Shaving companies that have NO STOCK on ANYTHING

[Z blade]

These folks make me laugh.

I will not mention names, since a few are vendors, but there is nothing more lame in my opinion than being on a website that has absolutely NOTHING available. This seems to be a trend with shaving product manufacturers.

Why have a website that has 99% of (supposed) pictured inventory "not available"?

Thank goodness we have Above the Tie and Weber providing the best razors, handles, etc., and and actually have items to sell.

I will send them my business and forget the "waiting list" to buy something I can get elsewhere.

 

[Stubblefield]

The only thing that I have noticed that is consistently out of stock is straight razors on some of our vendor sites. From what I understand Dovo and others are unable to keep up with the demand.

 

[Toothpick]

I like to think they have a high turnover rate so congrats to them for being successful.
Wet shaving is in high demand right now and a lot of these small businesses are one man, two man, or small family operations. I'm sure it's hard to keep up.
More often than not also have full time jobs and do this as a side business.

I'm sure they all have valid reasons. I can't imagine their business is to post pictures of items they don't sell.

 

[chamm]

I believe I know which company the OP is talking about, and it isn't good turnover. The website lists nearly 200... let's say "widgets," but tons of them have been out of stock for at least 6 months.

I don't think it's dishonest. More than anything, it's irritating, because you have to click on each item to see if it's in stock or not. And the website is somewhat laggy, probably because all that extra clicking leads to heavy server load.

This merchant is a benefit to the shaving community, and I think that we're all better off because of them. I chalk it up to poor website design more than anything else.

 

[graysonhenryrussell]

You try to balance between having enough & not running out & that is tough to do sometimes. Give him the benefit of doubt for the moment.

 

[chamm]

I understand completely... But the website should be set up to list those items as "out of stock" on the search page, without the need to click on item details. The vendor isn't doing himself any favors by frustrating his would-be customers by the high level of misses. Again, I don't think he has any negative intentions, just a bad IT consultant. I can say first-hand that I don't frequent that website for that exact reason. I would like to shop there more, but when I'm looking for an "Acme Brand Widget," I don't want to click on every one of the 50 items to find two that are in stock.

 

[Toothpick]

Maybe they can't get product from the vendors they deal with? Maybe they can get product but very limited quantities that sell out quickly?

There are numerous outlets on the web to get nearly anything you want if one website is out of stock.

 

[oleg1986]

can you please pm me the site name my curiosity is killing me and i might also be a suffer from this site and it would be nice to know that i am not alone.

 

[DimeBlade]

I like to think they have a high turnover rate so congrats to them for being successful.
Wet shaving is in high demand right now and a lot of these small businesses are one man, two man, or small family operations. I'm sure it's hard to keep up.
More often than not also have full time jobs and do this as a side business.

I'm sure they all have valid reasons. I can't imagine their business is to post pictures of items they don't sell.

+1. One thing I've learned in my relatively short time of wet shaving is that we aren't dealing with Amazon here. Most of the vendors I deal with are very much mom & pop type establishments. Considering how high demand is, no thanks to AD nut cases like us, they do a great job for the most part.

 

[4ever3]

I am in noooo way knocking Weber, but I had to wait for them to get a run finished and was on a wait list. I see it as a good thing!

 

[chamm]

Again, I want to state emphatically, that I'm not in any way irritated that a merchant is out of stock on an item, or even many items for that matter. That is completely outside of the merchant's control. However, when I was recently looking to buy a specific item, I went to two websites. Both only had a very small number of what I was looking for. Two or three models. On one of the websites, they had listed every single model they had ever carried, along with a price. It wasn't until I clicked on the details to view this item that I could see it was out of stock. On the other website, I did a search for the item, and it came back with search results, and clearly listed "Out of stock" on the items. What's more, the items that were in stock showed at the top of the search.

The funny thing about all this is, the OP sent me a PM, and we are most definitely NOT talking about the same merchant. It's quite likely that both merchants are reading this very thread, and probably a dozen others. Each one of them might be thinking "Man, what if this is me? I wonder if I could be doing anything to communicate better with my customers."

Wouldn't our hobby be that much better if all of them did?

 

[Mick]

Thank goodness we have Above the Tie and Weber providing the best razors, handles, etc., and and actually have items to sell.

Those two are manufacturers who may retail other items along with their products.

If you find a manufacture "out of stock" don't be surprised to see "out of business" posted next for them.

 

[bluesman 7]

Dovo straight razors being out of stock blows my mind. If you watch "How its Made" type videos the factory has to be making several hundred razors per day. If you watch what shavers at B&B are buying, it is a hand full of Dovos per month. That tells me that B&B is a very small portion of the total number of wet shavers. I know the world is a big place, but like I said, it blows my mind.

 

[nuclearblast]

Dovo straight razors being out of stock blows my mind. If you watch "How its Made" type videos the factory has to be making several hundred razors per day. If you watch what shavers at B&B are buying, it is a hand full of Dovos per month. That tells me that B&B is a very small portion of the total number of wet shavers. I know the world is a big place, but like I said, it blows my mind.

For what I saw, the razors are finished by one, and only one guy. I don't think he could hone or whatever hundreds of razors per day. And yes, I can assure you not all traditional shavers in the world are concentrated here. There's over 7 billion people out there.

 

[DimeBlade]

Dovo straight razors being out of stock blows my mind. If you watch "How its Made" type videos the factory has to be making several hundred razors per day. If you watch what shavers at B&B are buying, it is a hand full of Dovos per month. That tells me that B&B is a very small portion of the total number of wet shavers. I know the world is a big place, but like I said, it blows my mind.

Yep, I thought the same exact thing. Then I heard that the average turnaround time for Dovo orders is currently about 2 years. My thought is that what we saw in the video was condensed solely for that video, and that the actual process itself from start to finish takes far longer.

 

[Prof. Moriarty]

I like to think they have a high turnover rate so congrats to them for being successful.
Wet shaving is in high demand right now and a lot of these small businesses are one man, two man, or small family operations. I'm sure it's hard to keep up.
More often than not also have full time jobs and do this as a side business.

Couldn't have said it better.

 

[jzuzphreek]

If you find a manufacture "out of stock" don't be surprised to see "out of business" posted next for them.

business strategy 101!

 

[BRITD]

When I think of all the different countries of origin that manufacture and supply my various shaving supplies, Russia, India, Turkey, Portugal, Italy, Germany, UK, US, Japan, China and I don't even have a large shaving den, our small wet shaving suppliers do a remarkable job and work tirelessly to satisfy our demands and finicky needs.

"Nothing more lame" Yeah, there is something more lame. Relax, Its just shaving!

 

[Galaktus]

I think the OP's intent is the frustration of browsing for something and not being able to tell if something is out of stock unless you click on that particular product. It is nice to see some vendors who place the out of stock warning on the main category page. Of course, things will be out of stock from time to time, that's the nature of sales. But if you click on a category, and see 50 straight razors for sale, there is no indication that they are all out of stock unless you click on every individual model. Pretty frustrating.
I have heard that this is a way of cheating search engines, by keeping OOS models on your webpage, and therefore available for search. A way of attracting potential customers even though you do not have what they were particularly searching for.