JORGENSEN Clamps

[Bob Gramza]

My order went thru....

[Rob V]

Who got them?

Looks like there site was pretty much pegged!! I was able to finally get my order thru - I guess Ill find out if it actually went thru if they show up in a few days.

Good luck to all.

-Rob

[bob]

So did mine. Order status is "waiting for order approval". See my post for more details.

Bob

[Mike in Mystic]

My order went through. A gloat at $272 in savings.

But I'm puking my guts up at how the Red Sox preserved the f***ing curse.

what a way to ruin a good gloat......

[Mike in Mystic]

Hey Bob,

Not sure what's up with that. I got the normal "Purchase Confirmation" message and an order # reference, as well as the email to confirm my purchase. As far as I can tell it's a done deal, with no "order approval" pending. Did you use a new credit card or something that might cause a hiccup?

I have no less than 5 direct relatives that are attorney's, so if they try to BS their way out of giving me the clamps after confirming my order, they'll be hearing from someone hehe. Honestly, I've never had even one problem with ordering from WC, so I don't expect anything to go wrong.

Mike

[A.I.]

Mine finally went through, took forever. 12 clamps on their way

hda

[Rob V]

I think he means under the order history.

[A.I.]

I got in one order of 12, went back to place a second order of 4 more 36" clamps, they were sold out at 12:35 am

[Rob Walters]

All gone. Couldn't get through fast enough I suppose. Guess I'll be in line in the morning.

A hearty "you suck" to all of you who got through :)

Rob

[Eric Lund]

If you go back and click on your order number, it takes you to your purchase tracking page. I'd be surprised if it said anything other than "Waiting for order approval". That probably takes a human touch, which may not happen until tomorrow morning (This morning for some of you).

Cheers, Eric

[js]

[john]

Damn, I went to the Rockville MD store and the guy said he heard something about a sale but didn't get any in. He logged in for me to tell me they were all gone.Which of course I knew which is why I drove to his store....Oh Well.

[MJ Wallace]

Uh, I did - walked into my local Woodcraft at about 11:00 am and they had one box of 24" (2 clamps) and 3 boxes of "36" - so I got the 24's and two boxes of the 36's. The guy said it was zoo this morning. People were waiting. Good for them - more business to the store - most of these are franchises and anything to get more help to the store's would be great. Tho, not sure how much 'ancillary' business they got tho. After spending $100 or so for my clamps - I didn't pick up anything else.

The area woodshow is in a couple of weeks - will load up on Bessy's then, from one vendor or another.

MJ Wallace

[Abe]

That's my plan too. I got an order in online last night, then received a "shipping confirmation" email today that gave ZERO as the quantities being shipped. Bastards. If I'd known they were going to cancel my order I'd have stepped out from work this morning to visit the local store. Anyway, having used both I'd say the Besseys are quite a bit better (though certainly not twice as good, which was the price difference for a brief instant), and for a tool with about a 20 year expected life the extra $$ for the Besseys isn't that big a deal.

Still, the pump-fake ordering shenanigan -- and especially the harpoon- twisting "shipping confirmation" -- has really pissed me off. No more business for Woodcraft!

Cheers, Abe

[Anonymous]

Now .. to add insult to injury .. .. .. I just received this "SHIPPING CONFIRMATION"

We have shipped your Order Number 2990XXX

You may check on the status of your order from our web site,

using the Order History tab. If the carrier (FedEx, USPS, etc.) offers online tracking, you'll find a link to your shipment on this page.

Questions? For an explanation of Invoice Codes, Shipping Methods, Tracking Options see our help page at

respond to this e-mail or call 800-535-4482. Woodcraft Customer Service

Invoice Number: 3495XXX

Invoice Date: 10/17/03

SHIP TO PRODUCT NUMBER/ (SEE QUANTITY QUANTITY UNIT DESCRIPTION BELOW) ORDERED SHIPPED PRICE STATUS

145324 1 4 0 14.99 ITEM CANCELED CABINET MASTER 24" 145336 1 4 0 16.99 ITEM CANCELED CABINET MASTER 36INCH 145348 1 4 0 17.99 ITEM CANCELED CABINET MASTER 48 INCH

Merchandise Net: 0.00

Tax Amt: 0.00 Shipping Amt: 0.00

Total Amt: 0.00

Payments: Balance: 0.00

WHAT A BUNCH OF BOZO's !! !! !!

Used to be, I'd go out of my way to visit a Woodcraft store if I drove anywhere near one .. .. .. now I doubt I'd go there ever again .. .. ..

If this marketing scheme was supposed to bring them store loyalty or any increase in business, I fear they sorely failed .. .. ..

I was online at 12:00 midnight just waiting for the new prices to show up .. .. .. as soon as they did, I placed my order .. .. it was accepted and confirmed, but by 5:00 AM it was "CANCELED" and now, the "CANCELED" order has been shipped !! !! !! I don't think I want to be doing business with a company that's run like this .. .. .. they have surely strengthened my "STORE LOYALTY" .. .. .. I'll pay a bit more and stick with Highland Hardware for B&M or AMAZON.COM for mail-order .. .. .. Woodcraft can go scratch .. .. .. they've seen the last of my money .. .. ..

Abe wrote:

-- I AM NOT PARANOID .. .. .. but EVERYONE thinks I am !! !! !!

[Martin Frankel]

This must be why so many other retailers passed on the opportunity to offer the promotion: idiot customers will blame retailers for something that was obviously beyond their control.

If was Jorgenson's marketing scheme, not Woodcraft's. Woodcraft management has hinted more than once that they weren't looking forward to this and wished the whole thing would just go away.

So who are you really pissed off at? The poor bastard who had to stay up all night to hand-edit a bunch of orders? The e-commerce system that was overloaded and unable to handle a large number of simultaneous orders? Woodcraft's CEO, for not calling you personally to apologize? If you were in charge what would you have done?

So you missed your chance for cheap clamps. There weren't very many to go around and there was a lot of demand. Why do you have to blame someone? Have some imagination and sympathy, smile and move on.

Martin

P.S. Even Amazon's system, probably the most heavily invested direct-to-consumer ecommerce technology in the world, was not able to handle the clamp sale gracefully, and some people had their orders cancelled.

[Mark & Juanita]

You're not getting off to a good start in your argument here. You indicate this was something beyond Woodcraft's control, yet then indicate that other retailers passed on the opportunity to offer the promotion. Therefore, this debacle was clearly not beyond Woodcraft's control, they too could have either passed on this "promotion" or negotiated different terms -- and Woocraft is big enough to negotiate terms with their vendors.

Who's the bigger idiot, a customer that orders an item on special at

12:00 am when the offer is first valid and gets shut out in less than 5 minutes, or a retailer that cannot offer quantities of a sale item that last longer than 5 minutes once the sale starts and then expects that this is going to maintain customer loyalty?

... and where did they hint this? Do you have inside information? Did Woodcraft management make any such statements on their web page or in any of the ads offering this "deal"?

Since you asked: knowing the buying habits of woodworkers (they are a cheap-!@#$%% lot :-) ), I would anticipate that a 50% off sale, especially on clamps would generate a significant surge in sales on those clamps and determine whether the quantity being offered by the vendor would match the anticipated demand. I would examine what past sales of that item had been, take into account the price-point being generated, look at that relative to other sales on things such as the "wood of the month" promotions offered in the past several years. If I was being offered a quantity of x clamps to spread across 50 states worth of business, and x was a small number relative to my other estimates, I would then either have purchasing get with the vendor and negotiate a number that would be more in line with my anticipated needs or tell the vendor that I would not participate. After all, it's not going to be Jorgenson that suffers the wrath of 10,000 sleep-deprived woodworkers when my *automated* ordering system tells them at 12:10 am all quantities are sold out, it's going to be me and my other bazillion products that are going to suffer a sales downturn.

The irritation probably stems from the much-anticipated opportunity, the promotion itself (it was a prominent header on the web page for example) and the expectation that although "supplies are limited" means exactly that, a reasonable size supply was expected. This is too much like the sleazy auto-dealer tactic of offering an unbelievable price on a certain car model, only to find that only one of those units was ordered for the entire dealership, the rest are $10k more.

Truth to tell, it really doesn't matter whether the anger being expressed is justifiable or not -- it's real. A good retailer would have anticipated this kind of reaction -- again, especially in light of the amount of promotion this particular sale was getting. It doesn't matter whether your customers are pissed off for a rational reason or an irrational reason, they still aren't buying from you. It doesn't bother Jorgenson nearly as much as it is going to affect Woodcraft.

How quickly did Amazon run out?

BTW, I don't have a dog in this fight. Although the price seemed pretty good, I have other things more important right now (like getting my dust collection ductwork upgrade completed and my shop reconfiguration done), so I didn't plan to participate in this promotion anyway -- it just irks me when customers are referred to as "idiots".

[Charlie Self]

To be polite, bullshit. All they had to do was say no, as one of our First Ladies was so fond of stating. No one at Adjustable Clamp Company held a gun to anyone's head. They offer the chance, on terms THEY can afford. It's then up to the retailer.

Avoided the problem by limiting the sale to stores? Avoided the problem by not having the sale at all?

Might as well, but missing a chance isn't the point. Getting jerked around to no good purpose is.

Amazon was already notorious for poor order fulfillment. Woodcraft wasn't until now.

Charlie Self

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Mark Twain

[Anonymous]

Where did you or anyone hear that "OTHER" retailers passed on this deal ?? ?? ?? I'd like to know why you consider me and others to be idiots .. .. AND why do you think for a moment that this was beyond their control ?? ?? ?? WOODCRAFT orchestrated this "SALE" .. .. .. they bought stock of an item, they negotiated pricing with their vendor, they initiated this huge sale promotion, they wouldn't deliver. What part of this process was beyond their control ?? ?? ??

Woodcraft promoted this as a retailer .. .. NOT Jorgensen .. .. I have to question the motives of any retailer who stocks 5 minutes worth of a high-demand item thinking it would be adequate for a day-long sale .. .. ..

WOODCRAFT CORPORATION in general .. .. .. it was a scam from the beginning .. .. .. they KNEW they couldn't meet the demand but they continued with the scam. They even sent me an e-mail at 7:00AM "ANNOUNCING" the big sale !! !! !!

I didn't simply "MISS" a good deal as on e-Bay or something .. .. .. we were all scammed into believing this was a legitimate SALE, which it obviously was not .. .. .. it was a scam .. pure & simple.

-- I AM NOT PARANOID .. .. .. but EVERYONE thinks I am !! !! !!

[Renata]

What specific features, characteristics, etc. do you find better about the Bessey's?

Renata

--snip--

smart, not dumb for email