Here is a problem we had recently.  We were featured an a magazine and were overwhelmed with order.  We decided to let customers buy products that weren't here rather then turning off products or not to let customers buy below inventory levels.  We did put a message with a large font on the product pages with estimated shipping dates, and even put into the product's name line "After Easter".  Yet, many customers claimed that they didn't see it.  My solution would be to have a pop up window alerting them of the delay and have this message also show in the cart page under the product.  The second associated problem was that customers assumed that we would ship products that are in stock immediately and the rest later at our expense.  I would recommend to offer it like amazon.com has.  Offer two shipping charged for the products that can be shipped immediately and the ones later.  Also offer the customers the choice of selecting to wait until the entire order is ready and only occure one shipping charge. 

Katharina

Katharina, thanks for the posting. We always like to hear about problems like that. What we can tell you is that ProductCart v3 (should be out in June) will have many more tools to handle this kind of scenario.

• You can specify that a product, when out of stock, is still available for sale in the storefront, but treated as a back-order products. This means that a message tells the customer "This product typically ships in N days", where N is the number of days that you have entered in the Control Panel as the typical restocking time for that product.
• You can ask customers whether they want the order to ship in one package or multiple packages (e.g. wait until all products are in stock vs. ship the ones that are immediately available right away). You are free to charge customers an additional amount if they prefer multiple shipments. You can use the "Edit Order" feature to change the shipping amount accordingly.
• There are many more features related to handling back-ordered products.

We believe ProductCart v3 will resolve many of the issues that you described in your message.

The typically ships in x days is ok, for general information.  I find it more useful to give an "estimated warehouse arrival date" for products that are out of stock and were we allow to preorder.  The date feature becomes more useful when you have to wait more then 2 weeks.  The number of days can be more confusing to waiting customers then a date per say.  In our scenario it would apply to products we import from Europe.   Products we get in the USA are usually available within 2 week.  Products coming from Europe in a container need about 2 months.    So a date option would be beneficial.

On a second note the Edit Order feature is not such a good idea.  Customers get quite easily frustrated, if the shipping goes up without any notice in their mind.  I hate to say that, but customers are not always willing to play pricing games.  The more upfront the better.  I understand that this is a serious programing issue, but I have seen it at http://www.amazon.com - www.amazon.com

Katharina

ProductCart v3 will allow you to add custom comments to any email that is sent to the customer. It's up to you to let the customer know that, if they wish to have products sent separately, they will incur additional shipping charges. We see no other way to handle this as there is no way for ProductCart to know how many shipments will actually occur. The back-ordered products might be shipped in one, two, three separate shipments. Like you said in your message, you might have a product that is back-ordered for a week and another one back-ordered for 2 months.

Perhaps it can be differenciated into
"in stock",
"usually ships in x days", and
"preorder for shipping with an estimated warehouse arrival time of x". 

Product cart can then group orders in boxes accordingly.  Next the customer has the choice to combine boxes for a combined shipping.  It would make this an excellent shipping module.  It also needs to be stated at check out and order confirmation, because we had customers claiming not seeing large message on the product pages itself.  Perhaps a pop up window when someone puts these items into the cart.  It will help when you have lots of orders and not always to time to e-mail each individual.  We just went trough such scenario with having our products featured on Martha Stewart Living Magazine's front cover.  The logistics were a nightmare, because we did not know that we were on the front cover, nor could we anticipate how much inventory we needed.  We ran out or stock in 2 days after the first customers got their magazines in the mail.  We had over 2000 order in two days, and we are only two working here.  Never mind that we ordered palettes full of stuff.  We had to order more from Germany per airmail, and then even more.  With the third shipment we could no longer offer Easter delivery.  We put an estimated warehouse arrival date in large letters on the product page, and even added it into the products name line.  Yet, we had customers claiming that the message was not there.  We told them to check their order confirmation email, and then they saw it.  That's why I worry about the email message for extra shipping thing, because customers in the USA don't seem to have any understanding what so ever.   They demand that the computer tells them 100% how it is, any change is bad.  I always say pre-chew and pre-chew, because they are like toddlers and throw fits if it doesn't work the way they want it. 

Katharina