marstar, ALWAYS SOLD OUT

I'm sure they are just as frustrated as you are! Lots of gun places seem to have trouble getting things, and more importantly keeping things in stock. I'm sure they would love to have unlimited stock to sell on a daily basis, sometimes not the case. Having never met him, and never being in his store, I can only imagine the trials and tribulations that guy goes through to acquire, maintain and support the stuff that he does have. At very least he seems like an interesting man, maybe I can trick him into teaching me some things when I make the trek up there sometime soon. Either way I don't see many retailers in the industry that can offer exactly what they do. Hopefully once the new site is up and running it will be much more user friendly for them and for us.
 
THE YOUNG GUN;
" I'm sure they would love to have unlimited stock to sell on a daily basis, sometimes not the case"
Very true, unfortunately we are at the mercy of manufacturers....

"Either way I don't see many retailers in the industry that can offer exactly what they do. "
We have tried for the past 27 years to offfer what is different, scarce or just plain odd, of course at the lowest possible price.... Thank you for your interest....

Send me an e mail before planning any trip here.... john@marstar.ca

John
 
I must admit, I hate websites that don't show real time inventory.
That being said, I have nothing bad to say about Marstar or John. I was told by one of the motorcycle parts websites that it would cost them over a million dollars to add real time stock to their website. I don't believe it. Now I don't want to buy from them any more.

We've become soo lazy that it's a pain in the ass to pick-up the phone !! Haha.

Hey John, thanks for the great service with my return item ( Pietta 1873, it's stuck in the mail system still ).
 
Real time stocking systems require that you go completely digital. They may have been incorporating the cost of transferring to paper records to computer records. Basically, you need your accounting system tied to a web store, which isn't hard to do anymore. Software as a service CRM's, like Netsuite and Salesforce can have you up and running with an accounting system and web store very quickly. How do I know this? Through my work.

It's not as easy as building a webpage, you have to have your entire backend supporting it. This means changing the way you do business and training people on a new system. Sure Marstar could just build a new webpage that didn't suck as hard, but if it's not integrated into a CRM, you're still going to have to pay people to maintain 2 systems. This is not counting the hosting fees, hardware costs, and training your web master.

Here's how most sane companies proceed:

1) Hire consultant, build requirements
2) Put out RFI
3) Discuss ROI based on results
4) Tender
5) Hope your SLA is legally binding in your province (haha) and not in Alabama!

In my own personal experience, the most annoying part of these systems is the on-line shipping system. Putting the weights and dimensions in, and having the system calculate how much extra it'll cost is annoying. If I were to order an m305 and a shim kit from Marstar, I'd expect that shim kit to not cost more than a small handling fee for shipping. You basically have to tell the system not to charge money for shipping if it's going in with another package, but what if the pieces are in 2 different locations? Your system doesn't know that, and in all the frustration 2 packages go out and you lose money.

The other problem I have is the single point of failure you create with the website. If it goes down, and you're manually submitting orders, you completely screw up your inventory levels unless you go in and alter things later. When the sky starts falling, things get messed up, and it's hard to recover. Funny how technology can do that when you rely too much on it.
 
CRM is customer relations manager. If you talk to someone on the phone and they pull something up on a computer, they're using a CRM. You integrate that into your inventory system, so the CSR can get stuff sent to you while you're talking on the phone, or check a tracking number when you ask.

SLA is a service level agreement (Support contract), meaning if the requirements aren't met, they have to fix things. The joke here is that sometimes these agreements state something like: "We will follow the jurisdiction of the state of Alabama for all legal action" if the company doing the work is based in Alabama, making it difficult to know what the hell that means. You basically need to hire a legal consultant there that knows if you have more rights in Ontario vs Alabama.

You can start to see why people roll with a crappy website for so long. In order to do it properly, it's big bucks, and changes the way you do business internally. You always meet resistance at first, and employees use the new system to make excuses for stuff not getting done. I've seen the rejection to acceptance phase take like 18 months before, but I've never worked for a gun company, so it may be different.
 
R1 DAVE;
"I must admit, I hate websites that don't show real time inventory."

Our new site will have the inventory updated as sales are made.... Inventory on the site can thereby show in or out, whichever applies.... It will NOT show quantities in stock....
And yes it is very expensive to do the site the way we want....
John
 
ROCKET SURGERY;
Well now you add it up, six months ago we started with a consultant, examined studies and reports, have a full time web master, hired a graphic arts person specializing in web design, purchased an on site server, a lot of specialty software that will require some custom work....

