Always picky

Life A couple of weeks ago I went into some shops and bought some clothes and also ordered a new jumper from Marks & Spencer’s. Always picky, I decided on the one colour, grey, which wasn’t actually in the shop at my size. I was told that the garment would be in the shop between Wednesday and Friday this week unless I heard otherwise. Sure enough at 10:03 am on Wednesday a message was left on our service. It’s still on there and here is a transcript:

“This is a message for (you, meaning me), I’m sorry to tell you we could deliv… Hello, this is a message for (you), this is Marks and Spencer’s, I’m sorry to say we could get your order today, thanks. Bye.”

The gist is there. No jumper. But not much else. I rang them back yesterday. What followed was something of a wake up call for someone like me who doesn't do a lot of clothes buying and assumed that like everything else in the modern world that things had moved on in the clothing retail industry. Here’s what I discovered:

(1) The jumper was indeed not in stock, with none in the warehouse, and no idea when more would be manufactured

(2) That, at least at M&S, an order can’t be kept open on the computer, so that when stock does come in I can be contacted, which means that ..

(3) … basically the order is cancelled and it's up to me the customer to go into the shop again and place a separate new order although ..

(4) … apparently there is a written diary and a reminder can be put in there, but it depends whether someone on the counter quote: ‘remembers to look in it on that day’

(5) That having checked her computer the nearest available jumper is in Leeds

(6) No they can’t transfer it to my local store. If I want it, they can post it out to me at £3.50 postage and packing

(7) There’s also one at the website. When I asked if they could transfer it from their warehouse to here I was told no ‘because we don’t have access to the internet'

(8) I checked the website. That colour isn’t even an option. Though oddly there is photo of a man wearing it. It doesn’t look half as good on him (blink).

I could completely understand if I’d made this phone call in the 80s or 90s – but in 2008? I’m assuming that the reason that this kind of stock transfer doesn’t happen is the expense of shifting a single item between stores and they’d much rather the cost burden was with the customer who wants the damn thing. But I can’t see how this is that different to an inter-library loan in a library, and there you have an extra expense of having to ship the item back its source.

Clearly I don’t know anything about how Marks and Spencer’s supply their stores, but I have to assume that a van takes the stock from a warehouse somewhere to the individual store and then an almost empty van returns to the warehouse for the next load (assuming there isn’t some kind of stock return). That kind of run must happen at least once a week, if not daily.

I’m amazed there isn’t a network in place whereby when a van turns up at a particular shop, customer requests from other stores in the chain are loaded up for the return journey to the warehouse and then loaded onto another van going to the shop it has been ordered from. I know this sounds like the kind of bizarre idea cooked up by a disgruntled customer in the aftermath of a unsatisfying phone call, but I'm genuinely surprised by all this (I'm generally surprised by most things, but still).

So I’m Asking Metafilter (and you too), do I have an over extended expectation of how distribution systems work in department stores?