Comments on: To Be or Not to Be Transparent?

By: tv mounting brackets

tv mounting brackets — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:14:08 +0000

I agree that transparency is important in todays internet world. The compromise is keeping things fair for both parties.

By: Boletos

Boletos — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:55:01 +0000

Transparency is important with e-commerce. But we also do have to demand accountability on behalf of customers as well. I’m not saying you should have known it was out of stock. You were going on a recommendation and that is slightly different. But overall, as a customer you need to know what you’re buying. Both parties have to work at making sure the transaction is what they each want.

By: acai

acai — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:39:03 +0000

Hi…
It seems that you have pointed out something that is becoming common for all the people in Europe. Surely its not possible to read the whole page.If It is out of stock then they should have deleted it or may highlight it indicating out of stock.

By: Mark McCormack

Mark McCormack — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:18:40 +0000

Good to see that your comments have made an impact – if you check the site page now the out of stock message is in red at the top. Of course that means that when I looked the item was still not available.

By: Photo Frame

Photo Frame — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:14:00 +0000

Good Article , I want to translate it into Chinese and put it on my blog.

By: John Swensen

John Swensen — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:46:02 +0000

I have been having problems with FastMac also. I ordered mine in the middle of April, when the website said it wouldn’t be available until the first of May. The first of May came and no shipping notice, so I called and was told they were only able to get a limited number every 2 weeks from their overseas manufacturer. They assured me I was in the queue for the next shipment. The 3rd week of May came and still no info. I called and once again was told I was near the head of the queue. I was assured that as of today I should receive a shipping notice. Nothing yet. In the beginning, I was willing to wait the 15-30 days to get a battery that had great reviews. Now I am just upset and will probably cancel, however if they are leading customers like me on, I double a cancel will cause them any heartburn.

By: Maars

Maars — Sun, 24 May 2009 17:59:00 +0000

Happy to discover you on Mac too Hope retailers can get insights from this simples kinds of feedback.

By: Jessica Aron

Jessica Aron — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:27:46 +0000

The title is so well put it made me read your entire post without missing a thing.

Regards,

By: To Be or Not to Be Transparent, Part 2 - News: Everything-e

To Be or Not to Be Transparent, Part 2 - News: Everything-e — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:34:28 +0000

[...] part one, I shared my sordid story of buying a battery for my MacBook Pro from a third-party. In short, I [...]

By: To Be or Not to Be Transparent, Part 2 | FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog

Fri, 08 May 2009 12:27:04 +0000

[...] part one, I shared my sordid story of buying a battery for my MacBook Pro from a third-party. In short, I [...]

By: Eres grande Chuck | Óxido de Selenio

Eres grande Chuck | Óxido de Selenio — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:24:47 +0000

[...] people see it should be reflective of you and the industry easy to look at with a nice navigation when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration a clear Call to action to increase the temptation use appealing graphics they create motivation if [...]

By: Molly Martinez

Molly Martinez — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:00:09 +0000

Transparency is definitely a quality customers appreciate. And if companies don’t catch on to that, they are bound to lose customers in droves at a time.
The fact that their terms and policies were not obvious from the get-go is something they should definitely address. For the retail website I manage, ticketnetwork.com, our terms/policies and guarantee information and placed in a prominent location in the top-right of the event listing sites. Customers not only need the facts, they want the facts. Who wants to feel duped after they handed over their credit card information?
Moreover, I was a little underwhelmed with the dry response you received from the customer service representative. It may as well have been written by an adroid.
While companies need hard capital to run a business, there is little cost to treating customers with respect and provide all the necessary information to make the customer feel satisfied about their purchase.
No matter the business a person is running, if their operations don’t adhere to common business sense practices they will sink sooner that they can say “out of stock till 2010″.

By: Karen Daniels

Karen Daniels — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:03:56 +0000

Though I would consider having availability status clearly posted a best practice, what bothers me most about your experience isn’t the lack of clear out of stock posting but the bad customer service. In a situation like this an email stating out of stock and estimated delivery time could have saved you waiting the week out in vain and of course they should have cancelled your order right away. To me, that is the bigger transgression.

By: Emmanuel

Emmanuel — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:11:16 +0000

The availability status should be clearly labeled at the top of every product page. If it’s back-ordered, show how long the wait will be. That way, you can allow a customer to make their own decision. They can still place the order and wait, or not place the order at all.

The fine print at the bottom of the page is deceptive and sneaky.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:49:43 +0000

Totally bad. I think it’s okay to display a page for items you are out of stock on (for future SEO when you ARE in stock) – but processing the credit card without clearly indicating you don’t have stock is way over the line.

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:14:43 +0000

I agree – it’s a sneaky tactic and should be much more visible. They would avoid many customer service issues and resentment by being upfront. Near the cart button in red bold writing – or remove the cart button altogether if out of stock in my opinion.

