin sale. We had no clue how much demand there was going to be for this product. Perhaps we should have had a clue, but we didn't and frankly, it caught us off guard. And now I have good and loyal customers who aren't satisfied with our service and that really makes me sad.
I admit that this sale has created some issues with our software that we didn't think existed. The sad thing is that there is nothing we can do about them, even if we wanted to. Gary would have to change the fundamental way that orders are shipped and this would take him months and months. And, as Vic has said, it really only matters when you are doing a huge volume on a limited item, such as the Green Ronin sale. As far as I know, this has never been an issue for the 4 years paizo.com has been selling things. We have shipped out close to 1,000 orders of Green Ronin products and only a small number have been affected by this problem. Unfortunately, the ones who have been usually have the largest orders (though we have shipped many large orders, so this isn't an absolute).
In retrospect, I wish we had figured this out sooner and could have given a warning to folks with large orders that might be affected. I promise you that we will do our best to find all the stock that there is to fulfill orders with. Please contact customer service if you think your order is being held up for one or two books. They can help you split your order or cancel the ones holding things up.
Again, I apologize for any troubles this has caused folks. Like I said above, we were doing this as a service to gamers everywhere. We really aren't making much money from this sale and the strain it is putting on our staff is considerable. But we wanted to help out Green Ronin and we wanted to help out the gamers who wanted the sale items. If I would have known the angst that this would cause people, I doubt I would have agreed to do the sale. Our intentions were noble even if the end result isn't exactly what we wanted it to be. You know what they say about hindsight.
Once more my apologies for any inconvenience. We'll do what we can to make things right and like always, will strive to do a better job in the future.
Thanks for all of your loyalty and friendship.
-Lisa
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Chief Technical Officer
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That would go a long ways also, since if I'd known this was how you filled orders in the first place, I would've very carefully though about how my order was being packaged.
Fair enough; I have to admit I changed my shipping strategies for one of those online stores I mentioned above, once I figured out that this sort of thing could happen. (I now only instruct them to hold limited-edition products to ship with other items if all of those items are coming from the same manufacturer at the same time.)
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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."
I agree those two are different, just that she's "none the wiser" was a perk! :P The reason I don't consider it a penalty is because that's the place she's at in the order queue. She just happened to be the first person to place an order with the slightly longer shipping time. Bad luck on her part, but not a penalty.
But whether she's aware of it or not, the net effect is that if we were to change to that system, the average order turnaround time would go up,
I don't have access to all the data you do, but from what I've been told, I don't think it would go up that much. Just because Sam places an order that gets held up, allowing 10 orders to go in front of him, doesn't mean that if Sam had gone first, 10 other orders would've been held up. It would've been just one, the last one. But like I said, I don't have access to your data, so I can't comment on this with any authority, just give my uninformed opinion. :)
And, I believe that would happen in numbers far more than the number of people affected in the current circumstance. It's a Sophie's choice, and I choose the plan that doesn't potentially delay the most orders.
While I agree that its a hard decision, the answer seems obvious to me: minmal reward/risk of large penalty or no reward/no penalty. But again, that's just my uninformed opinion. :)
Seriously, though, if anybody out there can come up with a method that would prevent the problem we're having here—but also doesn't make Diane wait three days for no good reason, I'm all ears.
See my response in the previous post. [Edit: Since you've already responded to my other post with an indication that it'd still require a lot of reworking, and knowing the answer is probably 'no'..... Any chance you could send me your current code (or at least the relevant sections) so I can take a look at it and see if I can come up with anything? Not to insult your great team, but sometimes new eyes can see those small holes that eyes that've looked over it a thousand times just gloss over.]
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Thank you for coming out and speaking Lisa. I am sorry this thread breaks your heart. As I said, for my part, I am sorry if I seemed rude. It was my emotions getting the better of me. In the end, its just a book and it seems silly to be that worked up over it.
But it was exciting to see Paizo participate in the sale since my local game stores were not. I like to support your company because I think you produce fantastic product. Paizo is so far ahead of the curve in most ways I feel it is my duty to try to buy from you when I can. I felt a little weird about how the orders were being filled. That oddness became irritation and then that irritation became irrational anger. And is not the way to resolution.
So once again, I apologize. Thank you again for saying what you did. Not many company CEOs would be so willing to explain their stance in a public forum. That deserves the utmost respect and proves how good Paizo is to its customers.
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This thread breaks my heart. :/Damn.
I am very sorry to hear that.
I am probably a little late to this thread (my order went to "shipping" today from "pending" yesterday), but in an effort to do my part, if any item in my order - #838647 - can be used to fill Void_Eagle, Olaf the Stout, Alleynbard, or any other order, please go ahead and do so.
Do not mistake my intentions here. I would like to receive these items myself. But I do not have a need for them. I won't miss them as much as the others might.
That is noble and admirable. Thank you for that sacrifice. But I couldn't possibly do that. I don't "need" them either and, like I said, I felt my response was irrational. But that was kind of you and better than I would have done. You are a good person.
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I am probably a little late to this thread (my order went to "shipping" today from "pending" yesterday), but in an effort to do my part, if any item in my order - #838647 - can be used to fill Void_Eagle, Olaf the Stout, Alleynbard, or any other order, please go ahead and do so.
I have to agree with Alleyn here, it's a nice sentiment, but I would never ask you to do that. Well, except for maybe the Black Company book.... :P
Wow!
I'm in a weird position where I can completely agree with both sides. Call me a fence sitter. I feel utmost sympathy for Allynbard, Void Eagle, and Olaf simply because my small order may be lacking on one (or two items) that are currently showing as 'out of stock', but weren't when I placed it. I haven't been waiting as long as any of you have and am willing to accept the sacrifice of those books simply because I know that's how the game is played.
