Divrdug
Guest
A retailer should never charge a customer for a product until it is shipped and if it cost them more to ship the BO item seprately, well then that's the expense of not keeping a better grasp of their inventory.
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mattroz:It's an online store, the site offered OVERNIGHT shipping... don't blast the OP because he waited. It was a service offered by the website and they didn't follow through. Also, the website offers online purchases, why should he have to call them after!?
Scuba.com:Here is an example of how these back order situations come about. And mind you, this IS NOT an isolated incident. This occurs for me as frequently as once a month with various products.
In December of this past year I took and order from the US Military in Bagdhad for 1000 Spare Air units. Submersible Systems shut down assembly of all Spare Airs to fulfill this order by a very expidited deadline. They pillaged every current order in their wharehouse in Huntington Beach that had not shipped, plus every order and unit that was in production AT CHRISTMAS TIME in order to fill this. It wasn't a difficult choice for SS to make. They were going to sell these very popular items during that season of the year regardless of who purchased them.
The downslope effect of this was last winter's shortage of Spare Air 3.0 units at Christmas time.
This was not the fault of the retailers across the country when they had to back order units. It was totally and completely out of their hands. All they could do is make a promise based on the estimated date that SS gave them on when production would be up and running again. These retailers had no idea this was coming as the order I took came very fast, was labled urgent and was processed and approved by the Army very quickly.
In the case of this order, I didn't cause the back order situation. I do not know the particulars. But when a normally stocked item is back ordered by the manucaturer and back ordered for a couple weeks in a row I am reletively certain there has been a good reason for it. It could be something minor like a production shortage, or it could be something very important like helping to keep our troops alive over seas.
The reason Scuba.com charges in advance is 2 fold. Over the years we have worked very closely with a leading internet banking security company to help develop the more commonly used credit card processing systems used today. Upon taking and processing of an order our system performs Billing Address Verification to protect ourselves and our customers from internet ID fraud. This is performed only at the time of sale by the banks. Once this is completed and ONLY once this is completed to the satisfaction of the banks, does your order go to the wharehouse for fullfillment. All items in stock are then pulled for shipping. This ensures your items are YOUR items. They don't get pillaged for other orders. If there is a back ordered item that will be in stock prior to the estimated delivery date of your order you are not contacted regarding this back order. Only when it becomes apparent that your order will not make an estimated need by date is the customer called and emailed.
Over all the system is very efficient and as you can see from a great deal of our supporters here it works very well the large majority of the time. As we are using an ever evolving technology with the Web we strive very hard every day to make adjustments to the system in order to better serve the divers in our community.
sbrooks:Hate to say it - but poor planning. The best way to get something you need for a dive in a couple days (ie. this weekend) is to go into a shop and buy it.. Then you have the tangible product. While I agree your complaints about the shipping are valid - if they don't have it, they don't have it. They should still have shipped the in stock product, or at least called you ASAP to notify you.