Be careful of ordering unique items from Epicurean Edge, buggy web site

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While I am sure they are nice people and certainly have nice knives for sale, the code behind their web site ordering system is buggy and this bug shows up if one is ordering unique items.

The story is that I placed an order for a custom knife that was one of a kind, their web site accepted my order, took my credit card payment, issued an order number etc. Only, soon thereafter, I got an email from the owner saying the knife I wanted had sold 2 hours before I placed my order. No well designed web site would *ever* allow this to happen -and I used to teach (and still write about) this stuff, so I speak from experience...

Personally, I do not relish getting excited about a very very special purchase only to have my hopes dashed by a buggy web site.

So, my suggestion is that you verify that a unique item really is for sale before you get to excited about your potential purchase from them. This is especially true if it is a special present to yourself or to a loved one. It's a real downer to psych yourself up for a major purchase of something so beautiful and so expensive, then make it, only then be told "oops you didn't actually buy it" because our web site has a bug.
 
Oh Please!!!

I don't know you nor have I ordered from Epicurean Edge.

Anyone who has worked in sales knows, despite the best efforts, there are going to be screw ups, and usually its pretty spectacular. Sometimes everything does go wrong. **** happens. Most businesses would love a second chance if the customer would give it to them.

Jay
 
If it was the Burke then I really feel for you, it would be horrible thinking you had a once in a lifetime knife only to be left disappointed. Unfortunately though these things happen and I'm pretty sure this was a very rare circumstance.
 
Maybe it sold to someone who walked into the store, in person? Anyway, I appreciate the comment the OP made. If you're sensitive to that sort of thing happening, the moral of the story is to call in.
 
Personally, I do not relish getting excited about a very very special purchase only to have my hopes dashed by a buggy web site.

So, my suggestion is that you verify that a unique item really is for sale before you get to excited about your potential purchase from them. This is especially true if it is a special present to yourself or to a loved one. It's a real downer to psych yourself up for a major purchase of something so beautiful and so expensive, then make it, only then be told "oops you didn't actually buy it" because our web site has a bug.

#firstworldproblems
 
Ran a pretty successful business for a bunch if years before I retired, I'm quite aware that !#$& haPpens.but I also no how programing works and this is clearly a bug or a poor design to begin with and I think people should know about it and verify a very desired item is in stock until they fix the bug.

I did in no way disparage them personally.

And yes it was the Burke.
 
I think gic is just giving us a little "warning". As said earlier, it's good to call ahead for a big purchase like that one, when there's a brick and mortar and an online shop. Lesson learned, and I'm sure Daniel will make sure all is right.
 
for what its worth, this happens to me sometimes too with my website... we do our best to deal with it in a quick and reasonable way, as i'm sure the guys at EE do as well... sorry to hear you had problems, but sometimes these things happen.
 
if the website and the shop front shared the same database :(
 
If the web site and the store don't share the same database, he's really asking for trouble and if they do share the same database, then real time updates to inventory and thus a check as to whether an order can be completed are really not that hard to code - it depends on locking the inventory database temporarily after a sale to make updates - it should be really really fast and thus customers will never even notice. Then, one puts some code to check that the items in the shopping cart are still available, if not the purchaser is notified"sorry it's just not your day"

But in this case we aren't talking about microseconds, he claimed it was sold 2 hours before he "completed" my sale and no POS system should allow this to happen. IT's really bad programming (and karma).

Well, I'm still in the queue for a custom Burke but I suspect I am a year away from my turn and god was that knife a beaut...
 
I have had a similar thing happen with my web store.
While the website removes anything that sells online from the store inventory. I have to manually remove items that were sold in person.
Sometimes things just get busy and it takes a little while to get to removing the item from the online inventory.
Those are usually the times where someone else attempts to purchase the same item online.
Now I try to remove items sold in person from the web site before anything else.
Still.....once in a while stuff happens.
 
yeah... i feel like sometimes people expect small businesses like us to have websites that run as smoothly as amazon... for reference, i wrote our website entirely on my own. I recently thought about getting the website re-done and the quotes i got for this (from a number of companies) were all in the $15k-30k range. Most small businesses are not going to spend money like that on their website. So we make the best out of what we have and hope that people can be understanding of where we stand.
 
Why wouldn't you ask the owners or pm them first before posting this here? They have their own sub forum at the very least you could have posted there.
 
That's my point exactly: stuff happens especially if the store and web site databases aren't linked. So people buying from EE should check by phone before getting their hopes up about getting a unique item - that's exactly what I was saying, no more but also no less.
 
Lots of sites have problems like that. I guess that is why you were in business -- you were one of the ones who knew how to develop sites that did not have such issues.

Funny thing is you could have spent a week psyching yourself up to pull the trigger, then visited the site one day to buy it and seen a message it was already sold. And after psyching yourself up for a week, the disappointment would have been even worse.

EE gets Burke knives throughout the year, so chances are you'll have a shot at another.
 
Seems like a reasonable reminder of reality.

On the other hand... Sometimes I feel lucky to have the new menu up on the site within a week of the change.
 
:plus1:
It happened to me also 2 times :( But i really feel for OP

yeah... i feel like sometimes people expect small businesses like us to have websites that run as smoothly as amazon... for reference, i wrote our website entirely on my own. I recently thought about getting the website re-done and the quotes i got for this (from a number of companies) were all in the $15k-30k range. Most small businesses are not going to spend money like that on their website. So we make the best out of what we have and hope that people can be understanding of where we stand.
 