At the same time Paizo's system makes sense. I don't like that it has such a negative effect on us at this time, but it really does make sense all other times. I'm employed at a used bookstore, while we do not have an online store front (yet) we do sell through three large websites (Amazon being one of them) and through a few other smaller sites. So I deal with a small volume of online orders myself each day. (I mean a very small volume, compared to Paizo, it's just a drop in the bucket really.) Our system is a first in first out, but it works because there's only a slim chance that a book will be ordered by two buyers at the same time. This window of opportunity only appears if, say some one buys it on Abebooks, which has a short delay to our system, and someone also buys it off Amazon at nearly the same time. This has happened only two or three times since we switched over to our system.
A bigger problem we face is having the book sold in store, then selling online before we have a chance to 'de-list' it. This is particularly problematic with our older inventory items (those items first placed onto our old system). This means we have to cancel, and I hate that. So I'm sympathetic to Paizo's plight. Though I digress.
Allynbard, Olaf, and Void_Eagle, have engaged in some very important, civil discussion, which given the circumstances is typically unheard of on threads like these. It's because of posters like these folks, and because of Vic's and Lisa's (and of all Paizo's) candor, that I keep coming back to the boards, the website, and the company and community in general.
This thread breaks my heart. :/Damn.
I am very sorry to hear that.
I am probably a little late to this thread (my order went to "shipping" today from "pending" yesterday), but in an effort to do my part, if any item in my order - #838647 - can be used to fill Void_Eagle, Olaf the Stout, Alleynbard, or any other order, please go ahead and do so.
Do not mistake my intentions here. I would like to receive these items myself. But I do not have a need for them. I won't miss them as much as the others might.
This is incredibly noble of you Don, to make this offer to these gentleman! I'm utterly awed sometimes at the amazing people that frequent these boards!
Again, I apologize for any troubles this has caused folks.
Thanks Lisa, I appreciate the candor, and I'm sorry that things didn't work out the way you may have wished. I hope that I didn't come across as anything but a concerned customer, and I hope that I remained civil. I think that I did, but at the same time, I sincerely hope that I didn't cross any lines.
As another person who has felt the sting of this sale disaster, I know my feelings on this are a bit biased. However, I did a bit of searching on the ordering policy of another large online game dealer. Here is an excerpt of the policy from warehouse23.com:
If any item on your order is not available, the entire order will be held until we either obtain the item or discover that the item is out-of-print. If you do not want to wait for the rest of your order, you can contact us with your order number to have the item removed.
If we discover that the item is out-of-print, we will remove it from your order and notify you of the revised total by e-mail.
Steve Jackson Games, who runs Warehouse 23, has been doing this online store thing for quite a long time. This has been their policy from the beginning. They update their stock status at the close of each business day. They also pull all available items for an order on the business day after it is placed. That means that within 24 hours you will generally know if all your stuff is going to ship immediately.
So, if this policy were in effect here, everything that was currently in the warehouse for Olaf's order would be pulled while you try to obtain the rest of the items. People order after Olaf would not get the items that were pulled for Olaf, and may have to wait for them to be restocked. If, for some reason, an item that is set aside for Olaf goes out of print while he is waiting for another item, that out of print item stays with Olaf's order, and is not given to someone else.
On rare occasions, such as the current sale, people ordering later in the sale will miss out on items that go out of print. That is how sales happen in brick and mortar stores, and it is how it should happen in an ecommerce store. It shouldn't be different. It shouldn't penalize people who need to, or want to, make large orders.
Stephen Miller
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(Try two, in case the first post reappears.)
Thanks for the kind words guys/gals. But there really isn't any need for them.
I am going to be a bit brutal in my honesty... But I didn't make the offer for any of you.
I was doing, what little I could, to help Paizo.
That is not to say that none of you are worth it.
But I have worked on the borders of the shipping industry. And I am quite aware that, well, "s~~~ happens." I am both happy and sad that Paizo has gone 4ish years without an inventory snafu. (Which doesn't even have to happen on their end.) And to date, Paizo's customer service has been exemplary (at least to me).
The least I could do to repay that would be to "take one for the team."
I would suggest that if there are any confused/disgruntled customers that make it this far, that you try to have a bit of patience. You don't have to be happy about the circumstances... But, at least, give Paizo a chance to work things out.
No matter what the reason, the intent was still kind, noble, and admirable. I would not be so arrogant as assume you did it for me specifically because I don't know you, though you have always seemed like a fair person no matter what alias you post under. So it was the act I was praising not the thought it was done for me specifically.
Here is an excerpt of the policy from warehouse23.com:
If any item on your order is not available, the entire order will be held until we either obtain the item or discover that the item is out-of-print. If you do not want to wait for the rest of your order, you can contact us with your order number to have the item removed.
If we discover that the item is out-of-print, we will remove it from your order and notify you of the revised total by e-mail.
Steve Jackson Games, who runs Warehouse 23, has been doing this online store thing for quite a long time. This has been their policy from the beginning. They update their stock status at the close of each business day. They also pull all available items for an order on the business day after it is placed. That means that within 24 hours you will generally know if all your stuff is going to ship immediately.
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but I don't draw the same conclusions from your quote as you drew. I'm on the Quality team in a pretty big warehouse, and when I see the words "entire order will be held," I read that as the "order" being held (instead of filled), rather than the "merchandise" being held.
