Am I in the wrong or right here? (PB Tech) question

Forums › Off topic › Am I in the wrong or right here? (PB Tech) question

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Rickles

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#1673818 18-Nov-2016 19:50

The registered Company Director for Wellington is Mark Qing SHUE.

Ask for him on 801 6888.

Just recently I had a problem with RAM I bought from them not working, and they spent time swapping modules in and out until we found one that worked .... very polite and concentrated on the problem to solve it in around 15 minutes grabbing different brands off the shelves etc.

[Mod edit (MF): removed personal contact details]

mdf

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#1673824 18-Nov-2016 19:58

@NikT is active on Geekzone. He's very knowledgeable and I've always enjoyed dealing with him (other than this one time at a conference where he let me try on a VR headset and I got so nauseous I had to have a quiet sit down. Can't really pin that one on him though).

NikT

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#1673860 18-Nov-2016 20:45

Hey guys!

First up: Like any organisation, Hanlon's Razor applies. Things are usually a mistake or oversight well before they're a malicious scheme. Most organisations I've worked for and with, including the biggest names out there, are far too busy with BAU to rub their hands together, cackle manically, and execute anything intentionally devious. :)

Regarding stock levels on Cyber Monday: With help from the management and development teams (All of PB's core systems are internally developed and maintained), I put together an FAQ for some of the weird-looking stuff with stock levels that customers asked about after Cyber Monday. This was essentially a case of what's clear-cut internally not necessarily seeming so clear-cut externally, i.e. the difference between supplier stock and PB stock. Plus there was a conscious effort to learn from last year's Cyber Monday (In a stroke of excellent timing, I started at PB the day before Black Friday last year...), in which backorders were allowed. Suppliers could not deliver some backorders in the quantities requested, since it turned out they simply didn't have the stock on hand that their automatic feeds said they did, so it was a crappy experience for the poor folks who backordered. In a nutshell, we didn't want to oversell and be unable to deliver.

Behind the scenes, the dev team set up a buffer of 1-2 units of some products - which were store stock rather than head office stock - for a couple of good reasons. Firstly, because the stores simply can't perform a full stocktake between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so can't guarantee the store stock levels are 100% accurate. It's a massive sale and stuff can and does go missing or get stolen. Fact of retail. That, and if it was all present and accounted for, it would leave 1-2 units that could be delivered to folks who missed out for whatever reason on a case-by-case basis if needed. That's why some products with, say, 2 units left may have seemed to disappear during Cyber Monday.

We also turned off the supplier feeds during the sale because experience says the supplier feeds aren't as concrete as we'd like them to be outside of day-to-day orders - e.g. they'll happily accommodate an order of 5 units, but an order of 500 may not actually be in their local warehouses and may have a how-long's-a-piece-of-string lead time. Also because loads of stuff is below cost on Cyber Monday and the intention is to sell what we have to our customers rather than empty the entire supply to NZ for the foreseeable future.

On the Mate 8 specifically: Mate 8 was a Black Friday hero product at a crazy low price - I told the product manager I'd happily line up any day of the week for one of those at ~$449 when it was first floated - and there was stock in the hundreds rather than the teens. All products that were advertised on Black Friday and were still in stock Cyber Monday were sold at the Black Friday prices online, but the superhero crazy-price doorbusters weren't advertised as Cyber Monday specials because we knew there wouldn't be enough left post Black Friday to meet reasonable demand. Wasn't gonna say "Hey everyone we've got refurb Galaxy S6s for $399, come get some!" when there were only three left, y'know? Mate 8 was in that boat.

It does strike me as odd that five units reappeared at head office, as the buffer was strictly store stock only, but I suspect what's happened there is either cancelled orders, or people pounced on them immediately when the sale went live, and then didn't complete the sale for whatever reason (Possibly our payment gateway provider's assurances that there would be enough capacity to cover 50k+ orders at 6pm, cough cough).

Good news is, there's still four left, and I'm glad there are for reasons exactly like this: If you're still interested in a Mate 8, drop me a line at nik(dot)turner(at)pbtech.co.nz and we'll get one to you at the sale price.

Hope that helps.

