Argos perform a miracle...

Johntea

You can now check stock at up to 2 stores at once on https://www.argos.co.uk!!!

Maybe this time next year we will be able to check 3

FloFlo

I want it to tell me which stores it has stock without me having to click stores.

BaileyB

How hard is it for them to do that?

I appricated 2 stores but should show them all in one go

Bossyboots

It is refusing to let me do it. I can only check one at a time.

Edit: Ah, it will let me check two after I have made the initial check at one store.

C00kie_2

I wouldn't mind if they insisted on one store.... but then disable the thing which lets you tick off more than one box when selecting stores! use radio buttons....it just confuses ppl, and annoys.... *end rant*

Stockie

Johntea wrote:

You can now check stock at up to 2 stores at once on https://www.argos.co.uk!!!

Maybe this time next year we will be able to check 3

About time too...

...But i can understand why it took so long. Imagine the work the server(s) would do if it checked every store every time.

Stockie

bingo_bango

Stockie wrote:

About time too...

...But i can understand why it took so long. Imagine the work the server(s) would do if it checked every store every time.

Stockie

True....but one search of the database using filters (postcode) would likely be less of a strain than the 10-15 searches everyone does now when searching store at a time?

cheeky

no it wouldnt - it would have to return the stock counts for 10-15 stores in a few seconds along with finding all the local stores first.

Its not like filtering in excel!

Stockie

But bear in mind that every stock check is a "real time" check from each stores stock system. It can't work on any assumptions or daily lists/excel sheets/databases because if you had one cyberman head left this morning at 10am at store 100 and someone reserved it, for the rest of the day it would still show in stock if it worked off a daily list.
Hence why C+R has to go to each stores system each time and check each time.
By changing the number of stores to two they have doubled the number of enquiries that they have to do. So if there are 500,000 people visiting argos website today and around a quarter use check and reserve that's 125,000 extra enquiries that the systems have to perform per day. Now that's what I meant about increasing server load. (and they did it right in the middle of the busiest time of year - Argos HO logic for you, what if it ****ed up???)

Stockie

RightRevBod

C00kie wrote:

I wouldn't mind if they insisted on one store.... but then disable the thing which lets you tick off more than one box when selecting stores! use radio buttons....it just confuses ppl, and annoys.... *end rant*

This was either a monumental piece of bad desgin or the plan was to always let you search multiple stores at once, but the system could not handle it for some reason.

peterbaker

Stockie wrote:

But bear in mind that every stock check is a "real time" check from each stores stock system.

Are you sure that each store has its own database?? And who backs it up and downloads the data to head office and how frequently??

This is 2006 so I would be extremely surprised to learn that there was NOT one central live database which was updated live (or almost live) by both the actions of remote stores AND by the actions of customers online.

I can however understand how it might be difficult for the programmers to apply tidy 'record' locks in such a manner that everyone using the system gets sensible messages from the system. For non-database affectionados a 'record lock' protects the status of an item in a database whilst someone is making a decision about changing its status.

That's what could cause unacceptable overheads on the stores network.

Consider this:

I go in to my local store. I search for stock on one of the tens of terminals around the store. Two left.

I then queue and ultimately ask to view (not buy) this item which is in demand and is actually now the last one in the store.

They fetch it from the warehouse.

Now then. I guess the sensible thing might be that the record lock is applied as soon as the cashier processes the "view" on the till...

However, if while I was still deciding whether to view it or buy it at the till you had searched for the same item online and found it at my store then what would happen system-wise if I said "I'll view it" and soon afterwards you clicked on "I'll reserve it"? Ideally you'll be told: "final stock item is being viewed instore by someone who has been given the option to buy it. Please check again in five minutes." It certainly would not be reasonable to assume that while I was standing at the till making a decision to view or to buy that I then got told by the cashier: "Sorry, but someone somewhere in the world is deciding whether to reserve this item." But even a simple protocol that gives a store customer priority and properly notifies any internet viewers that their search has been compromised would alone increase the total number of internet-actioned database enquiries enormously, and we are still only talking about one store and we haven't imagined any other use cases (scenarios) yet!

But maybe this is the problem you were trying to describe, Stockie, but in simpler language:)