Lacelady

Hancocks of Paducah doesn't charge for shipping of back orders at all (only for the item itself). It's one of the reasons I like to deal with them, though it can be frustrating when things arrive in dribs and drabs, and I have been known to forget that something is on back order, and order it again!

I can only presume that they absorb the costs because ... what? They had it in their current catalogue and didn't have it in stock, ergo they regard it as their fault? They want my custom? They are willing to provide this service to keep my custom? I don't know what their thinking on this subject is, but whatever, it works for me.

Vicki W

I would suggest, just emailing the customer and advising them that only part of their order is available (if your website does not tell them) and seeing if they want to have it shipped as two shipments (and occuring two shipping charges) or if they wanted to wait for fabric A and hope that is it available when fabric B comes in.

Sometimes people are buying things to go together and wouldn't want them unless they had them together. I think as long and you communicate honestly with your customers they will understand.

Favorite Fabrics

I looked at their shipping charges. They state that for all international orders, they charge 30% of the order cost, with a minimum of $20. So if you ordered 8 yards of fabric at $8 / yard they will charge you $20 for shipping. We would only charge $14.50 (which just covers our costs including insurance).

They are charging $5.50 extra, and must be using that to cover the backorders. (If 2 out of 3 orders are all in-stock items and can be shipped in full, they are getting enough extra to take care of that 3rd order.)

SueDor

I was going to say they can't order anything that is back order and tell them why, but I think Vicki W. has a point.

ckcowl

ok, answering from a customer side of view...if i ordered 2 different fabrics from anywhere and nothing came and nothing came i would not be a happy customer. if half of my order was shipped without me knowing what was happening...i would be very upset.
i guess what i'm trying to say is...
COMMUNICATION IS MANDITORY FOR GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE! instead of asking us you should be asking the customer how they would like their order handled.
there have been times when i've ordered on line...waited 2-3 weeks contacted the store to hear...oh sorry one of the fabrics are on back order...so we are holding the order... REALLY!??? without telling me? well one of those fabrics i needed 2 weeks ago...the one on back order was not even one that mattered...but they did not bother contacting me, even sending a simple email so i could tell them that i needed the other fabrics. so i cancelled the whole order (over $300 order) and will not even visit the site on line. had they contacted me i could have told them the fabric i needed right away and made arrangements for the remainder of the order-since they chose to just set it aside with no correspondence i have no time for them... i did receive an email order confirmation a couple days after placing the order...so kept expecting it and stressing over it for over 2 weeks...wondering if the pony express was bringing it.
if you want to keep your international customers happy you need to have GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE! WHICH MEANS COMMUNICATION!

Sing

If the policy is not explicitly set out, I think you should eat the shipping charge for the backordered fabric.

And then you should set up a policy that if part of an order needs to wait, then the customer can choose to split up the shipping, i.e., pay for shipping twice, or cancel the backorder. Kind of like Amazon tells us we can ship separately or keep it together.

Or you can charge more for shipping from now on.

Favorite Fabrics

We do contact our customers... but sometimes they don't reply. I posted the question here because, to try to get a reading on what most people think would be sensible, to formulate a reasonable plan for what to do when the customer does not reply back to us.

It's not a perfect world. Sometimes we e-mail, and the customer does not receive it (and we do not know this).

Sometimes the customer replies, and we don't receive their e-mail (and they do not know).

In our shopping cart, it does show the ETA for all backordered fabrics. So the customer should be aware of the stock status even before they decide to submit their order.

'Course... we can't *force* them to read what's on their screen... but that's a whole other issue! :?

ghostrider

You could follow Hancock's of Paducah's model which is charge full shipping with the initial package, bill the credit card for backordered items only when they have been shipped, and do not charge for additional shipping on backorders. Their international (Canada excluded) shipping rates, however, are figured as a percentage (30%) of the cost of the complete order, not a box size rate. They are also a much larger operation than you are. :lol:

Favorite Fabrics

We do eat the shipping charge for domestic shipments. We can't eat the shipping charge for international because we would lose more money than we took in on the backorders; just can't do that. We certainly *can* specify a policy on our site for international orders; I'm just struggling with the wording given that English might not be the international customer's first language, and we don't want to confuse our US customers who also place backorders/preorders.

Our shopping cart is not as sophisticated as what Amazon has. They're big and we are little. We can't prevent international customers from putting backordered items in their cart, because we don't even know they are international customers until they start the checkout process.

Perhaps the safest policy would be "First we will try to contact you and ask if you would like us to charge you now for all in-stock items (plus shipping)... and then charge for each backordered item as it comes in ... and then hold the order for shipping complete whenever the last item comes in. And then if we do not receive a reply within a week we will ship what we have and cancel all backorders."

And this is essentially what we already do.

Overthinking again... what if the customer responds two weeks later, berating us for sending a partial shipment, because she was on vacation and unable to receive e-mails?

(Yes, this has happened. We just cannot seem to keep everyone happy even though we really do try!)

Favorite Fabrics

Yes, they certainly are bigger, and I'm not envying them because their headaches are probably bigger than mine too. (Does that entitle them to a BIGGER bottle of wine?) :shock:

Their $20 minimum shipping cost isn't so customer-friendly to the international shopper who just wants a little bit of fabric, though. Hmmm...