Product Manager @ PB Tech

Smartphones @ PB Tech | Headphones @ PB Tech

mdf

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#1673863 18-Nov-2016 20:53

NikT:

Hey guys!

Good news is, there's still four left, and I'm glad there are for reasons exactly like this: If you're still interested in a Mate 8, drop me a line at nik(dot)turner(at)pbtech.co.nz and we'll get one to you at the sale price.

Geekzone at it's finest!

tripp

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#1673869 18-Nov-2016 20:58

@nikt

Good going man :)

Flatmate also like his early xmas present of the apple watch I got him for $215 :)

BillieJoe

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#1673872 18-Nov-2016 21:02

NikT:

Hey guys!

Good news is, there's still four left, and I'm glad there are for reasons exactly like this: If you're still interested in a Mate 8, drop me a line at nik(dot)turner(at)pbtech.co.nz and we'll get one to you at the sale price.

Really appreciate it man.

Sent you an email, thank you so much.

maoriboy

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#1673874 18-Nov-2016 21:14

That is some awesome service there @nikt. One of the many reasons I shop at pbtech. You just can't buy that kinda service.

Equinox IT

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surfisup1000

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#1673887 18-Nov-2016 22:10

NikT:

Things are usually a mistake or oversight well before they're a malicious scheme. Most organisations I've worked for and with, including the biggest names out there, are far too busy with BAU to rub their hands together, cackle manically, and execute anything intentionally devious. :)

Ha, certainly some truth in that.

Keyword is 'usually', from a customer perspective you weigh up the evidence and try to decide what might be the case -- and customers do not have the inside knowledge of the inner machinations of a business.

Great response though.

Must admit, while I've had several issues over the years with PB tech I still buy goods from them. They have been good for the IT retail market and you can be reasonably sure they'll still be around next year if your purchase goes kaput.

dafman

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#1674308 19-Nov-2016 20:15

NikT:

Hey guys!

Good news is, there's still four left, and I'm glad there are for reasons exactly like this: If you're still interested in a Mate 8, drop me a line at nik(dot)turner(at)pbtech.co.nz and we'll get one to you at the sale price.

Yee gawds, was I the only one that thought the above was an impregnable explanation as to why stock unavailable at sale suddenly appeared in stock straight after? Simple problem, a simple explanation should have ensued.

That said, it sounds like PBTech have done the right thing by the punter in the end, so, I guess, props to them.

lNomNoml

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#1674312 19-Nov-2016 20:41

BillieJoe:

This is regarding PB Tech's Cyber Monday sale. The item I was interested in (huawei mate 8) had it's price dropped to the sale price, but as soon as it was dropped the phone then became unavailable. I hit up the live chat to ask about it, who said that they sold out and wouldn't be getting stock for a long time as the phone was discontinued. As of several hours after the sale (at full price) the exact product is back in stock with 5 units at the head office.

Would I be wrong to assume that something shady is going on? Or am I looking to deeply into this?

Cheers guys.

https://i.gyazo.com/55e0ef72729caec68bb3165e53498569.png

https://gyazo.com/beeefdae5b210602613d1570d52cd103

It's also very possible that someone put an order in for them and never completed the order.

simon14

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#1675931 23-Nov-2016 11:19

Not that it helps now, but Noel Leeming also had this phone on sale from $699 to $439 on a 1 day sale.

Noel had plenty of stock, i was watching the stock level all day and finally purcahsed it about 2pm and picked up from store at 4pm.

Very nice phone BTW.

Dynamic

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#1675943 23-Nov-2016 11:44

gzt: It is kind of possible they allocated say 2 phones for the sale and these sold very quickly leaving no more stock allocated for the sale.

Imo the commerce commission would take a dim view of this if the quantity available was not advertised. You want to buy a phone not enter a click bait competition. Disputes tribunal, I'm not sure. Depends on the evidence.

I understand from a Fair Go episode years ago that retailers cannot advertise a special and then only (for example) have 1 of an item. They must have enough stock to reasonably cover the demand. Retailers can probably work around this as long as they make it obvious in the advertising that there are only '3 only per store' or similar.

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BillieJoe

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#1676007 23-Nov-2016 13:28

All sorted guys.

Phone came in yesterday, thanks PB.

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