In a warehouse, you don't have space to accumulate and store partial orders for customers. You can't place a customer's name on an individual item and leave it in the mainbin. In our case, we hold a group of orders until we're ready to draw them off the computer and release them for fulfillment. Then we fill the order and immediately ship it.
The only technical "solution" I can see is that when someone's order contains items that are "back-ordered," Paizo could send an auto-email that informs the customer of this fact, and allows them the option of requesting action (splitting the shipment or cancelling the item) or waiting for the back-ordered item. I don't really know that this would solve anything, however, as by definition, Paizo won't know if other items on the order are really at any risk - if they thought they weren't going to be able to get that product, they wouldn't have allowed the orders in the first place. Or so I understand what's been said to this point.
By the way, I'm one of the customers who lost an item because of this, and Vic, I really appreciate your willingness to explain what happened. I now understand a lot better what caused this, and it makes me feel better about it - and makes me feel much better about Paizo than I would have if no such answers had been given.
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but I don't draw the same conclusions from your quote as you drew. I'm on the Quality team in a pretty big warehouse, and when I see the words "entire order will be held," I read that as the "order" being held (instead of filled), rather than the "merchandise" being held.
I didn't actually quote their entire policy on ordering and shipping, which is what could lead to the confusion. Elsewhere in their FAQ they state that they pull all available items for an order on the following business day. I will check with Shadlyn, the head honcho of Warehouse 23 to confirm this, but I am pretty sure the last time I asked that they do in fact hold the physical items of an order. I will let you know what she says.
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I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but I don't draw the same conclusions from your quote as you drew. I'm on the Quality team in a pretty big warehouse, and when I see the words "entire order will be held," I read that as the "order" being held (instead of filled), rather than the "merchandise" being held.In a warehouse, you don't have space to accumulate and store partial orders for customers. You can't place a customer's name on an individual item and leave it in the mainbin. In our case, we hold a group of orders until we're ready to draw them off the computer and release them for fulfillment. Then we fill the order and immediately ship it.
And I work for a fairly large direct catalog merchant who has been in business for well over 100 years and we treat every product as if it has limited availability. We do not pick orders and place them aside, but we do physically allocate inventory as orders are being placed by customers and merchandise is recieved.
And if something is backordered we notify our customers!!
Robbing product that should fulfill my order to give to someone else who has not been waiting as long (close to a month in my case) for their order is unacceptable in my book.
Add to this the lack of response to my e-mails that I sent to customer service when I found out what was going on and I am not a very happy customer right now.
Simply put, if a product is listed as available when I order it it should be available when you ship my order.
And on top of all of that if I had not gone searching for a reason for my order not showing up I would have no idea what was going on or that the product I had ordered was slowly being cancelled.
So from this thread we can tell there is a small number of vocal people who have had issues. How many others are suffering the same problems and don't even know it yet?
I appreciate all of the discussion by Piazo staff, but from my point of view as a customer that only goes so far to smooth over what has happened.
As an IT person I can tell you that there were thousands of ways that the impact of this sale could have been lessened, and some of them would help your customer experience overall.
Things like a backorder notification after x number of days that explains that other items on your order are not being held for you and prompting a call to customer service if you want to break up the order. Maybe a change to your help section that explains this also. These are only two suggestions that should require minimal effort and no reworking of your order processing.
I also would like to suggest to all of the Piazo staff that the sale was not a bad thing. I applaud you for your attempt to bring this sale to those of us who do not have a FLGS. Learn from your mistakes and fix those things that didn't work and you will win back those of us who have had issues.
I hope that the lessons learned during this period bring forth action items to stop issues like this from happening in the future.
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CEO
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As an IT person I can tell you that there were thousands of ways that the impact of this sale could have been lessened, and some of them would help your customer experience overall.
Things like a backorder notification after x number of days that explains that other items on your order are not being held for you and prompting a call to customer service if you want to break up the order. Maybe a change to your help section that explains this also. These are only two suggestions that should require minimal effort and no reworking of your order processing.
I also would like to suggest to all of the Piazo staff that the sale was not a bad thing. I applaud you for your attempt to bring this sale to those of us who do not have a FLGS. Learn from your mistakes and fix those things that didn't work and you will win back those of us who have had issues.
I hope that the lessons learned during this period bring forth action items to stop issues like this from happening in the future.
The problem with this sale was that it literally fell on us overnight. We got an email from Chris Pramas about the sale and within hours it was up on the website. So we didn't have any time to put into effect the ideas you had above to provide a better experience. To be frank, we didn't even realize that there was going to be any problems until they happened. LIke I said above, hindsight sure is great. :)
Trust me, we WILL learn from this sale. I am guessing that there might be more sell-off sales coming down the turnpike as we head towards 4.0, and we will surely sit down and figure out how we can do better in implementing these. We strive to provide the best customer service that we can, so it makes me sad when we fall short, especially to some of our best customers. Lessons will be learned from this and hopefully we can fulfill expectations better in the future.
Thanks for taking the time to post Scott.
-Lisa
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Chief Technical Officer
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And on top of all of that if I had not gone searching for a reason for my order not showing up I would have no idea what was going on or that the product I had ordered was slowly being cancelled.
To date, I believe we've only canceled one product. You are correct that it was done without notification, and that was an error on the part of the person who cancelled that item—our policy is to notify people, and we'll have to figure out how to retroactively do that for this product.
However, this week, we'll probably exhaust the possibilities of finding several other items, and we'll likely have to cancel a few more, starting with the most recent orders and working backwards. People will be notified. We're also thinking about things we can do for those folks, but that might take a while longer.
