B&Q Reserve and Collect - or perhaps less of the collect

scottishminnie

tempted by the power of advertising I went online last night and reserved one of those nifty fiskers garden tool things (which make short work of lawn weeds) for collection today at my local B&Q.

I duly trundled off to collect it this afternoon, complete with my confirmation only to be told they didn't have it. I questioned how this could be given that they had stock late last night when I reserved it and was told yes, there was plenty stock until just before lunchtime today when they sold out.

I was informed that the store manager had decided, at some point prior to my order, that this particular item is so popular that they would not be allowing customers to reserve and collect it. Upon speaking to the manager directly he confirmed this and stated that although the website allow for reservation of it and confirms stock was irrelevant as far as he was concerned, he was perfectly within his rights to suspend this facility to "protect stock levels and meet customer demand". If I wanted one of these items his suggestion was I did the same as other customers and "got there early".

Clearly customer demand doesn't apply to reserve and collect orders.

So beware - just because you reserve to collect doesn't mean your goods will be there.

Meantime I'll be purchasing mine at Homebase.

Azari

What a total pratt!

(The manager, I mean, of course).

I hope you pursue this with B&Q and he gets 'retraining'.

payless

send them a bill for travel time and expenses

scottishminnie

Azari wrote: »

What a total pratt!

(The manager, I mean, of course).

I hope you pursue this with B&Q and he gets 'retraining'.

not sure it's worth the time and effort. I'm sure I would get some sort of useless response about individual stores discretion.

I'll get more satisfaction buying it elsewhere (but not Dobbies where it was £35 against £29 with free secateurs)

pulliptears

B&Q's R&C System is fatally flawed. The stock is only counted at end of the business day, so if there was stock on midnight 2nd January for example and you ordered your item at 3pm 2nd January the system would tell you the item was in stock and reserve it for you. However, the store opened at 8am, thats 7 hours before your order. In those 7 hours all of your items could have been sold because the computer system wont update again until midnight 3rd January.

Sometimes this is discovered and staff will call you, other times you dont find out until you get to store.

Its not like Argos reserve and collect and its caught me out several times now.

If_it_can_go_wrong

pulliptears wrote: »

B&Q's R&C System is fatally flawed. The stock is only counted at end of the business day, so if there was stock on midnight 2nd January for example and you ordered your item at 3pm 2nd January the system would tell you the item was in stock and reserve it for you. However, the store opened at 8am, thats 7 hours before your order. In those 7 hours all of your items could have been sold because the computer system wont update again until midnight 3rd January.

Sometimes this is discovered and staff will call you, other times you dont find out until you get to store.

Its not like Argos reserve and collect and its caught me out several times now.

Sounds like a ridiculous system and one to be avoided.

hollydays

I think focus have a similar system

iceblue24

and halfords. cant trust it. best to phone the store in advance to confirm

TwistedPsycho

pulliptears wrote: »

Its not like Argos reserve and collect and its caught me out several times now.

Beg to differ.

I have about a 70% collect rate from Argos at Havant and Waterlooville because I have reserved, turn up later in the day and found them sold out.

pulliptears

TwistedPsycho wrote: »

Beg to differ.

I have about a 70% collect rate from Argos at Havant and Waterlooville because I have reserved, turn up later in the day and found them sold out.

That sounds more like a store/staff specific problem though. Argos can only reserve stock that is physically there in the warehouse at the time.