Out Of Stock

[Bud]

This is starting to get embarrassing.

Too many products are listed that are not available. Some popular items have 100+ results and no-one has any.

Even though a few merchants do have stock, I have had to cancel promoting some items (or worse, stores) because of the very high percentage of items shown but not available.

This will only get worse in the next few weeks.

Desperately needs something doing.

Can out of stock items be removed either by merchants or at our end?

[chartfieldconsultants]

Why not use it as an excuse to grab their details from them for a mailing list - "click this button to be informed when this item comes back in stock"?

[Bud]

Thanks for the suggestion and I may well do something along that lines, although I'm not sure I can keep up with the hundreds of items that this would involve. Although it does have it's plus points I would rather just not have them in the feed.

[Ugo]

Hi Guys,

Is there any particular merchants that you're talking about? If so, which ones?
So that I can have a look into it for you.

Cheers

Ugo
Support Technician

ugo.offomata@affiliatewindow.com
www.affiliatewindow.com

[Bud]

My particular bugbears are with:

Woolworths
Early Learning Centre
Toys R Us
Simply Games
Power Play Direct
Play
The Toy Shop
Empire Stores
Mail Order Express

I'm sure there are plenty more though.

Thanks Ugo

[Ugo]

Hi Bud,

Thanks very much for the info - very helpful!

Ugo
Support Technician

ugo.offomata@affiliatewindow.com
www.affiliatewindow.com

[Bud]

Ugo

I know you say this is being looked into but looking at my clickthrough stats, I am very alarmed to see that approx. 50-60% of selected items are out of stock!

This REALLY needs addressing as a matter of urgency.

It will only get much worse very quickly.

Thanks

Addition:

I don't know if this will help or just illustrate the problem.

Of the 10 most recent goto's I've had (all within the last hour) 5 were out of stock:

http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Product.aspx/TruOrFindUsing/TruAZOfBrands/BruBabyToysRoary/429910
http://www.woolworths.co.uk/web/jsp/product/index.jsp?pid=50938311&&_requestid=18219
http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Product.aspx/TruHome/TruVideoGames/TruVideoGamesPS3/TruVideoGamesPS3Bundles/815063
http://www.play.com/Product.aspx?r=ELEC&title=3435218&source=9593
http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Product.aspx/TruOrFindUsing/TruAZOfBrands/BruBabyToysRoary/429910

[Ugo]

Hi Bud,

Cheers for the extra info, this will really help in sorting the problem out. I'm still looking into this for you.

Will keep you posted.

Ugo
Support Technician

ugo.offomata@affiliatewindow.com
www.affiliatewindow.com

[Confuscius]

Thanks for highlighting some real cases - from my stats then this would go a long way to explaining why the conversion rates on some merchants is so awful.

Clearly, some thought needs to be given on how to address this issue and that probably warrants a whole new thread!

If you took this to the extreme then having out of stock products is a great way to get some 'free' traffic, so to speak.

What is more interesting is when you look at the cases highlighted in detail - shipped when it is available but does not tell you when, not available for online purchase but at your local store (nice redirect that one!), etc.

My own view is that until a more complete analysis is done then it is hard to see how this issue can be addressed effectively by DigiWin. Here's an idea - how about every time a ShopWindow affiliate sends a visitor to a pointless page then the affiliate charges the merchant a Cost Per Click fee! That ought to wake them up - actually that may be a way for DigiWin to address this issue!!! All they would need to do is create a database of reported 'pointless pages' and credit all Affiliates and bill the relevant Merchants!

Paul