Playbook, furniture retailer
Four meanings of available, and only one of them is now
A shop with shelves can count. A furniture retailer cannot, because most of what it sells has not been made and a good part of the rest is on water. The word available is doing four separate jobs here, and the gap between them is the gap between next week and next season. The one genuinely countable thing in the building is the ex display floor, and there is exactly one of each.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for stock availability holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Availability is a date rather than a number across most of the range: a production slot for a made to order piece and an expected arrival for an imported one, neither of which is a quantity anybody could count.
- Warehouse stock is committed as fast as it is counted, since a piece on the floor may already be allocated to an order raised that morning, so a published number is stale before anybody reads it.
- The ex display floor is the only place a real count exists and the count is always one, which makes it the single thing in the showroom that genuinely sells while somebody is deciding.
- A withdrawn cloth ends availability in a way a withdrawn range does not, because the frame can still be built while the customer wanting one more cushion to match a piece they own cannot have it at any price.
How it arrives
- is this one you have in the warehouse now
- when is the next shipment due in
- is the ex display one still on the floor
- is this range being discontinued
- can i still get a second chair in the same fabric
- what does available to order actually mean
What has to be indexed for this to work
| What each availability word means in your business | In stock, available to order, on order, discontinued and end of line, each defined in a sentence with the wait attached. The words are yours and a customer has no way of guessing which of the four they are reading. |
|---|---|
| Inbound shipments by range and month | Which ranges arrive by container and roughly when, given as a month rather than a date. It is the honest answer to when it will be back and it is received far better than a silence. |
| The ex display list, per piece and dated | One entry per item with the reason it is reduced and the marks it carries. Take an entry down the day it sells, because an indexed page for a piece somebody bought at the weekend produces a wasted journey. |
| Withdrawn cloths and what is closest to them | Which cloths have gone, whether any residual length exists for repairs, and the nearest current alternative. This answers the saddest question in the trade, which is somebody wanting one more cushion in a cloth nobody weaves any more. |
The reply
Available means one of several things here, so it is worth pinning down which one you are reading [1]. In stock is on the warehouse floor and can go on a delivery run inside the published window. Available to order is built once ordered and carries the lead time for that range. On order is coming in on a shipment, and the page gives the month rather than a date. I cannot see the warehouse or count anything, so I cannot tell you whether a particular item is there today [2]. If it is the ex display piece you are asking about, there is only ever one, and that one is worth ringing about rather than thinking over, because it goes to whoever is standing in front of it.
Defining the words is the answer, because nobody is really asking for a count, they are asking how long. The refusal sits after the useful part so it does not become the whole reply. The ex display line is the only place urgency in this trade is honest rather than manufactured, and saying it plainly saves somebody a wasted journey.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks whether a particular item is in the warehouse today, wants an ex display piece held, or is hunting a withdrawn cloth to match something they already own.
I cannot count stock or hold anything, and on an ex display piece there is only one. Leave your name, an email and the piece you are after and somebody who can look will come back to you, or ring the showroom if you want an answer in the next few minutes.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say an item is in stock, since nothing the assistant reads is a live count and a piece on the floor may already belong to somebody else's order.
- Never offer to hold, reserve or put aside an ex display piece, which is a commitment the assistant cannot make about an item there is one of.
- Never give a date for an inbound shipment when the honest published figure is a month and it moves.
- Never suggest a withdrawn cloth can be sourced, because the customer will stop looking elsewhere on the strength of it.
Questions
- Can it check whether something is in stock?
- No, and that is the awkward part of this intent. It has no connection to a stock record and never will read one. What it can do is explain the words on the page, which is what most of these messages are genuinely confused by.
- Should the ex display list be indexed?
- Only if somebody removes entries the day they sell. An indexed page describing a piece that went at the weekend sends a customer across a county for nothing, which is a worse outcome than never publishing it.
- What about the fabric matching question?
- Write the withdrawn list. It is the answer nobody wants to give and the one customers most need. A page saying which cloths have gone and what is closest at least ends the search rather than leaving somebody ringing round for a fortnight.
Keep reading
- Everything for a furniture retailerLead times, delivery access and assembly dominate furniture enquiries. What an assistant answers well, and where it must take a name.
- Handling stock availability in generalWhat an assistant can say about ranges, restock patterns and alternatives, and the damage one confident wrong stock answer does.
- It fits the wall and still does not work in the roomFitting a piece is more than the doorway. It is the depth you sit at, the door that has to swing and which end the chaise is on.
- Getting into the showroom, and getting out of the sofaTwo unrelated requests arrive as one: getting into the building, and getting out of the chair. Neither is answered with a recommendation.
- The satnav takes them to the front of a unit with no doorThe clearance floor is not the showroom and the goods door is not the front door. Say which before somebody drives to the wrong one.
Try it on your own material
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