Hypothetical sale question

[Jrome]

From an internet connection point of view, I would suggest not hosting your own server. The internet options out there are limited (slow) and Power is not as reliable as the city is.

A website should be fast and easy to use and be able to handle a bunch of people placing orders at the same time.

Hardware now a days is not as big of a deal, Processors are not much faster then they were a few years ago. The thing that would make a difference for browsing, is your up/down speeds.

MTS Fiber sadly is not option for you guys and shaw is not there. So your stuck with 5-20mb service from mts which has an upload of not even a 1-2mb if your not to far from the CO.

My 2cents.

[SigSavage]

High interest items like this should not even be advertised. Word will get out and people will go to your site. You will sell all the guns. Why artificially concentrate all those sales into a few hours?

[Agent Law]

High interest items like this should not even be advertised. Word will get out and people will go to your site. You will sell all the guns. Why artificially concentrate all those sales into a few hours?

Because inventory on the wall is not making you money?

[strathconaman]

The only thing I would change is, that if for example there was someone who was really interested and offered a price higher then the advertised price (200.00 more I'm not talking about $5) you pre sell it to them. It cuts out the EE resell option because your not going to offer a higher price if you just planing on reselling it and if give the person who is really interest in the rifle ,the chance to pay more to the supplier to guarantee he get the Rifle he wants and the warranty to go with it.

Personally I would rather have the option to pay more and get what I want then have to deal with the EE and pay the same price to a stranger.
I tried this a week before the sale and they said no

[abbynormal]

Hey guys - you did good !

As many have said already - you can't cater to everyone ....

Hummm, let's see - what were people's beefs?

1. Didn't know of the sale
Well, you'd pretty much have to be living under a rock not to of seen the announcement and ensuing threads / posts flogging the subject to death.

2. Server slow.
Well .... two words here - impatient customers. Although some people elevated this to an art form - clicking multiple times, on multiple accounts, using multiple computers all at the same time.
You can't fix stupid.

3. Receiving Hate Mail / Losing a couple customers
Heh, heh - These people flatter themselves - you don't want this sort of customer in the first place, and as for the hate mail - ooooh just wait till their mother finds out what their son is doing in the basement apt. she is allowing him to live in (LOSERS !).

Ok, there is my rant - sorry I had to write this down, but as others have mentioned - some people go through life thinking they are entitled .... they are not.

Congrats on a great sale, great product, and a GREAT STAFF (take a bow Ryan for coming in on the Sunday) !

Abby

[Aniest]

Next time we have a similar situation to what we have just experienced with the CZ 858 sale, how would you, the retail customer like us to handle it?

There is only one fair way to handle it: register for a queue.

When the sale starts don't actually sell them, but take name, PAL # and credit card number on a separate secure page, a very basic page that isn't full of the normal stuff that causes loading and refreshing lag on the server. Something like this with credit card and PAL added:


Then when you reach, let's say 415 names and numbers, shut the registration down and start processing credit card authorization holds (Wiki definition) from the first in the queue until they are gone. A credit card doesn't allow the hold? Won't accept the hold on three tries? Move on. If they all go exactly at 400 then the other 15 are SOL. If more than 15 cards don't work open it back up for the remaining few. Once all 400 are spoken for then start the real processing.

Draw tickets: accusations of fixing, poor charity choice, and a whole lot of issues. I have no issues with it in a lot of ways if there is three items and 500 people wanting one... but I think that when there are 400 and 500-800 people wanting one... too bad for being late.

"Chinese Auction": You'd get a crap load of hate mail on that one. Plus, if you started at $1,995.00 then the guys owning one now would be putting theirs up on the EE at $1799.00 for two days just to pocket the cash and get one of yours when you still had some at $999.00 or less. This one would lose me as a lifetime customer for sure.

Be assured, good sir, you won't find a "perfect" system... but I think a Queue type system that would take stress off your server where it is still a "first come first served" would be best. That's just my opinion, anyways.

[rethius]

Keep it just the way you did it.

[H Wally]

Make sure the website runs perfectly under a heavy load and keep it as-is. Some people with slow internet might get nailed, so maybe have a call-in option?

Otherwise seems fine to me. You're never going to keep everyone happy, and I think you did a good job of trying to keep the market supplied with great decently priced guns.

[bobdbldr]

If you know they are coming, take names, deposit or not, your choice, if you are getting in 1000 rifles, take names for 900 ish. All you have to do then is do the paperwork and send out 9/10 of your product! With the other 10% put a sale on in whatever manner you like, say put 10 on per hour to help folks who have to work etc, all kinds of ways to do it and you won't jam up your net! No need to pay a bunch of money to upgrade a system that works fine except for something like this !! No Panic, people know they are getting one when they arrive and you can do up the paperwork without losing your cool or your customers!

[caribico]

c'etait parfait . Y'auras toujours des chialeux anyway...Je ne vois pas pourquoi un "vrai client " serait offusqué, les regles etaient justes pour tout le monde .

le systeme a fonctionné, pourquoi le changer!!