Real-time Inventory Lookup Should be Standard Ecommerce Functionality

Yes, I’m a procrastinator. I tend to do whatever seems important at the moment, which means that some things don’t get done until they become what is important at the moment. That’s why my web development firm uses a project management system and why I use a PDA. If I didn’t plan ahead, then many of the things that are important but not urgent wouldn’t get touched until it was too late to do them.

Unfortunately for me, Christmas shopping doesn’t seem to make it to my “important right now” list until around the 23rd.

This often means that whatever I want to get someone is often sold out at most locations, and I don’t like driving around to 10 stores looking for the something. 15 years ago, the alternative to driving around would have been to call all the stores first. But because of the Internet, we now have the ability to check the inventory of local stores in real-time. At least in theory.

This morning, I started looking for a Homedics Shiatsu massaging chair cover. Evidently the same advertising that put it into my mind to get this for my wife also worked on other people, because the thing is sold out everywhere. I actually tried just going to Wal Mart and a few other stores and walked around until I realized they didn’t have it. So then I went to the Homedics website to find out where I could buy it, and was quickly able to find a list of many stores that carry it. So far so good.

But as I would go onto each store’s website I found that each store’s ecommerce functionality was a little different. Every store had the basic product listing, most of which included the message “on backorder”. They meant it was on backorder for the online store, but most of the websites had no link saying “Check your local store’s inventory to see if they have this product”. One said “Call you local store for availability”.

Now why is it that not every store had a link saying “Put in your zip code and we’ll tell you if a store near you has this product”? To me, this should be standard ecommerce functionality. So why isn’t it there on all the sites?

I can’t think of any good reason to not have it, since the natural inclination after visiting a site that doesn’t have it is to go to another website. Even if a store doesn’t have the product I’m looking for, I’ve found that I am more positively disposed towards shopping at that store in the future, because I feel like they “get it”.

The only explanations I can find for why an online store would not have real-time inventory lookup are cost or incompetence. That is, the systems already in place to manage inventory don’t lend themselves to setting up real-time, web connected interfaces, or the CTO doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t understand the importance of having this functionality on the company’s website.

The technical issue is certainly the easier one to fix. Of course each situation is different, and it might be quite expensive for some retailers to implement this functionality, but I think for most retailers it would be well worth it, because more and more consumers will demand it. Not only is it a great marketing tool, but it can save money. In frustration I called several stores this morning. I tied up phone lines and a bit of employee time by making them go look on shelves for this Shiatsu massage seat pad.

For new retailers just starting up, I’d highly recommend finding a system that manages point of sale (POS), inventory, and hooks into an online store so that you can start out on the right foot and provide this valuable service to your customers.

Out of the 20-30 stores in my area that the Homedics website says carry this product, there may be one of them that has it in stock. But I don’t have the time to drive around today looking at all of them, and I don’t have the will to call all of them. I would be willing to look online if they had the functionality, but most of them don’t. So now I just need to figure out to word all of this into an explanation to my wife for why she’s not getting any good presents this year…