Now, with that out of the way. The only ADT affiliated company I have had any difficulty with as far as in-stock position is Action-DVD. I have commented on this in numerous threads and if you search, you will find them.

On the other hand, I have had excellent luck with DVD Advantage, Five Star (although when they are out of stock and say so, it can take a while to receive a back-order), and DVD Empire.

Good Luck!

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Chillin..

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Edited by - Mr. Hand on Aug 6 2002

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Besides, if there are some good stores out there that aren't represented on ADT we'd like to know about them.

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Some retailers make the assumption that they will always have immediate access to inventory in the studio's warehouse or at their local distributor. As a result they list items as in-stock on their websites that they assume are in their suppliers warehouse. This can backfire on them. Action-DVD and DVD Exotic fall into this category.

There's a whole slew of retailers that simply don't list stock status on their web sites. I have a hard time believing that they get much business at all. I won't order from websites that aren't able to provide stock status. That's an indication that one of many potential deficiencies exist in their order processing and fulfillment processes.

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I have had very good service from XrentDVD and 5Star. I have had some frustrations from adultdvdempire.

I shop adultdvdempire, build up my order and am very careful only to place ‘in-stock’ items in the basket. When I’m ready to check out, I double check that all my items are listed at ‘in-stock’. I submit the order and within seconds I get a confirmation, but the frustration is that several times the confirmation lists an item as ‘on-order’.

I find it frustrating that their computer link doesn’t show the items as ‘on-order’ or ‘out-of-stock’ while you are shopping but will kick in when you submit the order.

On the positive side, after I have made adjustments to my order, adultdvdempire has been excellent on getting the order out the door and shipped to me. That part of the service I love, it’s just the ‘in-stock’ and ‘out-of-stock’ that gets frustrating.

DenverDon

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I've had good luck with Action-DVD contrary to another poster. Also, few problems with X-Rent, Five Star and DVD Advantage.

-- Snowman

Edited by - snowman872 on Aug 8 2002

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To snowman--All orders I've ever placed with Lasers Edge go to b/o on EVERY item. I assumed that's their system-they show everything in stock-take the order-you get an email changing the entire order to b/o status-then they go about collecting them (& it takes several days for me-every time).

Edited by - menace on Aug 9 2002

Edited by - menace on Aug 9 2002

Edited by - menace on Aug 9 2002

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I have placed 11 orders with ADE, and 7 of them I had to make adjustments to the order.

After I made the adjustments, they shipped very quickly and I was happy with that part of their service.

DenverDon

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Yeah, I'll buy that theory.

The slight frustration with ADE and the 'in-stock' situation doesn't mean I'll stop shopping there. I'll just have to do a double-check each time I submit the order.

DenverDon

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Many times if a title is selling very fast or if it is a more obscure title and we only have one available, the last copy is given to you when you place your order and the stock status will change on the order. If you place an order and an item says "in stock" and then goes to "on order," 99% of the time you received the last available copy for this title in our warehouse. Our stock status is up to the minute and unfortunately, due to this when the email goes out and you look at the order status the stock has already been updated to all of the copies reserved.

If this happens and you want to make sure instead of removing it from the order you can always email customer service and they can double check the status of the title(s) for you.

So I can understand your frustration, with the changing stock status, but really its an example of how up-to-the-minute, our real time inventory.

Edited by - empire man on Aug 9 2002

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Thank you very much for your response. It’s great to know that your company is looking at these comments.

One possible suggestion – if a customer does order the last copy that you have in stock, could you possibly alter the way your response goes out to the customer so that instead of saying ‘on-order’ it shows that the item is actually being shipped to the customer.

In the 11 orders that I have placed, there were a total of 16 items that suddenly showed up as ‘on-order’ in the confirmation e-mail that I received and I made adjustments to those items. If what you are saying is true, that is 16 “DVD sales” lost to ADE because of the response in the confirmation message.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I will continue shopping at ADE because you have provided great service, once I make ‘adjustments’ to the order. But that is 16 DVD’s that you did lose out in selling to me.

Regards

DenverDon

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My (semi-educated) guess is that they are doing a real- time inventory lookup on the item when the e-mail is being formatted and whenever someone looks at their order status on-line. Keeping an inventory status at the order/item level would be a pretty big change.

My recommendation would be that, if the item showed as being "In-Stock" when you added it to your shipping cart, to give ADE a day to ship your order before modifying it. I'd be pretty willing to bet that the order will be shipped to you 99% of the time without you having to modify it.

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Hmmmm…

I still prefer that the confirmation to my order shows that the Item I requested will be shipped, rather than ‘on-order’. You may be very well correct that if I waited for one day that perhaps 99% of the time it may ship. But in the case of the other 1%, 2% or 5% we fall instantly into the “backorder” category and that can take Heaven knows how long, and in the meantime your credit card has been charged with the full amount. So assuming you can change your order after it has been shipped out the door (can you actually do that?) now you are looking for the refund back onto your credit card account. We all know the instant translation process that goes on when we receive our credit card bill. “Oh that, yes that is 5 star … or that, Yes that is ADE …” etc. etc. and then to search for the refund from the order.

One other point, if it is a title that you really, really, really want – then ‘out-of-stock’ would allow you to search other vendors that might be able to supply it quickly.

Not necessarily an easy solution that can be implemented quickly, but just a few thoughts from my point of view.

edited for speling errors and typokrapical errors.

DenverDon

Edited by - DenverDon on Aug 10 2002

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To clarify my previous suggestion, I meant that you should choose the "one shipment" option. If something truly was not available, your order would not ship the next day. At that point you could make adjustments or call them prior to anything being shipped.

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DenverDon

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