By: Pat

Pat — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:04:38 +0000

We’ve set up all product pages to show either the quantity in inventory or the ‘product is out of stock’ message right next to the add to cart button. If a customer tries to add the items to cart, they get an out of stock message. We don’t allow backorders but we are working on adding functionality to ‘email me when this item is back in stock’.

I feel kinda strongly about this after placing an order last holiday season – it was for items that had to be personalized so the order took me FOREVER to complete. Not once did the web site mention that the items were all on back order. I happened to see an ‘estimated shipping date’ on the emailed invoice and called to find out about the backorder.

That was sleazy.

By: Mark Silver

Mark Silver — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:10:25 +0000

First of all, some Argh! Empathy- “Argh! That sucks!”

I can think of a perfectly legit scenario where there is no hanky-panky involved, including how slow they are to fix it. The real problem is that it doesn’t matter if there is any hanky-panky involved or not- the fact is, it looks like there is. Or, at least it’s easy to jump to that conclusion.

This is one of the reasons we’ve chosen not to outsource our product fulfillment. In the rare instances where we’ve goofed in a similar way, we’ve been able to have direct, immediate contact with the customer and make it up to them.

Did you end up getting a different laptop batter in time?

By: Keith Winter

Keith Winter — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:17:37 +0000

I agree completely that the information about it being out of stock should be next to the add to cart button or in the shopping cart. However even if that information is presented, not all customers read it anyway. We put stock info right above the add to cart button, in the shopping cart, AND give them an estimated ship date in the shopping cart AND on the checkout confirmation page AND the purchase receipt. Surprisingly we still get some customers who call us saying they thought it was in stock…we’ve even had customer claim it wasn’t there and we added it later from time to time! Can you believe it?

However in this situation you described it definitely should have been more clearly labeled, that is just misleading.

By: eric

eric — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:12:28 +0000

If they can note that it’s $10 off the regular price high up, they can note that it’s out of stock. … Unless, of course, the “special” sale price is really just the regular price.

By: Brian Bond

Brian Bond — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:50:38 +0000

I had nearly the exact same experience with Dell a few weeks back. Promised delivery dates pre-purchase, then inventory issues causing it to be changed 3 times, finally terrible customer service.

I think transparency is key in this situation- As a business I think one would risk negative brand association for promising what one can’t deliver. At this point I don’t know if I’ll risk another Dell order (and that’s coming from a 10 year customer).

The growing prevalence of oversees manufacturing and just-in-time inventory practices make this scenario all the more prevalent but in my mind it obligates the company to expose the inventory flow issues clearly to the visitor.

I realize companies would still prefer to take the order even if it’s out of stock but why not make it clearer and add alternatives. Change the call to action language to “backorder” and add options to reserve without purchase or be notified when back in stock. This would probably save many of the sales they would have lost through being more transparent and, more importantly, it would not risk the brands reputation. My 2 cents.

By: Daniel Drew

Daniel Drew — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:11:35 +0000

I guess I am jaded another way, I am so use to e-commerce site that I am use to crap like this. Its annoying as hell, and isn’t it sad that anyone would say they “are use to crap like this”. I am sure there are people at Fastmac who have experienced something similar when buying things through an e-commerce site in the past you would thing they wouldn’t want to be like everyone else, but rather would want to be unique and better.

By: Chris "Cartel" English

Chris "Cartel" English — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:06:52 +0000

I’ve set up my cart to not even display out of stock items to reduce just this kind of frustration. I think a lot of store leave these product page visible because it’s good SEO.

Due to the fact that I deal with dropshippers, sometimes and item that I have listed as available is sold out by the time an order goes through but I try every means to get it to the customer ASAP and offer them something extra (a discount) for their troubles.

By: Aurelie Pols

Aurelie Pols — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:42:32 +0000

Hi Bryan,

Nice post. I loved the title as I just decided to open up my LinkedIn account for transparency sake. Seems it’s a hot topic even here, in Europe

Personally, I’d make some online noise about your discontent and see if the company picks it up.
Then you might send a follow-up mail to talk to them about Social Media and it’s measurement and whatnot. I’m sure you have enough down your sleeves to make sure others won’t experience the same frustration.

On the more practical note, this kind of treatment of customers is really sad. Don’t they know their competitors are a click away?
So, no, I really don’t think you’re over reacting!

Keep up the battle, spread the love (of optimization) & enjoy the day,

Aurélie

By: Steve Morris

Steve Morris — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:34:41 +0000

It is hard to see, and I think a lot of us do the same thing you did with not reading every last word on a page.

I think from a moral stand point you need to be informed of an ETA for goods before you hand over payment detail , but from a legality standpoint, it was written on the page.