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| | | Author: | Bond  | | Posted: | Aug 14, 2020 20:18 | | Subject: | Take a Number? | | Viewed: | 198 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | | Status: | Open | | Vote: | [Yes|No] | |
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| (I promise not to get butt-hurt if this suggestion gets shot down while in low
orbit).
At this very moment, I am in the middle of processing 49 orders, received in
the last 48 hours. No complaints on that score...I'm glad my store has what
folks are looking for.
However, as I don't like to keep my customers waiting for who-knows-how-long
for an invoice, I felt like I had to at least keep up communications by sending
each of them a quick note on the order of "Your number in line is X (of Y orders)".
My reason for this is so that customers will not simply assume that I am ignoring
them, and that it takes time and effort (on top of working a regular full-time
job) to pull, package, and invoice orders.
So my suggestion is simple, although I am unsure how difficult it would be to
implement code-wise. If a seller has, say, more than X number of orders (minimum
could be set by the seller) at a specified time of day, an automated short message
to the buyer (which the seller can also author the basis of) could say something
like "Please be patient. Your order number in line is #." As orders are invoiced,
tbe number in line drops by -1, and if the number of un-invoiced orders drops
down to the specified minimum, the notes are no longer sent, and will not be
sent unless, again, that seller gets more orders and the number of un-invoiced
numbers again rises to the minimum or greater.
Q: Doesn't that mean that the buyer will keep getting these as their number
in line changes?
A: Preferably not. The idea is that they only get one message - at the moment
that the minimum number of un-invoiced orders reaches or is greater than the
minimum value at the specified time.
Q: But sellers get orders at all hours of the day. When exactly does the system
decide that, okay, this seller at this time has this many orders, which equals
or exceeds X?
A: At a precise time of the day by US Pacific Time; say, early in the morning
following daily maintenance. So say that the seller, at 3:30 AM USPT, has at
that moment 14 un-invoiced orders. Now, the minimum set by the seller to implement
the number-in-line option is 5. But, of these 14, seven have already received
this message. Thus, the remaining seven would, at that time, receive a message
saying "Please be patient. Your order number in line is currently # (of Y un-invoiced
orders)."
Probably a long shot at best, but I daresay that many of us have been in a busy
store (a NY deli comes to mind) - before COVID - where you had to take a paper
number while glancing at a digital indicator which said "Now serving #". This
idea is based on that. At this moment, I am thinking of Baskin-Robbins ice cream
store. Do they still have those?
- Pat (BL ID: Bond)
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| | | | | Author: | SasquatchBricks | | Posted: | Aug 14, 2020 20:37 | | Subject: | Re: Take a Number? | | Viewed: | 46 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
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| In Suggestions, Bond writes:
| | (I promise not to get butt-hurt if this suggestion gets shot down while in low
orbit).
At this very moment, I am in the middle of processing 49 orders, received in
the last 48 hours. No complaints on that score...I'm glad my store has what
folks are looking for.
However, as I don't like to keep my customers waiting for who-knows-how-long
for an invoice, I felt like I had to at least keep up communications by sending
each of them a quick note on the order of "Your number in line is X (of Y orders)".
My reason for this is so that customers will not simply assume that I am ignoring
them, and that it takes time and effort (on top of working a regular full-time
job) to pull, package, and invoice orders.
So my suggestion is simple, although I am unsure how difficult it would be to
implement code-wise. If a seller has, say, more than X number of orders (minimum
could be set by the seller) at a specified time of day, an automated short message
to the buyer (which the seller can also author the basis of) could say something
like "Please be patient. Your order number in line is #." As orders are invoiced,
tbe number in line drops by -1, and if the number of un-invoiced orders drops
down to the specified minimum, the notes are no longer sent, and will not be
sent unless, again, that seller gets more orders and the number of un-invoiced
numbers again rises to the minimum or greater.
Q: Doesn't that mean that the buyer will keep getting these as their number
in line changes?
A: Preferably not. The idea is that they only get one message - at the moment
that the minimum number of un-invoiced orders reaches or is greater than the
minimum value at the specified time.
Q: But sellers get orders at all hours of the day. When exactly does the system
decide that, okay, this seller at this time has this many orders, which equals
or exceeds X?
