When should Micro Center site show updated inventory?

Syllinx

Trying to figure out if I have to stay up till midnight or just get up early? I want to buy a 5600x cpu at the Dallas location. 

Ian

Syllinx said:

Trying to figure out if I have to stay up till midnight or just get up early? I want to buy a 5600x cpu at the Dallas location. 

Product availability is displayed on our website and is updated every 10 minutes to reflect current inventory for your local store. When you view the product page for an item, current stock should be listed right above the price.  https://community.microcenter.com/kb/articles/21-is-an-item-in-stock 

Keon

When are the restocks for the 30series?

Ian

Keon said:

When are the restocks for the 30series?

Sadly at this time, we do not have a good way to estimate new stock on these cards. Our stores get them in periodically and the best way to currently get a card is visit your local store.

CalebPS

I just took a trip to the Microcenter in Overland Park, KS. Either the availability is not actually updated every 10 minutes as they claim, or the employees are holding graphics cards under the table for themselves or friends. I don't honestly think it's the later, but don't claim to be updating every 10 minutes when you're not. An hour later, I'm home, and they still say they have stock.

JS_MC

Hello @CalebPS Sorry for any confusion here but our website does update every 10 minutes to reflect the correct inventory of our stores. There may be exceptions to this, such as with these new 30 series GPU's where we are handing out vouchers allowing customers who have waited in line to get an item and have us hold the item for a short time. Think of the item as being in the customer's cart while the voucher is in use. Once the item has been purchased our website will update and it will be removed from our inventory.

Just in case this isn't what happened here, could you provide a link or SKU to the specific item that you're referring to?

I'd like to check in on this! Thank you.

CalebPS

@LandShark you're right, it was a 3070. I didn't honestly respect a response so I haven't been back to this post in a bit, sorry. I'm not sure exactly which model it was, maybe the XC3 or XC3 Ultra? SKU: 195883. I didn't know you guys were doing vouchers this far after launch. Maybe that is what happened. Thanks.

JS_MC

Sadly, we still don't have enough inventory available for everyone so we're still doing vouchers in some situations.

Thank you for providing the SKU, I'll look into this further! We're doing our best with the limited inventory we have here. Thank you for understanding! Please let me know if I can provide any other assistance!

FumbleBee

I just stumbled across this thread. I'm very curious as well. I live almost an hour and a half away from the nearest MC and I've been trying to get a 5900X. Last Saturday morning it showed one in stock, so I took the risk and made the drive. As I expected, none were to be found. I asked an employee and his response was "well, did you check the website to see if we had any?" I started to tell him that yes, that's the whole reason I made the 90 minute drive when he held up his hand and said "Let me finish.". Eyebrow raised, I let him continue. He then tells me that the inventory "isn't accurate at all" and "unless the website says they have over 10 units it probably means they have zero". And if it says 10, it may really just mean one. So I asked how exactly I was supposed to avoid a three-hour round trip for an item that they may or may not have. He shrugged his shoulders and left.

I get there are certain items "in-demand" and are first-come/first-served". But then don't post inventory information you know is inaccurate. You wasted my time, fuel, and I left empty-handed (whereas normally if I'm "already there" I do some other shopping).

JS_MC

Hello @FumbleBee Welcome to the community!

I can understand your frustration here and I'm sorry to hear about the experience you had in our store! The information you were given from our associate in the store isn't quite correct. With a distance of 1.5hrs from the store, I would recommend that do try to give yourself a bit of a buffer with how many of the item that you're interested in is in stock. You correctly mentioned that these items are incredibly in demand and the information that we update our website with is correct for a time but it's possible that a customer can have the item in their cart while they are in the store, but until they purchase the item at checkout, it is not removed from the website's inventory. When the item is purchased at the store, it takes at least 10 minutes for the update to be posted to the website.

It is very likely that someone purchased the item as you were on the way to the store. So I would recommend waiting to see a few more inventory than 1 in stock at the store before you head in.

I can't excuse the way that our associate in the store reacted to this situation, and I apologize for that. I would be happy to discuss this further with you if you have more questions. If it wouldn't be too much trouble for you, would you mind sending a DM to me directly about this?

FumbleBee

@LandShark thanks,  I’ll be happy to DM you. 

In terms of the inventory, yes I completely understand that there could be the situation of someone having the item in their cart/held but haven’t purchased it yet (we actually were checking the stock along the way in case it went to zero so we could turn around in the case of this). 

My issue is the employee’s explanation of how they NEVER had any and a “1” really means a “0”, and the “ha ha foolish customer!” Attitude. It wasn’t just this one, either. The first person I asked also cut me off as soon as I said “AMD”. “Nope, don’t have any, don’t even bother” and walked away.

I know my experience isn’t an isolated incident, and while I’m sure they are asked all day long about stock, being treated like an ignorant fool does not make me want to shop there.

Upset_Customer

I'm not going to type it all again but here is the link to the thread I started a few minutes ago. There is some shady stuff going on in your stores.

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/7728/is-it-policy-for-employees-to-buy-up-the-stock-and-put-it-on-ebay#latest