Suggestion to minimize out-of-stock times and two others

Archive SparkFun Site Questions/Comments
1

A few suggestions to make your site even more awesome. :slight_smile: I apologize if any of these have been mentioned already. In no particular order:

  1. An option to cancel or modify an order while it is in New Order status. (I know we can ask customer support to do this for us, but it would be neat if we could do it ourselves)

  2. An option to move items between wish lists.

  3. Pre-order low stock items based on orders per day and restock lead time statistics. This would help you to almost never run out of stock on popular items, and to minimize out-of-stock times when you do run out. For example, if statistically an item gets 5 orders per day, and it takes about a week to restock it, then you should order new stock when you’re down to 35 items, instead of waiting until you run out. You can either make this fully automatic, or keep a man in the loop. And you can limit this to the more popular items, for example more than n orders per week.

2

MichaelK83:
A few suggestions to make your site even more awesome. :slight_smile: I apologize if any of these have been mentioned already. In no particular order:

  1. An option to cancel or modify an order while it is in New Order status. (I know we can ask customer support to do this for us, but it would be neat if we could do it ourselves)

  2. An option to move items between wish lists.

  3. Pre-order low stock items based on orders per day and restock lead time statistics. This would help you to almost never run out of stock on popular items, and to minimize out-of-stock times when you do run out. For example, if statistically an item gets 5 orders per day, and it takes about a week to restock it, then you should order new stock when you’re down to 35 items, instead of waiting until you run out. You can either make this fully automatic, or keep a man in the loop. And you can limit this to the more popular items, for example more than n orders per week.

Excellent suggestions!

  1. In the planning phase. We’d like you (the customer) to at least be able to Cancel or Hold an order. More detailed modification would come later.

  2. Not planned, but agreed to as a good idea. I’ll submit the request.

  3. Already do. Many complicated maths tell people what to order and when. Things generally go out of stock due to unplanned events, like unexpectedly large orders, unresponsive (or suddenly defunct) suppliers, massive world-wide supply shortages, etc. Yeah, maybe some human error, too.

Anything else?

3

3.-----

Then there’s that whole “Lean Logistics” thing…

I love hearing about how some “Lean Logistics” clown comes into a business, sets up shop, reworks the math, redoes scheduling, revamps the ordering process, and so on, so that everything ends up being “Lean”, takes his paycheck, and bails out, with instructions for the company to report the results quarterly to his/her home office.

Two weeks later (or two months, doesn’t matter), the bulk of the customers don’t get what they need, orders aren’t being filled, parts are being ordered, customers cancel orders, and so on, because some clown with a degree in Underwater Basket Weaving and attended at a 12-hour seminar over a holiday weekend, thought he/she knew the ins-and-outs of everybody’s business, and knew better than everybody else, and now the shelves are empty, stock is depleted, customers are gone, money is gone, and so on.

I love clowns…

4

@skimask

I was just trowing an idea in the hope of it being useful. But you’re right, I haven’t the slightest idea how real-world business logistics work, not even a 12-hour seminar. Guilty as charged. :oops: However, I’m sure that the folks at SparkFun know much better than me and can apply their own judgment. In fact, I’ve already learnt something new about it from paul’s response, so I guess it was worth it. :slight_smile:

@paul

Glad to hear. Keep up the good work.