A: At a precise time of the day by US Pacific Time; say, early in the morning
following daily maintenance. So say that the seller, at 3:30 AM USPT, has at
that moment 14 un-invoiced orders. Now, the minimum set by the seller to implement
the number-in-line option is 5. But, of these 14, seven have already received
this message. Thus, the remaining seven would, at that time, receive a message
saying "Please be patient. Your order number in line is currently # (of Y un-invoiced
orders)."
Probably a long shot at best, but I daresay that many of us have been in a busy
store (a NY deli comes to mind) - before COVID - where you had to take a paper
number while glancing at a digital indicator which said "Now serving #". This
idea is based on that. At this moment, I am thinking of Baskin-Robbins ice cream
store. Do they still have those?
- Pat (BL ID: Bond)
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My suggestion is simple, if you are behind, close your store and catch up, people
understand and will wait to order more when you re-open. Don't get to a point
where you are overrun and start making mistakes because you are in a hurry to
catch up. It will pile up if you don't get a handle on it. Put a simple closed
message up and go about your processing.
Scott
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| | | | | | | Author: | Bond | | Posted: | Aug 14, 2020 21:17 | | Subject: | Re: Take a Number? | | Viewed: | 39 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
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| In Suggestions, mach1baby writes:
| | My suggestion is simple, if you are behind, close your store and catch up, people
understand and will wait to order more when you re-open. Don't get to a point
where you are overrun and start making mistakes because you are in a hurry to
catch up. It will pile up if you don't get a handle on it. Put a simple closed
message up and go about your processing.
Scott
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Yeah...you're probably right. I closed a few minutes ago with reason "Catching
up on existing orders."
However, I'm still butt-hurt. 
- Pat
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| | | | | Author: | tons_of_bricks | | Posted: | Aug 14, 2020 21:10 | | Subject: | Re: Take a Number? | | Viewed: | 40 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
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| Wouldn't work for our store. While we mostly do orders from oldest to newest,
if there are small orders (10 lots or less), we'll usually put those together
sooner and give ourselves a little more time on bigger orders. We also have a
Brickowl store, and we have take those orders into account too, and of course
bricklink couldn't do that.
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| | | | | | | Author: | Bond | | Posted: | Aug 14, 2020 21:19 | | Subject: | Re: Take a Number? | | Viewed: | 34 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
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| In Suggestions, firestar246 writes:
| | Wouldn't work for our store. While we mostly do orders from oldest to newest,
if there are small orders (10 lots or less), we'll usually put those together
sooner and give ourselves a little more time on bigger orders. We also have a
Brickowl store, and we have take those orders into account too, and of course
bricklink couldn't do that.
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And I quote Mr. Carlin:
"I got a lot of good ideas; problem is, most of 'em suck."
Oh well, I have to throw one out there every now and then, just to keep my hand
in the game.
- Pat
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| | | | | Author: | Heartbricker | | Posted: | Aug 14, 2020 21:31 | | Subject: | Re: Take a Number? | | Viewed: | 42 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
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| In Suggestions, Bond writes:
| | (I promise not to get butt-hurt if this suggestion gets shot down while in low
orbit).
At this very moment, I am in the middle of processing 49 orders, received in
the last 48 hours. No complaints on that score...I'm glad my store has what
folks are looking for.
However, as I don't like to keep my customers waiting for who-knows-how-long
for an invoice, I felt like I had to at least keep up communications by sending
each of them a quick note on the order of "Your number in line is X (of Y orders)".
My reason for this is so that customers will not simply assume that I am ignoring
them, and that it takes time and effort (on top of working a regular full-time
job) to pull, package, and invoice orders.
So my suggestion is simple, although I am unsure how difficult it would be to
implement code-wise. If a seller has, say, more than X number of orders (minimum
could be set by the seller) at a specified time of day, an automated short message
to the buyer (which the seller can also author the basis of) could say something
like "Please be patient. Your order number in line is #." As orders are invoiced,
tbe number in line drops by -1, and if the number of un-invoiced orders drops
down to the specified minimum, the notes are no longer sent, and will not be
sent unless, again, that seller gets more orders and the number of un-invoiced
numbers again rises to the minimum or greater.