Yes all phases of the business will be fully integrated, that was started months ago....

As for downtime, our server wikk feature triple redundancy, we can't run out of power we have massive generator back up.

Being a gun company anyone working here MUST have a valid PAL, just one of the problems with outside help

Being that we deal with various government agencies we are very reluctant to have outside contractors in our books,

John
 
check the site often...book mark it..... when stuff pops up order it that same day.

thats how i get stuff.... and leave you with the "sold out" status!

;)

got my Norinco USGI 1911A1 that way..."only a few" in stock and I ordered mine within a day or two of them coming in! I got one! wo wo!

Checked their website every day for a year or so to get it ;b
 
johnone said:
THE YOUNG GUN;
" I'm sure they would love to have unlimited stock to sell on a daily basis, sometimes not the case"
Very true, unfortunately we are at the mercy of manufacturers....

"Either way I don't see many retailers in the industry that can offer exactly what they do. "
We have tried for the past 27 years to offfer what is different, scarce or just plain odd, of course at the lowest possible price.... Thank you for your interest....

Send me an e mail before planning any trip here.... john@marstar.ca

John
Click to expand...

I will definetly do that. Might be beneficial to you to be out of the office that day, 22 years old with an insatiable appetite to learn, you may get tired of talking, from what I hear your store has quite some interesting things in it.
 
Well sometimes the item you want is in stock but the site is not updated, so best to call. I have bought a few things from Marstar, maybe I have been lucky and the shipment came in when I called but the customer service I have recieved has always been very good. I have a Pietta BP revolver on order now and Jim has helped me out because my fax never made it and I am very happy with the service. Hopefully I don't end up with two or yeah it was an accident honey, really, I bought it for you. Followed by my face on a milk carton and a news report about a missing soldier.....
 
That’s the beauty of healthy competition, if you don’t like it shop somewhere else……. Period.
 
HDFFEJ & OTHERS;
" I would say it was my favourite site to go to untill I noticed everything I wanted was sold out. I don't go there anymore. "

I agree it can be frustrating, as I have posted elsewhere on CGN, we are building a new site, it will be a few months before it is up and running.

If any of you can offer or suggest a solution to our problems and issues with suppliers we would welcome your input.....

A few of the problems we have to which we would welcome input;
1)How to get foreign governments off their butt and follow the promised schedules
2) Get our foreign transite permits on time
3) get our foreign export permits on time
4) make the shipping lines stick to schedules
5) force shipping lines to accept cargo when they are wrong in their "policies"
6) getting all Canadian ports to accept all cargoes
7) getting Canadian port authorities to review cargo before refusing entry
8) getting Canada Customs to examine cargo in a timely manner, not 2-3-4 weeks after arrival, we should insist on "immediate service"

For example we just received some surplus goods that we purchased and paid for 20 months ago, even though it was promised "within a few weeks"

I await your input
John
B]
 
johnone said:
For example we just received some surplus goods that we purchased and paid for 20 months ago, even though it was promised "within a few weeks"
B][/B]
Click to expand...

Hold on now, let's focus on this.... what is about to go on sale and how much room do I need on my Mastercard???
 
I suppose jumping up and down screaming I am a taxpayer wouldn't help, eh? and I am guessing higher bribes would be passed on in the retail price too.... HHHMMmmm. I am fresh out of idea's. I am just kidding anyway. Not to kiss your ass too much John but most of us appreciate the delicate art of feeding our addictions that you go through, and it is appreciated. I am assuming there are far more things that you do then just this small list. I know dealing with just this crap would drive me to drink. On behalf of myself and the other satisfied customers. Thanks.

johnone said:
If any of you can offer or suggest a solution to our problems and issues with suppliers we would welcome your input.....

A few of the problems we have to which we would welcome input;
1)How to get foreign governments off their butt and follow the promised schedules
2) Get our foreign transite permits on time
3) get our foreign export permits on time
4) make the shipping lines stick to schedules
5) force shipping lines to accept cargo when they are wrong in their "policies"
6) getting all Canadian ports to accept all cargoes
7) getting Canadian port authorities to review cargo before refusing entry
8) getting Canada Customs to examine cargo in a timely manner, not 2-3-4 weeks after arrival, we should insist on "immediate service"
B][/B]
Click to expand...
 
John, I too am in the retail game...we must not forget the 80/20 rule of customer service...80% of our customers are satisfied with our efforts, and 20% WILL NEVER BE SATISFIED, so don't let them grind you down.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom