I am posting this on Wednesday evening. I placed an order last Thursday. By this Monday afternoon I had not received any despatch notification, which I thought was a bit odd, so phoned Customer Services. I asked if there was a problem with my order “ah, well, we are stocktaking” came the reply. I expressed surprise and was told that “yes, a lot of people have been phoning up about it” (!) I was informed that they had more or less completed the process and that “we should be resuming deliveries in the next couple of days and hopefully you’ll get your watch by the end of this week”. I joked with them that it was clearly my fault for ordering at the wrong time - they agreed!

I know it’s no big deal in the grand scheme of things ( I am old enough to remember, in the pre-internet past, whenever you used to send away for anything by ‘mail order’, companies almost always said “please allow 21 days for delivery”) but it seems rather odd that CW have to suspend operations to do a stock take. That sounds terribly old fashioned in this day and age – I can’t believe CW don’t have dynamic real time inventory control. Isn’t everything barcoded and scanned into goods-in and out of despatch? Surely that’s why you give everything an SKU ident. Can you imagine Tesco saying you can’t get groceries delivered this week, as a man has to go around all the shelves with a clipboard and a pencil?!

It would have been nice if there had been a notice on the website that same day despatch was not currently available, or if there had been some notification of a delay sent with the order confirmation email, or subsequently, but sadly not. Will my watch be sent this week? No idea.

So the moral of this story is, if you are in a hurry, don’t order during a stock take. The only problem being of course, is that there is no way of knowing when these happen or how long they’ll last!

Despite modern methods of inventory control I think there is often some difference between what is in a system and what is reality.

It takes a periodic pen and clip board check to discover how accurate things are and if there is something to worry about! A check should be done, even if systems are perfect as you would not know otherwise.

I agree that provision should be taken so it would not impact a customer, such as performing out of hours, having enough time in the delivery promise to allow for the additional activity or letting the customer know that normal timescales may be impacted.

I guess they may have been reflecting your friendly attitude in how they provided a response and hope that they are more serious about it all in practice!

I hope the watch is worth the wait when it arrives .

Out of curiosity, as it has now been a week since my order, thought I check in with Customer Services again. Doesn’t sound as though things are going well. I was told “there’s a huge backlog”. I wondered why customers weren’t contacted to advise them of delays – “didn’t know they hadn’t been” (!) but they “hoped my order would be despatched early next week”. Hey ho.

So the moral of this story is, if you are in a hurry, don’t order during a stock take. The only problem being of course, is that there is no way of knowing when these happen or how long they’ll last!

I suppose that how long it lasts depends on how much stock they have (or were expecting to have if stuff is missing)!

Joking apart, I've worked in a couple of environments where stock taking took place without closing. It's really not that difficult, though obviously it can take staff away from other duties.As you say though, a note on the website (or an automated e.mail response) would manage expectations - and reduce the time spent on answering calls.