Oh well, the usual thing to say in these circumstances is "Don't despair, it means it wasn't the good one for you, you'll have a better one when your time comes!" .
Does that help? ahem... No? :curse:
 
From a legal perspective,it has to honoured isn't it.The same law applies to a vendors equally ... big or small.

The fact that was sold earlier. the software was buggy does not mean that it is perfectly all right to treat the transaction. If a hard ball customer wants it to be honoured and willing to take legal means... he wld most probably win. If it is worth it... he wld persue it.

there shld be a profusion of apologies and a token compensation to make matters right as after all.. most people are reasonable.

thus the bug has to fixed. It's a virtual store. it still has cost to set it up. Most probably cheaper than a brick and mortar store .

I suspect that the inventory database is not live as the online transaction inventory has to deducted when the deal is done and not later. Some accounting system(s) update the stock inventory via batch processing.

Once in a while a not so understanding customer will come along adn will demand his rights... and that can be costly too!

just my views..
d
 
From a legal perspective,it has to honoured isn't it.The same law applies to a vendors equally ... big or small.

The fact that was sold earlier. the software was buggy does not mean that it is perfectly all right to treat the transaction. If a hard ball customer wants it to be honoured and willing to take legal means... he wld most probably win. If it is worth it... he wld persue it.

there shld be a profusion of apologies and a token compensation to make matters right as after all.. most people are reasonable.

thus the bug has to fixed. It's a virtual store. it still has cost to set it up. Most probably cheaper than a brick and mortar store .

I suspect that the inventory database is not live as the online transaction inventory has to deducted when the deal is done and not later. Some accounting system(s) update the stock inventory via batch processing.

Once in a while a not so understanding customer will come along adn will demand his rights... and that can be costly too!

just my views..
d

Good luck with that lawsuit.

Sheesh.
 
You could just go with the Damascus san mai muskox horn chefs knife that went on epic edge today...
 
I think that the OP came across as pretty obnoxious. If his intention was only to let fellow potential buyers of rare, expensive, and very in-demand knives (who hadn't already figured it out years ago themselves) know "Hey when buying something like this online, make sure that you get a hold of a real person ASAP to confirm the purchase, b/c here's what happened to me..." then he would have said that.

If his intent was to help the vendor improve their POS(point of sale, "not piece of $#!7" system) he could have sent an email, PM, or call and explained the technical problem and, if he wanted to be nice, offer to share his expertise as to how it could be fixed.

Instead, he tried to publicly shame or punish them by posting here and then and to make himself sound smart by spouting off as to what a POS (take your own meaning) expert he is.
I think he succeeded only in making himself look like an ass on a world stage.
Well played sir.


Sorry for the rant...I just think everyone was being far too nice to someone that's clearly using our forum for all the wrong reasons.
 
Just my impression but the OP was frustrated by the experience and the opening post reflected that. We've all been frustrated before and said things in a less-than-nice manner. I think it's valid to bring up this point of mismatches between inventory shown online and actual inventory... just at it is valid for vendors to note the challenges they face with creating a sync'd experience both online and in-store.
 
From a legal perspective,it has to honoured isn't it.The same law applies to a vendors equally ... big or small.

The fact that was sold earlier. the software was buggy does not mean that it is perfectly all right to treat the transaction. If a hard ball customer wants it to be honoured and willing to take legal means... he wld most probably win. If it is worth it... he wld persue it.

there shld be a profusion of apologies and a token compensation to make matters right as after all.. most people are reasonable.

thus the bug has to fixed. It's a virtual store. it still has cost to set it up. Most probably cheaper than a brick and mortar store .

I suspect that the inventory database is not live as the online transaction inventory has to deducted when the deal is done and not later. Some accounting system(s) update the stock inventory via batch processing.

Once in a while a not so understanding customer will come along adn will demand his rights... and that can be costly too!

just my views..
d

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm certain the big companies do. This situation happens ALL the time with big online retailers as well. There must be some clauses in there somewhere that won't let you sue or whatever.
 
For Justin0505, I think my emails have been quite calm and I think my OP and subsequent posts are part of what these forums are for, There are numerous posts describing good and bad experiences with vendors in the forums here, no?

But, of course you are entitled to your opinion; we are both site supporters after all and thus must value the site......

***********
Two final comments on this thread and then no more from me.

First, this is actually the first time I can remember of being told after an email was sent thanking me for my order and telling me its on m the way to be sent another email saying "gee you didn't buy it after all". (And yes I was annoyed and frustrated: If I had been told before the sales completed that "oops too late", I would have been annoyed with myself, not with them.)

Secondly, we don't know it was caused by a store purchase, that was a conjecture on the part of a subsequent poster that everyone assumed must have caused the problem. I wasn't told that, perhaps if I was told that I would have been more understanding. But, it almost certainly isn't what happened.

I just checked the times on the emails from them and it would have been very unlikely, although I suppose possible that it was a store purchase since: (a)I "bought" it at 12:09PM on a Sunday. There web site says they open at 12:00 on Sunday and he said in an email at 1:00PM it sold 2 hours before I ordered it.

Looking further into it, the problem seems to have been the knife was in my shopping cart overnight while I waited for a response from the vendor about the knife as soon as I got it, I placed the order. Their online inventory system apparently doesn't check status between first placement in cart and checkout.
 
Just my impression but the OP was frustrated by the experience and the opening post reflected that. We've all been frustrated before and said things in a less-than-nice manner. I think it's valid to bring up this point of mismatches between inventory shown online and actual inventory... just at it is valid for vendors to note the challenges they face with creating a sync'd experience both online and in-store.

I don't encourage or make excused for temper tantrums for 2yr olds... sure not gonna start making exceptions for adults.
 

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