And on top of all of that if I had not gone searching for a reason for my order not showing up I would have no idea what was going on or that the product I had ordered was slowly being cancelled.To date, I believe we've only canceled one product. You are correct that it was done without notification, and that was an error on the part of the person who cancelled that item—our policy is to notify people, and we'll have to figure out how to retroactively do that for this product.
However, this week, we'll probably exhaust the possibilities of finding several other items, and we'll likely have to cancel a few more, starting with the most recent orders and working backwards. People will be notified. We're also thinking about things we can do for those folks, but that might take a while longer.
Vic,
Are you referring to Scott's order or the Green Ronin books in general? Because I have had Crisis in Freeport cancelled and I know that others have had Skulls and Bones cancelled. That's 2 that I know of but there might be others (Medievil Player's Guide? - not sure on the exact title).
I hope that I have come across as civil in my posts. I've tried to remain calm despite being quite angry and frustrated about the situation. If I seemed a little rude, I apologise.
In some ways I am glad that it happened as it means that the problems discovered can be looked at and solutions found. I imagine that there will be a few more sales like this in the next few months as publishers clear out surplus 3E books. I appreciate that Paizo have been relatively open with us about the situation, rather than stonewalling us.
Finally, my order is listed as pending, and has been for several days now. When is it expected to ship, and is there any chance that other items in my order will be out of stock before it ships out?
Olaf the Stout
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Chief Technical Officer
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Because I have had Crisis in Freeport cancelled and I know that others have had Skulls and Bones cancelled.
Cosmo specifically cancelled your Crisis in Freeport during a previous discussion with you. The only item we've cancelled from *everyone's* orders is Skull and Bones.
I just separated Bleeding Edge Adventures #5: Temple of the Death Goddess into another order; that will allow the warehouse to ship the rest of your books.
Cosmo specifically cancelled your Crisis in Freeport during a previous discussion with you. The only item we've cancelled from *everyone's* orders is Skull and Bones.
Ok, gotcha.
I just separated Bleeding Edge Adventures #5: Temple of the Death Goddess into another order; that will allow the warehouse to ship the rest of your books.
Several days ago I was told that since Crisis in Freeport had been removed from my order it was in the queue to be shipped. Now you say that you had to take Bleeding Edge Adventures #5: Temple of the Death Goddess and split it into another order.
Is there a chance that this will happen again while my item is in the queue? If it wasn't for me asking about it, how else would I have known that there was something holding up my order? My order simply shows as pending and gave no indication that Bleeding Edge Adventures #5: Temple of the Death Goddess was holding up my order.
I'm asking this from a overall view as much as anything else. Surely if my order is being held up for one reason or another it should show this in my order history. Since it doesn't (at least not that I could see) maybe that is an area that Paizo can fix to avoid future problems. I'm trying to be constructive here so that other people don't have to be put in this situation in the future.
Olaf the Stout
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I'm in the boat of people that ordered early but have something holdin up the entire order, that being TC1 (a preorder item). My order has some popular GR books in it & some that I've really been wanting, so I hope the entire order goes without any hitches.
I emailed customer support recently to just seperate the order, something I should have done in the first place, but didn't think TC1 would be this long on preorder & as I've said before, just can't see shipping 1 item.
I see TC1 has a date now (thanks for the info Vic), but I don't want to risk losing any of the GR books in my order & I'll pick up the extra shipping for TC1.
Paizo has been pretty darn good to me regarding orders, heck I got my Pf/GM shipment yesterday, should have been here Friday but weather in Portland delayed it, no biggee) & to boot I love the card that came with it & not just for the discount code. I love the Pathfinder setting & this just goes great with it.
Hopefully things will settle down once everything returns to normal, but I can see where people who have ordered aren't getting anything.
RM
hhmmm...This is a tough one.
First off I would like to say to Vic that I really feel for you. Honestly I like the fact that you (as a technical director and not customer service director) took the time to not only answer people's questions, but continued to respond and explain the situation patiently. With my limited experience in retail, it's been my experience that customer service experts are there to generaly tell the customer whatever they want/need to hear to shut them up, put a smile back on their face, get their money, and get them out of the store. Now, this in no way is ment to say that's what I think Lisa is doing by offering us her time to explain the situation, just relating what I have been instructed to do while working retail, and what I have received in nearly every store I've ever had an issue come up in.
To Lisa, thank you for giving us your time, and explaining the circumstances that led to this. It's not often you get to speak directly to someone on your level when a promblem arises, and the fact that your here speaks vollums about you and your company.
Though I obviously don't know exactly what you (Paizo in general) are going through right now, I know what it's like when something happens quick like this. My third day ever working a retail job I got put on a register for Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving, biggest shopping day of the year in the states). To put it lightly, it sucked.
I am however upset, as I completely dissagree that the current system is the best system. More than a little of the subject matter is beyond me, as I know next to nothing about how complicated it is to change computer code, or how hard it is to rewrite the ordering system, but I'm comfortable that I have enough of a grasp of what's going on. I don't have an answer, a better solution. All I can realy say is I don't like how this is done, I believe it's a mistake, but it is ultimately your business. In my opinion when an order goes through things should be held for the people who ordered them. I understand that money hasn't actualy changed hands, as you don't charge untill the order ships, so there is no guarentee you get what you ordered, I just wish there was. I would rather pay for the items when I place the order, and have some sort of guarentee to get them, but I understand that is not the case, and am getting the impression that's how it will stay. Basically it comes down to now I know, boy did I have the wrong idea going into this.
