Let me start by saying that I LOVE Paizo. I was a subscriber to both Dragon and Dungeon for many years, and since those magazines went away, I have found Pathfinder and have NEVER had anything but excellent, fast, service.
The reason I am not real happy today is because I just received an e-mail telling me that every item I just ordered from your big sale was cancelled because they are out of stock. My main complaint is that there were some items that said "Out of Stock", but none that I ordered. I am disappointed that it took 5 days after I ordered to tell me this.
I will continue to buy from Paizo and hold no hard feelings, I just hope that in the future something like this will not happen again.
Thanks for reading.
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I can't give you any sort of official answer about the delay in letting you know the items were out of stock, but items listed as in stock that weren't might have something to do with what was said here:
Also, if you see something you like, don't procrastinate. While the sale ends July 29, many of these products have limited quantities available at Alliance, and they may sell out fast. In fact, there was one particular product I really wanted for myself, but when I finally went to order it today, it was already gone!
Also, if you see something you like, don't procrastinate. While the sale ends July 29, many of these products have limited quantities available at Alliance, and they may sell out fast. In fact, there was one particular product I really wanted for myself, but when I finally went to order it today, it was already gone!
The message was put on the site on the 3rd. I ordered on the 4th. Not exactly procrastinating.
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The message was put on the site on the 3rd. I ordered on the 4th. Not exactly procrastinating.
Maybe the people who ordered on the third got the last of what you wanted. Maybe there were only one or two of those items left to be had. Heck, I didn't order the two items I wanted from the sale until yesterday and I placed the order, having read the caveat, expecting both of those items to have sold out days before. I figure if that the worst thing that happens to me today is to find out that some RPG stuff that I only bought because it was on sale is out stock and I have that much less vying for space in my apartment then I'm not doing half bad.
Maybe the people who ordered on the third got the last of what you wanted. Maybe there were only one or two of those items left to be had. Heck, I didn't order the two items I wanted from the sale until yesterday and I placed the order, having read the caveat, expecting both of those items to have sold out days before. I figure if that the worst thing that happens to me today is to find out that some RPG stuff that I only bought because it was on sale is out stock and I have that much less vying for space in my apartment then I'm not doing half bad.
I was bothered, not because they were out of stock, but because some items said they were out while the ones I ordered, did not. Plue not finding out for 5 days was a little irksome.
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I was bothered, not because they were out of stock, but because some items said they were out while the ones I ordered, did not. Plue not finding out for 5 days was a little irksome.
My guess is no one was updating the site over the holiday weekend to keep current what was and wasn't in stock with the distributor. And it probably took a few days time to get around to seeing if your items were in stock, and then letting you know they weren't.
I believe the announcement for the sale also clearly states that the "Stock" listing is far from being up to date/live, so cannot be relied on in any way. As for why it took 5 days, you do realize you are counting a federal holiday and a weekend against them, right? So, in reality, it was more like 2 days.
You ordered on the 4th. No one was at work. Same for Sat. and Sun.
Monday they come into work and start processing orders and finding out what can't be filled. A day or two later your informed.
Pretty darn good turn around time in my book.
And I think right now it's the middle of the night over there, which means you're not exactly guaranteed a fast reply.
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Lisa posted the following in a post on Friday
"Btw, just because your order goes through doesn't mean that the items will be available. It is kind of complicated, but our distributor's database isn't a real time one, so it only shows us what was in stock as of 10am EST on each weekday morning. So what we have now is what was in stock as of 10am this morning. The next update will be on Monday morning at 10am EST. If there is a mad scramble on Monday from various retailers to buy a limited number of products, there is a chance that Paizo might be left empty-handed, which will mean that we would have to cancel that item from your order once we find out. Basically, being able to check out means that there is a chance at least that the item will be available come Monday when we place our next order with Alliance, but it isn't a guarantee. Which is why I put the text I did at the top of the sale node."
I don't know if that helps answer the question
Director of Sales
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I apologize to those who did not get the items that you ordered. Unfortunately, it is the very nature of these Alliance sales that this is going to happen, as they are clearance sales.
I assure you that the orders we had to cancel were canceled in the reverse order of most-recent-first. By which I mean that that, if your order was canceled, it was because others placed orders before you.
Thanks,
cos
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CEO
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Just to let everyone know, of the 19 products I ordered on July 2, 10 of them got cancelled. As Cosmo said, that is the nature of these sales. Since it is our distributor having the sale on their inventory and not our inventory, we can never gurantee that those sale items are in stock until we place our order. I thought I made that clear on the sale node, but perhaps I should put the text about the ordering process on the node next year. I am sorry that some of you were disappointed. We tried to curb expectations but obviously failed in that regard.
-Lisa
I think it also bears mentioning that while it may have taken us a few days to let folks know that their items weren't available, that didn't mean that we'd been waiting to place those orders with our distributor.
As a general rule we place our orders on a daily basis and this allows us to make every effort to get the products people ordered as soon as possible. But unfortunately the limited nature of a sale like this means that we're not going to be able to fulfill everything for everyone. Like Lisa mentioned, we're very sorry that this surprised some of you and we'll try to make things more clear next time.
The reason it took us a few days to cancel those out-of-stock items was that we were waiting on some new code to help customer service handle the cancellations efficiently. This new code sped up the notification process by days if not a week and made sure that the items were fulfilled in the first-come, first-served manner.
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CEO
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Thank you for offering the sale - I understand this is the first year you have been able to offer it, and the pricing was often simply amazing. I'm just sorry I was able to buy 0 of 4 items.
You and me both. Paizo doesn't make any money from a sale that we can't fulfill any of the items for. I truly wish that we could have fulfilled all of the products you ordered.
Thanks for taking the time to order and post on the messageboards.
-Lisa
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Chief Technical Officer
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I did not understand that you were not dealing with your own inventory.
I'd just like to point out that, since the very start of the sale, the text at the top of the sale page has said the following, in bold type:
"Every year, our main distributor, Alliance, does a huge clearance sale to make room for more product. There are nearly 2,000 products on sale this year, with discounts from 20% to 90% off retail price. Quantities aren't guaranteed, so *orders may have to be cancelled if our distributor runs out of product*." [emphasis mine]
And the store blog and weekly mailing both included the following:
"While the sale ends July 29, many of these products have limited quantities available *at Alliance*, and they may sell out fast." [emphasis mine]
By the way, about 700 items have sold out already, and we remove them as soon as our distributor updates their database or otherwise lets us know that they're unavailable.