That stuff is all done automatically. The store’s tills send data to the central warehouse which keeps track of what was shipped to each store and what has sold and what needs reshipping.
The only manual updates needed are when it goes wrong, but it can be hard to know when it has gone wrong. The store may not have been sent stuff because the central warehouse, or supplier, is short of stock. On the other hand …
My local supermarket never had any of a specific hardware item in stock for weeks. Eventually I asked and was told the store’s system did suggest there was a boxful ‘in the back’. They went to look and came back to say the boxful was not there.
“Well, maybe that’s why head office has not shipped any more to you for weeks. They think you still have a boxful to sell. Perhaps someone ought to have noticed the same empty shelf over a period of weeks and asked HO what the issue was. Now, if you tell HO that the store’s system is somehow wrong (maybe a boxful walked out the back door) then I expect HO will get the warehouse to ship you some more. Can you do that?”
A week later I went back and the shelf was fully stocked.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve looked a product up for a specific store, and once I got to the actual physical location it turned out the website was incorrect.
So while your mileage may vary; I’ll still stick with my own opinion based upon my own experiences.
I’m sure it varies from product to product, and from site to site, but stock not matching what’s currently posted online is a common enough issue.
Or they don’t know. A Home Depot employee told me shoplifting is a big problem for their inventory counts. If it says they have three or less online, he said to maybe lower your expectations.
Or, some goober customer has come along, picked the item off the shelf, gone to another part of the store and decided they didn’t want that item, so they put it on another shelf where it doesn’t belong. Any store I’m in, I almost always find something that is not where it’s supposed to be.
Do you know what a retail employee does when you insist they “check the back”? They stand around the corner for a while, resisting the urge to scream, and then come back. It’s either not there or it’s buried so deep it would take too long to fish out. (source: stocked shelves in a supermarket) (this is for other stores. As has been pointed out, Ikea has no stock that’s not accessible to customers)
The fact that - as I said - the stuff is all done automatically, does not preclude the situation where the website may not reflect reality in the store. You seem to have made a false leap from my saying stock control is done automatically to the idea that I was somehow denying your experience. I wasn’t. I don’t know how you reached that conclusion.
Especially as I cited my own experience of one such situation!
And commented on the fact that the automatic systems do go wrong.
My point remains - nobody manually updates any retailer’s website with stock details as a matter of course; it largely only happens to deal with unforeseen exceptions. Central stock management systems update their databases as stock is ordered, received, distributed and sold. Website details re stock availability are derived from these databases via automated data feeds.
(I could relay an only semi-apocryphal story about how Sam Walton managed to dispense with many of Walmart’s stock reordering staff maybe 30 or so years ago, by investing in such a database engine and then allowing the likes of Proctor & Gamble et al to access it, with some heavy - but very astute - quid pro quo. I heard the story first hand from a guy who worked for the firm that sold him the database engine.)
The processes involved in automatic stock tracking (ordering, receiving, distribution and monitoring as it ultimately leaves the store) are ripe with opportunities for error (as my own anecdote illustrated). And some companies are much better than others at designing their processes to account for this, and enable corrections to be made - manually. And store staff not replenishing shelves fast enough after deliveries of more stock are made is a common problem in times of cheap employers, minimum wage staff and not enough of them.
So now, I hope we are good.
Also, fun fact. Many people (especially MBA types doing case studies) seem to sometimes think that in the UK Sainsbury’s were among the first of the supermarkets to install barcode scanning at tills in order to reduce till queue times. Wrong. The business case was entirely predicated on being better able to manage stock control throughout the internal supply chain, from delivery to sales. The reduction in till queueing times resulting from barcodes being scanned rather than checkout staff having to laboriously type in prices and codes was an entirely serendipitous side-effect.
What “back?” Do you think the IKEA warehouse where customers pick up products off storage racks has a second, warehousier warehouse cleverly hidden behind it?
Apparently shoplifting is one of the ways this can go wrong, at least for smaller items. A couple months ago I bought out the last of a specific type of hardware at Home Depot. A few weeks later I needed more, and the store website said they had plenty in stock. When I went in and couldn’t find it, the store worker told me that the system count is often off due to shoplifting. Unfortunately there’s apparently no way for them to know this without doing a cumbersome inventory check (which is apparently not done frequently) or when a customer asks for help and they can’t find it. I hated to be that customer but in that instance it was the only way to get them to reorder inventory. I took care to be polite about it though!