Q: Doesn't that mean that the buyer will keep getting these as their number
in line changes?
A: Preferably not. The idea is that they only get one message - at the moment
that the minimum number of un-invoiced orders reaches or is greater than the
minimum value at the specified time.
Q: But sellers get orders at all hours of the day. When exactly does the system
decide that, okay, this seller at this time has this many orders, which equals
or exceeds X?
A: At a precise time of the day by US Pacific Time; say, early in the morning
following daily maintenance. So say that the seller, at 3:30 AM USPT, has at
that moment 14 un-invoiced orders. Now, the minimum set by the seller to implement
the number-in-line option is 5. But, of these 14, seven have already received
this message. Thus, the remaining seven would, at that time, receive a message
saying "Please be patient. Your order number in line is currently # (of Y un-invoiced
orders)."
Probably a long shot at best, but I daresay that many of us have been in a busy
store (a NY deli comes to mind) - before COVID - where you had to take a paper
number while glancing at a digital indicator which said "Now serving #". This
idea is based on that. At this moment, I am thinking of Baskin-Robbins ice cream
store. Do they still have those?
- Pat (BL ID: Bond)
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Getting a message from a seller saying i'm 49th in line is not too useful:
some stores have employees and can process 50 orders per day, some stores are
a one person operation (i'm assuming you are based on size) so getting a
message that i'm 49th in line might be a turn off.
Your best bet is to have an estimated processing time listed on your store terms
(for example 3 days) and if you reach a point where you have so many orders where
you may not be able to meet that estimate- pause (close) the store temporarily
until you catch up.
If you're unable to catch up on packing, bad feedback is going to catch up
and ruin your reputation.
These are uncertain times so if god forbid you got sick and could catch up on
packing 50 order- there may be 3 buyers out of those 50 that may not be very
understanding and file NSS which will cause catastrophic damage to your store
once you're back to health.
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| | | | | Author: | Teup | | Posted: | Aug 15, 2020 04:24 | | Subject: | Re: Take a Number? | | Viewed: | 44 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
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| In Suggestions, Bond writes:
| | (I promise not to get butt-hurt if this suggestion gets shot down while in low
orbit).
At this very moment, I am in the middle of processing 49 orders, received in
the last 48 hours. No complaints on that score...I'm glad my store has what
folks are looking for.
However, as I don't like to keep my customers waiting for who-knows-how-long
for an invoice, I felt like I had to at least keep up communications by sending
each of them a quick note on the order of "Your number in line is X (of Y orders)".
My reason for this is so that customers will not simply assume that I am ignoring
them, and that it takes time and effort (on top of working a regular full-time
job) to pull, package, and invoice orders.
So my suggestion is simple, although I am unsure how difficult it would be to
implement code-wise. If a seller has, say, more than X number of orders (minimum
could be set by the seller) at a specified time of day, an automated short message
to the buyer (which the seller can also author the basis of) could say something
like "Please be patient. Your order number in line is #." As orders are invoiced,
tbe number in line drops by -1, and if the number of un-invoiced orders drops
down to the specified minimum, the notes are no longer sent, and will not be
sent unless, again, that seller gets more orders and the number of un-invoiced
numbers again rises to the minimum or greater.
Q: Doesn't that mean that the buyer will keep getting these as their number
in line changes?
A: Preferably not. The idea is that they only get one message - at the moment
that the minimum number of un-invoiced orders reaches or is greater than the
minimum value at the specified time.
Q: But sellers get orders at all hours of the day. When exactly does the system
decide that, okay, this seller at this time has this many orders, which equals
or exceeds X?
A: At a precise time of the day by US Pacific Time; say, early in the morning
following daily maintenance. So say that the seller, at 3:30 AM USPT, has at
that moment 14 un-invoiced orders. Now, the minimum set by the seller to implement
the number-in-line option is 5. But, of these 14, seven have already received
this message. Thus, the remaining seven would, at that time, receive a message
saying "Please be patient. Your order number in line is currently # (of Y un-invoiced
orders)."
