@robinsonmarineparts wrote:
I also have www site and sell to the trade, so i do know about your problem.
What i do is keep a few items aside, eg. if i have 10 of a particular item for sale i'll only list say 7 of them, if i have 200 of the same item for sale i'll list 150 of them, that way it gives me a chance to add or delete amounts from my ebay listings,(if you know what i'm trying to say) lol.
I sell item X thru ebay and it says Y available i can double check stock and adjust if need be.
We kinda follow this model. Depending on the lead time of the item from the manufacturer we only list 70%-90% of the items we have at hand. That way as listings get near to or at ZERO we have time to order more stock and/or adjust the listing quantity's. We never list more than we have on ebay.
We used to list exactly the qty we had on hand until we got caught with an out of sock problem. When we went to make up the ordered item colour we found that the flowers we did have in stock were actually unusable. So we were unable to supply in the buyer's chosen colour. We explained to the buyer what had happened and gave them the option to either cancel of choose another colour. They chose the latter and were happy in that instance.
We also sell on etsy and our own website so need to monitor stock levels closely. But by managing it closely we have never gotten an out of stock defect.