Yep. Shoplifting is one of those things the automated process cannot take account of without a manual/exception update. And nobody knows it needs doing until the system says “in stock” and the customer says “where is it”.
Good/clever retailers train for this and have a process for updating systems when a customer draws attention to it. But too many don’t/can’t train the minimum pay workforce to give a shit or to do it.
Capturing these incidents, though, is a far better way of measuring ‘shrinkage’ (the heading it is euphemistically lumped under, along with ‘broke or spoiled while on the shelves’, etc.) at the item level (some things are way more shopliftable/attractive than others) than just comparing inputs and outputs in an annual stocktake. And when was the last time you saw a real bricks and mortar and flesh and blood store closed for annual stocktaking?
This is a representation of a glass cabinet located in the employee area on the back of each IKEA shop with the Karen customers and Darren employees (smaller box) heads. Now you all know why the Swedes behave.
With the product. Because that has almost always been my experience. Most recently it was a step-ladder at Lowe’s. I’ve gotten toys for my nieces, parts for my car, video games, and even a laptop this way. The laptop took thirty minutes to find, but they did, because I had called earlier (this was CompUSA, before inventory counts were on the website), and it otherwise meant someone was stealing laptops from their secure area.
It’s funny how eager people are to believe to a delusion because it fuels some sort of class war fantasy. I worked at a big box store between high school and college, I’ve written software for RFID readers, so I know how inventory works, and I know discrepancies happen and are almost always the result of shoplifting. And the times when the inventory count is wrong, they’re glad I brought it to their attention.
Only once have I encountered a surly clerk, a teenager at Target. And guess what? They had the video game I wanted after all, though it took another clerk to find it.
I don’t doubt what you’ve experienced, but I hesitate at drawing conclusions from a few samples. There are many, many different processes and systems out there, with multiple opportunities for error to creep in.
In my experience (two decades of working retail for several companies), inventory discrepancies can have many causes, not just shoplifting. Inventory software is a major factor. Some systems will load an entire shipment into inventory even if only part of it gets to the store, creating inaccuracies. Packing mis-ships happen too. A store might get boxes meant for a neighboring location, or somewhere two states away, and if it isn’t caught during the receiving process, figures will be off. And if a system update doesn’t play nicely with a store’s hardware, chaos can result.
I worked for a large company (which collapsed into bankruptcy many years ago.) They rolled out a new inventory system chain-wide, but didn’t realize that it wouldn’t work with a specific hardware build. Over 400 stores, mine included, were affected, and our computer listing rapidly became wildly inaccurate. All I could do was tell customers, “I’m sorry, I can’t look it up, our systems are broken. It will be faster for me to check all the places your item can be than the time it will take to fight with the programming.” Several patches and four full-store inventories later, it was fixed (mostly), but it took months, and it was a major headache for everyone concerned, especially employees.
Most store employees will do their best for their customers, despite the low wages, management pressures and mistreatment, and abuse from the general public that can make the job resemble certain circles of hell. But your average worker has little impact or control over inventory and ordering systems, especially when the vast majority of requisitions are made from a home office (or worse, an outside vendor) that has little-to-no experience with the day-to-day functioning of a store. If you want the best customer service experience, it’s advisable to treat workers with compassion and kindness. It’s not an easy job to do, and putting more obstacles in the worker’s path by heaping anger and frustration on them will only make it harder (if not impossible) for customers to get what they want.
My ikea does have a “back” where they would go to pull countertops for online orders (I don’t know what else is back there, but I’m guessing it is larger heavier items they don’t want customers pulling).
But yeah about the joke… the comedian is talking about the stuff in the normal retail warehouse… if it’s not on the shelf, they don’t have it. But the ikea concept is weird to a US dept store shopper, I could see why someone would at least try customer service.
Yes. Until it doesn’t, as you mention. There an almost infinite number of ways things can go wrong, and but a small number of ways that work correctly. Reminds me of how simple dealing with peoples names is. Or the farcical idea that adding a scanner to a refrigerator is actually going to keep track of what’s in my fridge.
I enjoyed the comedian’s efforts. Lotsa snappy snaps. But WTF is with the sound? And the distracting stuff going on around his neck? I don’t TikTok or Instagram. I’m an old. Maybe this is normal?
That said, I get where @meanidea is coming from. Sometimes swallowing that perfect comeback and (at least) pretending to care about customer service is important. I’ll admit it’s been a long time since I worked retail; we had Karens, but treating them as this fellow suggests would be a good way to no longer work that specific retail. I suspect this makes me some sort of boot-licking corporate cuck.