Probably a long shot at best, but I daresay that many of us have been in a busy
store (a NY deli comes to mind) - before COVID - where you had to take a paper
number while glancing at a digital indicator which said "Now serving #". This
idea is based on that. At this moment, I am thinking of Baskin-Robbins ice cream
store. Do they still have those?
- Pat (BL ID: Bond)
|
Hmm, I understand your idea, but I guess I'm of the philosophy: Only provide
the customer with information that they can use to make decisions.
They could do something with it if they would see in advance how many orders
are waiting so they can decide whether or not to place the order, but after it's
been placed they're just going to have to wait anyway. As long as the wait
time matches what you have specified in your terms, then they should just be
OK with it.
And if it's going to take significantly longer than in other stores (say,
more than 4 days) it's best to restrict the order flow to match customer
expectation, because no matter what a seller puts in their terms, their products
will be shown adjacent to other sellers products by Bricklink, from which it's
fair for a customer to assume there are no huge differences in the order process.
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| | | | | | | Author: | Heartbricker | | Posted: | Aug 15, 2020 18:38 | | Subject: | Re: Take a Number? | | Viewed: | 48 times | | Topic: | Suggestions | |
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| In Suggestions, Teup writes:
| | In Suggestions, Bond writes:
| | (I promise not to get butt-hurt if this suggestion gets shot down while in low
orbit).
At this very moment, I am in the middle of processing 49 orders, received in
the last 48 hours. No complaints on that score...I'm glad my store has what
folks are looking for.
However, as I don't like to keep my customers waiting for who-knows-how-long
for an invoice, I felt like I had to at least keep up communications by sending
each of them a quick note on the order of "Your number in line is X (of Y orders)".
My reason for this is so that customers will not simply assume that I am ignoring
them, and that it takes time and effort (on top of working a regular full-time
job) to pull, package, and invoice orders.
So my suggestion is simple, although I am unsure how difficult it would be to
implement code-wise. If a seller has, say, more than X number of orders (minimum
could be set by the seller) at a specified time of day, an automated short message
to the buyer (which the seller can also author the basis of) could say something
like "Please be patient. Your order number in line is #." As orders are invoiced,
tbe number in line drops by -1, and if the number of un-invoiced orders drops
down to the specified minimum, the notes are no longer sent, and will not be
sent unless, again, that seller gets more orders and the number of un-invoiced
numbers again rises to the minimum or greater.
Q: Doesn't that mean that the buyer will keep getting these as their number
in line changes?
A: Preferably not. The idea is that they only get one message - at the moment
that the minimum number of un-invoiced orders reaches or is greater than the
minimum value at the specified time.
Q: But sellers get orders at all hours of the day. When exactly does the system
decide that, okay, this seller at this time has this many orders, which equals
or exceeds X?
A: At a precise time of the day by US Pacific Time; say, early in the morning
following daily maintenance. So say that the seller, at 3:30 AM USPT, has at
that moment 14 un-invoiced orders. Now, the minimum set by the seller to implement
the number-in-line option is 5. But, of these 14, seven have already received
this message. Thus, the remaining seven would, at that time, receive a message
saying "Please be patient. Your order number in line is currently # (of Y un-invoiced
orders)."
Probably a long shot at best, but I daresay that many of us have been in a busy
store (a NY deli comes to mind) - before COVID - where you had to take a paper
number while glancing at a digital indicator which said "Now serving #". This
idea is based on that. At this moment, I am thinking of Baskin-Robbins ice cream
store. Do they still have those?
- Pat (BL ID: Bond)
|
Hmm, I understand your idea, but I guess I'm of the philosophy: Only provide
the customer with information that they can use to make decisions.
They could do something with it if they would see in advance how many orders
are waiting so they can decide whether or not to place the order, but after it's
been placed they're just going to have to wait anyway. As long as the wait
time matches what you have specified in your terms, then they should just be
OK with it.
And if it's going to take significantly longer than in other stores (say,
more than 4 days) it's best to restrict the order flow to match customer
expectation, because no matter what a seller puts in their terms, their products
will be shown adjacent to other sellers products by Bricklink, from which it's
fair for a customer to assume there are no huge differences in the order process.
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+1
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USA, Texas
Netherlands, Utrecht