I ordered a shaper, which was discontinued, but got a conformation of the order. Confirmation to me means, 'Yes we still have one, it's on the way.'
Days later the order was cancelled. I called HF and they would not look nationwide for one. I already paid shipping with the order.
They would not look. "Tough, sold out."
If this was the case, why confirm the order? I believe they bounced the order to fill someone else's order, such as someone who bought a membership.
The website, after cancellation ,still showed 23 shapers available.
I am planning to redo all the trim and floors in house. Just moved in. I need to replenish my tools. I would have gone Hercules and other HF tools.
Not any more ... I will buy product elsewhere and will not buy anything from HF until I have spent $5,000 from HF competitors. Which means all the real buying will be done elsewhere and when I have spent the 5K I will then include HF. I might need some hose clamps.
Great folks at local stores. Several stores tried to do an end-run around corp.
Grizzly has identical shaper.
This is the formula for going out of business.
Sorry HF you screwed up and now paying the price.
Have you noticed that it is usually the staff that tries to make things right and corp screws everything up.
Thanks for entertaining and informative channel.
Just to be clear, are you out the money for shipping? That's dirty pool if they won't return any money they charged you for an order they can't complete. I think "confirmed" generally means they acknowledge that you placed an order. It's like if your wife asks you to pick up milk on your way home and you say "okay". It doesn't mean the store's going to have milk for you to buy or that you're going to be homeat a certain time, but both parties understand that everyone is aware of the purchase.
Otherwise it's definitely a bummer. We're pretty accustomed to getting real time inventory information on the user end online these days, but there are probably still going to be glitches in online ordering for the foreseeable future. HF's website has never been a paragon of ecommerce. It would be super smart for them to allow users to order replacement parts online, for example. Integrating live inventory information might be a ways off yet.
Similarly, I don't know how HF's distribution system works, but, based on what I've learned from Red's videos, store managers have a great deal of independence. It might not be within Corporare's purview to draw inventory from a store to sell to a web customer. It'd be nice if they could to help a customer get a pretty big ticket item, but telling you where to find one might be the most you could hope for. The logistics of almost anything else start getting very complicated.
What I had meant is that if the only shapers available were out in the stores, after confirming the purchase, then when someone calls up after the confirmation, then HF should be willing to search the stores and find one. Then ship it from that point, since it was a shipping purchase. They would not even look.
As an update. They still have the shaper listed. It looks like they are trying to pull customers by offering things they don't have.
Since Grizzly sells the same tools only with their branding, I'll buy my tools from them and track until I have purposefully purchased $5,000 elsewhere. This will mean many years down the road before HF is eligible to sell me something.
I understand mistakes happens but indifference and playing games? Not for me. Thanks for the comment.
That's pretty much SOP for most all companies. They ran out of stock or can't find the items and they canceled the order and getting the inventory updated by another dept may be a pain for their new system. This is HF it's not amazon that has allot more $ coming in and the software and hardware people.
And if you are angry at HF you will be fuming at Grizzly... I like their machines but getting machines is often a long drawn out process. They get a few shipments a year of machines and they are notorious for running out of them. Go over to forums.woodnet.net and dig around there. You can order a jointer or a table saw or a planer and it may take 6 months or more for you to get it as the ones on the boat are already spoken for and they only get so many extras.