All boiled down, I'm getting upset over a cheep price on a book I've had a few years worth of opportunity to purchase, so it realy shouldn't be that big of a deal. However, anything I purchase from Paizo is equally not a big deal. So if this is the way that it is, then this is the way that it is, and I can find those books, along with anything else somewhere else. Like I said earlier, it will take something on the scale of of absurdity of being jacked in the face for no good reason at GenCon by a Paizo employee to make me cancel Pathfinder or to not resubscribe when my subscription runs out, but for anything not Gamemastery I think I'll be looking elsewhere. I'm not saying I'll never order here again, but right now I do have a very bad taste in my mouth from this.
P.S. Finding out about the shipping being manualy changed is realy cool. At this point, it's the kinda of realy cool that is like being in your bank, finding out you have a huge overdraft fee, but being served an amazing cup of coffee while you discuss things. Just wanted to say it is appreciated though.
Lisa and Vic, I just want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us. It seems to me that people do not understand that paizo usually deals in "unlimited quantity" sale items that do not run out (they just maybe require a second printing). This really is your first time dealing in a "limited supply high demand" market place and the differences of the market place are causing angst among everyone involved. What you did for Chris Pramas and the gaming community was great, it just was a decision of the heart rather than of the mind and it really makes me sad that people are giving you a hard time for being good people and friends to Pramas and the gaming community.
Do know that you cannot make everyone happy, but if you wanted to make an announcement on the homepage of the website to everyone to say that backordered products are of questionable availability and to cancel them or risk losing other products in the order that would be reasonable, along with a general email to your email subscribers telling them the same thing.
The gaming community is too small to let something like this upset people and to those that are angry I say lets treat each other more like friends rather than cut throat business partners. Paizo is not amazon and I would hope that the people shopping here would realize that Paizo does not see us as just a revenue stream for a faceless corporation, but as partners in a shared and loved hobby. People are angry, I know I was when my Crisis in Freeport was cancelled, but once I calmed down and thought about it I was still happy for what the people at paizo did and I want to thank them.
I actually became upset all over again when I had begun to calm down. When I first noticed there was an item that was sold out on my order, I asked for it to be taken out so that my order could ship.
By the time I sent that e-mail, I noticed two more items had sold out, so I sent another e-mail, and received a nice e-mail in response that canceled the three items, and told me that my items would now ship.
A few days later, I check my order, waiting for the status to change, and notice its still pending. Sure enough, I notice that another item had sold out. This is around the time that I found out that the policy was to fill orders that could be filled first. I posted my opinions in this thread instead of sending out an e-mail right away asking for it to be taken out so that what was left of my order could ship.
Then, today, as I realize that I should hurry and find out what is going on, yet another item sold out that was on my order.
I might have been able to avoid this if I had sat on my order like an eBay auction and sent out e-mails every hour when items sold out, but I honestly don't think its out of line to say that I shouldn't have had to have done this. Further more, I was alright with everything when the first three items were canceled and I was told my order could ship now, yet it didn't ship fast enough to keep other people with smaller order from causing yet more of my order to sell out.
In the end, having to micromanage the order just to try and get ahead of the sales curve really became too much to deal with. I was doing this not to get my books faster, but just to try and get some of the books that I ordered before they sold out, and it still didn't work. So in the end, very reluctantly, I sent an e-mail to cancel order 703966 (I'm still waiting for confirmation) because most of my "A" list items were gone.
I love the quality of Paizo, and they have always been good at finding out what their customer wants and serving them, but in this case, I was very disappointed. I didn't want to be, and I know that several people have mentioned that this was a clearance sale, and a corner case, but the bottom line is that not only did I place an order that could not be filled, but after I did the leg work to find out what was holding my order up and what needed to be canceled, I was told my order would ship, and it still didn't ship fast enough to keep the entire cycle from starting over again.
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Could we get a list of items that are out of stock and an indication if they are likely to ever get back in stock?
For things like Black Company I could then look to get it elsewhere and get the order reduced to things I am likely to actually get.
As for splitting my order given the shipping costs that's not exactly viable. They are already double the cost of the books.
In all fairness to Paizo I have to post this. I really jumped the gun with my last post. I got a bit swept up in all that was being discussed, and when I noticed that my order hadn't shipped yet, I panicked. I wasn't so much impatient, but paranoid that if it hadn't shipped yet, that my order wasn't "safe" yet.
As I mentioned in my posts, despite my sending several e-mails, all I ever recieved were very polite replies that really did try to explain the situation to me and to help me move forward with what needed to be done. If I hadn't jumped the gun, I would have found out that my initial cancelations were the only ones needed to get my order moving again.
Corey did a wonderful job staying calm in the face of my panic, and he really deserves a pat on the back for calming me down and explaining what was going on all over again.
When I asked for my order to be canceled, it would have been very easy for the staff to have said I was more trouble than I was worth and just do as I asked, even though my reason for cancelling wasn't sound. I am really glad that Corey took the time to explain the whole thing to me and got me to realize that I had overreacted.
I know this doesn't reassure everyone that might not have gotten everything they wanted to get, and there were some flaws with how this sale worked, but this certainly reassured me that Paizo really does go above and beyond to make sure its customers are happy, and it more than convinces me that when Lisa says that they will learn from this, that they really will learn from this event.
Paizo is a really great company, and honestly, from the service I received, I have to say that this went from a very negative event for me to being something that really reaffirms why I want to continue to support Paizo in the future. Thank you to everyone on the staff, and Merry Christmas to all.
Seriously, though, if anybody out there can come up with a method that would prevent the problem we're having here—but also doesn't make Diane wait three days for no good reason—I'm all ears. Fair warning: I believe such a design would be worthy of Doctoral theses and technology patents. (And "carry more inventory" is not the solution. If, at the beginning of this sale, we'd added all of our inventory, all of Green Ronin's warehouse inventory, *and* all of our distributor's inventory, we still would have had this problem, albeit to an admittedly lesser degree.)
