There has been speculation in the wet shaving community over the last week regarding the failure of our ordering system during the Hallows release on October 23rd. Now that we’ve determined what exactly went wrong, I feel that it’s time that we cleared the air. As it turns out, the problem was two-fold.
First and foremost, we simply didn’t make enough product. We relied on the data from our previous limited edition releases this year to forecast expected demand. It seemed very much as though 240 jars would be enough, perhaps even too much. 200 bottles of aftershave seemed like overkill. Obviously, we grossly underestimated the demand for the product, which, as is now obvious, was a serious mistake.
Second, our ordering system freaked out, but we couldn’t figure out why. We run our store on Shopify, by all accounts a heavy-duty, solid system capable of withstanding major influxes of traffic without even a flicker. So we called Shopify and told them what happened; everyone we spoke to about it was puzzled. After a week of bugging them every few days to see if they had figured it out yet, we finally got an answer: whenever a product is added to the shopping cart in Shopify, it’s reserved for a period of either 5 minutes or until the customer finishes the checkout, whichever comes first. If the entire stock runs out at once, as happened with the Hallows soap, the product will register as being in stock on the site but, because the entire complement is held in this semi-checkout limbo, the shopping cart will begin to register the product as out-of-stock to prevent customers from having product sold out from under them.
In their enthusiasm for Hallows, folks hit the system so hard and so fast that the entire soap stuck was shunted into limbo all at once, which is what caused the inventory and checkout assemblages to begin informing people that the product was out-of-stock. Ironically, what was designed to function as a failsafe to prevent people from having soap taken from them instead gave our customers the impression that that was EXACTLY what was happening. Unfortunately, it was an occurrence that we absolutely could not have foreseen or prevented, and Shopify refuses to do anything to alter the system such that the “feature” can be turned off. To their way of thinking, the system functioned exactly as intended and there is thus no problem.
So this left us in an awkward position. How are we to go about repairing a problem that our e-commerce provider itself won’t rectify? Here’s what’s going to happen:
1) Unfortunately, it’s not possible for us to produce another batch of Hallows this year. Our production schedule is too full for us to be able to handle another run in that period of time. We apologize again to those who missed out.
2) On that same note, all future Limited Edition releases will consist of at least 500 units of soap and will be offered to all of our US and Canadian retailers. This will help distribute the load on the checkout/inventory system such that there will be multiple outlets for folks to obtain our products.
3) To slow down the hits on the checkout safeguard, we’ve FINALLY determined a way to limit purchase quantities. All future LE releases will be limited to 3 jars of soap and 3 bottles of aftershave per customer.
Additionally, we ask that our customers not employ bots, scripts, or other browser tricks to game our ordering system. We’re concerned that such measures may have an adverse effect on our inventory tracking system during periods of very high volume and it would be very helpful if such measures were not employed.
Finally, to our concerned customers who have suggested that we accept pre-payment for soap and use that method to determine how many to make, it’s unfortunately not possible for us to do so. SEC regulations dictate that any such pre-sale must have the merchandise shipped within 7 days of payment authorization. It simply would not be possible for us to put all of the material necessary for a full production run within a week’s time. Those companies who do accept such payments do so at considerable risk to themselves (whether they know it or not) and it’s not a risk we can justify; the penalties for incurring the ire of the SEC are severe.
I hope that I’ve been able to clear up some of the uncertainty surrounding the problems with our release. For anyone who has additional questions or concerns, please feel free to post them here, send us a Facebook message, or email us directly from our website. Thank you all very much for your patience and support while we tried to deal this extremely difficult situation.
-Will Carius, Founder & President
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” – Marcus Aurelius
Fine grooming products at Barrister and Mann.
www.barristerandmann.com