Ah, a mental exercise. Come on Gamers, you are suppose to be great at coming up with crazy/inventive ideas to solve problems.
Well I am no coder or anything so I can only talk in generals and see if it is possible or not.
Let's say Bob tries to order a DMG, MM, and a PHB. Paizo has 2 MM, 3 PHB, and 0 DMG in house, but according to a recent update from a supplier, there are copies of all three available. Thus Bob is allowed to order, as it appears his order can be fulfilled. A message is sent to the supplier to send a DMG, which will occur in 4 days. And Bob is sent a message that there will be a 4 day delay on his order.
In the next 2 days 3 people order PHB and one person orders a MM. The first two PHB and the MM are shipped out immediately. Before the 3rd PHB is shipped out Paizo contacts its supplier and asks for another PHB to be shipped with the DMG it has already requests. On confirmation from the supplier that another PHB will be shipped with the DMG, the 3rd PHB is shipped out.
One day before the order from the supplier is suppose to arrive, Diane orders a MM. Paizo contacts the supplier and asks for another MM to be shipped. The supplier informs Paizo that they will ship a MM but it is too late to get in with the current shipment of the DMG and PHB, and so it will be another 4 days before it will be sent. Paizo on confirmation of the MM being sent, informs Diane that there will a four day back order on the MM.
The next day, Bob's order is filled, exactly as stated by Paizo. Three days after that Diane's order is also filled, exactly as stated by Paizo.
Now I have never worked in this industry, but when I was working on my undergraduate degree, I worked as a line cook. And there was always the temptation to move the big tickets to the back, and kick the small tickets out first, but that is bad customer service. Instead you work on the big one, and inbetween, also work on the smaller ones. If there is only one steak left and the bigger ticket came in first, they get the steak, not the little, later ticket. If there is more than one steak, fill both orders at the same time. You don't have to put the bigger ticket together first, but you have to realize it gets first dibs on items, especially if they run short.
As for gamer materials not being a limited quantity item and so a different philosphy should be used, I have to ask, "Say What?" Unless you are talking about pdf's only, all items are of limited quantity, how many brand new red box sets are there floating around? Everything runs out eventually, you've got to be prepared for that.
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As for gamer materials not being a limited quantity item and so a different philosphy should be used, I have to ask, "Say What?" Unless you are talking about pdf's only, all items are of limited quantity, how many brand new red box sets are there floating around? Everything runs out eventually, you've got to be prepared for that.
But how often will you get a hundred orders for that Red Box in one day? Most products with high demand on Paizo store are high demand elsewhere and there are plenty in the market and supply chain as a result. When a product gets old and is not ordered regularly, printing stops and the copies get thin accros the supply network. Beside a sale like the GR one, what could make so many people (who had a chance to buy that product for months or years) buy it all at once that it breaks the system? Situations like you describe, (using the 3 book that are probably the 3 most common on the market, but I know you use them only for exemple) would happen very rarely for old/unknown books. And if it happens, then only 1 or 2 customers are concerned and Paizo can easily discuss an arangment with them.
The problem with the GR sale was that many hundreds orders were placed on GR book inside a couple weeks. (Don't quote me on that, but I remember Lisa saying it was close to a thousand GR orders, somewhere.) As a result, that case is not affecting many customers with various degrees of disapointment/frustration/etc.
Let's go at it the other side: Let's say they had a FIFO(first in first out) system already in place, that communicate the way you describe it with the supplier, to coordinate the inventories. Then the reverse problem arise. The demand for certain products requested made it so that not only Paizo's and it's direct supplier's warehouses are emptied, but they had to get farther down the supply chain to get those books.
That means that, lets say the first 20 who order a given book get the book as available, but then that book closes doors and becomes unavailable. People continue to order other books anyway, but see that product as unavailable and are disapointed because they wanted it.
A few days later, Paizo gets news that the suplier can get an extra 20 copies of the given book. Paizo website is updated and the product gets available again. For a few lucky customers that order right after it is back up and available, they can add it in their orders, and the 20 extra copies are sold that way inside the next 12- hours. By the time those that missed it the first time realize there were new copies available, they are again sold out. They get from disapointed to frustrated.
Rinse, repeat, a couple times as the supply chain drains itself from that book, and some people that wanted it in the first place were always too late to order the few copies that became available here and there. Frustration turns to hate/flaming because they were not allowed to reserve the book in case it became available later.
Even worse, since that situation involes a couple dozens other popular books in the GR sale, customers are required to make 5-10 different orders at different times to get everything they want, and that means extra S/H charge for many customers. And they need to refresh the products pages every 5 minutes to not miss the next time their wanted product gets back to availble status. In the end, it's not necessarily the first ones that "wanted to" order the book that get it, but those that were lucky enough to be there when they turned back to availability.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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While I don't agree with Aaron's language, I think he's right.
The current system may be more efficient in getting the greatest number of orders shipped most quickly. But it doesn't strike me as being fair, particularly to your customers who place (a) large orders, and (b) pre-orders for Paizo product they know they'll want.
When I place an order for an in-stock item, and I get an email telling me that you received the order and it's going to cost so much, I take that as a promise. When you take the product that I've already bought and give it to someone else, even if that's more eficient, I feel like you've broken your promise.
And that's where I think the sides are talking past one another. Does "best" mean "most efficient" or "fairest"?
Contributor
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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.
Let's say that (I'm just making up numbers here) gets 300 orders per day during the sale, and can reasonably pack and process 200 of those orders. Let's imagine that on day one, 150 of those orders are good to go; the product is in stock and can be packed up with no conflicts. another 100 orders have one or more items that they need to wait for, and the final 50 orders are orders that the stock is available for but is needed for the 100 pending orders. They pack 150 orders and now have a backlog of 150 orders. The warehouse staff have a low-work day.
On day two they get another 300 orders. 100 of those are good to go, 100 have missing items and 100 could ship except that the items are held for other orders that are missing items. 100 orders get shipped and the backlog is up to 350 orders (150 of which are for items in stock now)
As each day goes by, more orders come in, and until the new stock arrives, a larger percentage of those orders are either orders that need to be held until stock comes in or orders that could ship except the stock is being held for an existing order.
Bear in mind that this is a special circumstance; a high demand sale. Each day the backlog gets bigger, and the number of orders that can be actually shipped gets smaller. So for a few days, even though the backlog is getting bigger, the warehouse is not doing a lot of shipping.
Then the replacement stock comes in, and suddenly the warehouse has to process ALL the back orders at once. Editors are pulled of their regular jobs to pack boxes, slowing down production. Temporary help is hired to fill in gaps, and it's chaos because the warehouse is overflowing with stock that there's no room to hold until the orders get shipped. The whole process becomes more expensive.
In fact the process has been expensive already, as warehouse space has been used to hold material that could have been shipped. don't underestimate how much under-utilized warehouse space costs unless you've worked in the industry and seen the numbers. Most of you would be shocked. I sure was.
So all of this costs Paizo a bunch of money, which you may say is their problem. But at some point, that cost gets passed onto their customers, even if it's simply them telling Chris Pramas "No." the next time he wants to offer a sale through Paizo.
And in the majority of cases, it will have all been for nothing, because when the new stock starts coming in, most of it comes in together, so all the orders that were held didn't need to be. Because all of this stuff is coming from the same place.
Now, I'm not saying that Paizo can't or shouldn't come up with a plan of dealing with this kind of sale in the future. They should. As Vic (I believe) said earlier, with 4E on the horizon, there will be more sales like this coming up.
But simply switching to a FIFO system in midstream is not a solution that would have worked.
I also want to make it clear that I understand the frustration and disapointment of those who didn't get items that were available when they put in their order. That sucks. And actually, I might be in that boat myself.
I just know that this was an unforseen problem that is more unique and harder to fix than it appears. Plus, I have come to have confidence that Paizo will make it right, and make it work better next time. Plus, I have a great deal of empathy. I've been there.
Let's go at it the other side: Let's say they had a FIFO(first in first out) system already in place, that communicate the way you describe it with the supplier, to coordinate the inventories. Then the reverse problem arise. The demand for certain products requested made it so that not only Paizo's and it's direct supplier's warehouses are emptied, but they had to get farther down the supply chain to get those books.
That means that, lets say the first 20 who order a given book get the book as available, but then that book closes doors and becomes unavailable. People continue to order other books anyway, but see that product as unavailable and are disapointed because they wanted it.
A few days later, Paizo gets news that the suplier can get an extra 20 copies of the given book. Paizo website is updated and the product gets available again. For a few lucky customers that order right after it is back up and available, they can add it in their orders, and the 20 extra copies are sold that way inside the next 12- hours. By the time those that missed it the first time realize there were new copies available, they are again sold out. They get from disapointed to frustrated.
Rinse, repeat, a couple times as the supply chain drains itself from that book, and some people that wanted it in the first place were always too late to order the few copies that became available here and there. Frustration turns to hate/flaming because they were not allowed to reserve the book in case it became available later.
Even worse, since that situation involes a couple dozens other popular books in the GR sale, customers are required to make 5-10 different orders at different times to get everything they want, and that means extra S/H charge for many customers. And they need to refresh the products pages every 5 minutes to not miss the next time their wanted product gets back to availble status. In the end, it's not necessarily the first ones that "wanted to" order the book that get it, but those that were lucky enough to be there when they turned back to availability.
One simple change will avoid the problems that you are suggesting. Give people the ability to still order items that are "unavailable" because they are out-of-stock at the warehouse (but still available from the distributor). You are basically letting people reserve a copy when the next lot of books that come in. Those that order first still get their books first that way.
It also gives Paizo an idea of how many more people still want the book, something that they don't normally have an idea of if an item is listed as "unavailable". They may need to put something on the product page to indicate to customers that they are ordering something that Paizo doesn't currently have in stock and that is a chance the order won't be filled. Apart from that I think it should work. Of course, now the next poster will point out a major flaw in my plan!
Olaf the Stout
Vic,
You asked for people to come up with a method of order filling that makes everyone happy and doesn't make someone wait several days for what you cite as "no good reason." I believe that what I show below fits the bill. Now, you and I will obviously have a differing view on what is "no good reason." For you, it seems to me, any wait at all is "no good reason." For me, early ordering means less waiting, if you have to wait at all.
My retail and mail order experience is mostly, but not entirely, end user or customer based. That being said, here is what I have seen is the best method for handling mail order sales, which is basically what you are doing.
Among the many items in your warehouse are 10 copies of Widgets & Wonders Adventure A1. The adventure line is being discontinued, so the adventure is put on sale on Monday.
Customer #1, we’ll call him Alan, places an order on Monday for 12 items totaling $150 before shipping. His order includes the Papers & Paychecks Players Handbook, and Widgets & Wonders Adventure A1. You do not a copy of the P&P PH, so you order one from your distributor, which will come in on Friday. In your computerized inventory you mark that one copy of W&W A1 is sold but not shipped, pending additional items. At the close of business on Monday your inventories show 9 available copies and 1 reserved copy of the adventure.
On Tuesday, a total of 8 copies of W&W A1 are sold and shipped out. At the close of business on Tuesday your inventories show 1 available copy and 1 reserved copy of the adventure.
Customer #2, we’ll call him Bernie, also wants a copy of W&W A1, plus 6 other items totaling $55 before shipping. He places an order early Wednesday morning.
Customer #3, we’ll call her Corrine, hears about the sale on Wednesday. She has heard of everyone ordering W&W A1 at this great sale price, and figures she better get one now. Since that is the only thing she really wants, she just orders a copy of W&W A1. Her order is placed late Wednesday afternoon.
Late on Wednesday the items ordered on Wednesday are pulled, starting with the first order placed. Bernie’s order is filled, taking the last available copy of the adventure. When the stock puller gets to Corrine’s order, they note that the item she wants is out of stock, even though Alan’s copy is still on the shelf. You place an order for more adventures, which will come in on Monday. Your inventories are updated, and a message is sent to Corrine telling her the item she ordered is back ordered.
On Friday the P&P PH comes in, and Alan’s order is pulled, packed, and shipped.
On Monday the copies of W&W A1 come in, and Corrine’s order is filled.
Following this method, everyone gets exactly what they ordered in less than week with the least amount of disorder and the highest amount of customer satisfaction.
If I understand your current order fulfillment system correctly, this is how you would have handled it.
Alan places his order on Monday. The P&P PH is ordered and nothing further is done with Alan’s order.
Tuesday’s orders are all handled and shipped.
Wednesday, Corrine’s order is shipped, because you have everything in the warehouse for her order, and Bernie’s is also shipped, leaving you with no copies of W&W A1. You place an order for the adventure, which should be in on Tuesday.
Friday, Alan’s P&P PH comes in, but now there are no copies of W&W A1, so nothing is done with Alan’s order.
On Tuesday, eight days after placing his order, Alan’s copy of W&W A1 comes in. At this point, as long as nobody has ordered a copy of the P&P PH in the eight days since placing the order, Alan’s order is ready to be shipped.
So, in the end, it takes us eight days to fill one order, and one day to fill the other two. During that eight day period, Alan receives no notice that his order is taking so long.
Somehow I do not see how your system is fair or logical. With the method I give, which is used by countless mail order houses, everyone has their package shipped in less than a week, and everyone gets what they ordered. With your method, Alan has to wait over a week, and could wait longer if something else in his order goes out of stock while he waits for his missing item. That is inexcusable, and bad customer service.
Stephen
Let's go at it the other side: Let's say they had a FIFO(first in first out) system already in place, that communicate the way you describe it with the supplier, to coordinate the inventories. Then the reverse problem arise. The demand for certain products requested made it so that not only Paizo's and it's direct supplier's warehouses are emptied, but they had to get farther down the supply chain to get those books.
Spoiler:That means that, lets say the first 20 who order a given book get the book as available, but then that book closes doors and becomes unavailable. People continue to order other books anyway, but see that product as unavailable and are disapointed because they wanted it.A few days later, Paizo gets news that the suplier can get an extra 20 copies of the given book. Paizo website is updated and the product gets available again. For a few lucky customers that order right after it is back up and available, they can add it in their orders, and the 20 extra copies are sold that way inside the next 12- hours. By the time those that missed it the first time realize there were new copies available, they are again sold out. They get from disapointed to frustrated.
Rinse, repeat, a couple times as the supply chain drains itself from that book, and some people that wanted it in the first place were always too late to order the few copies that became available here and there. Frustration turns to hate/flaming because they were not allowed to reserve the book in case it became available later.
Even worse, since that situation involes a couple dozens other popular books in the GR sale, customers are required to make 5-10 different orders at different times to get everything they want, and that means extra S/H charge for many customers. And they need to refresh the products pages every 5 minutes to not miss the next time their wanted product gets back to availble status. In the end, it's not necessarily the first ones that "wanted to" order the book that get it, but those that were lucky enough to be there when they turned back to availability.
You are seriously suggesting that someone who is disappointed that they just keep missing a sale, is going to be the same level of disappointment as someone who made the sale and then had their items removed from their order and sold to someone else? Sorry, I'm not buying that story.
Besides which, there is also the "Yeah!" factor, if you go and "whine" to your friends that you just were too slow to get the item you wanted, and that the company "sucks" because of that, your friends aren't going to feel to sorry for you. On the other hand, you tell your friends that the item that you ordered, that the company said was on your list and in stock, was then sold to someone else and that the company "sucks" your friends are probably going to say, "Yeah!". As many people have said, there is a feeling of "fairness", and once you burn that bridge of trust, it is hard to win back.
One thing I just thought of, was people keep talking about inventory space and how valuable it is. Well consider this. Someone orders 25 items, of which 23 are in stock, and the other 2 will be in a week. Now perhaps 5 of those are sold to other people while waiting leaving 18 items still taking warehouse space. The next week those 2 come in as well as 2 more that were sold (22 in stock), but now 3 more are out of stock, so now we have to wait another week for those 3. Again let's say that 5 are sold to other people, so now 17 of the items are taking up warehouse space, had those 5 items that had been sold the first week been held, all 25 items would now be out of the warehouse, instead much of the bulk of that unfilled order is just sucking up warehouse space. And the more an item here and there gets the delayed the more waste having those items that could have been sent out is.
Basically you choose between wasting space in the short run or the long run. You aren't really saving yourself space in the long run.