Do a click and collect for some wood. Paid online too.
Bring a paper copy of the email, it says.
Man in the timber yard directs me to the office.
Office write out a docket for the man in the timber yard.
He writes out a docket for the office saying what he's supplied.
Take that back to the office who write out a receipt allowing me to remove the said timber from the yard.
I did think of explaining what click and collect means.
Perhaps their system was inherited from Foyles ?
Normally just arrive in yard, see bloke, he writes out a docket, you load stuff, take docket into office and pay, leave.
I thought they'd gone broke and closed down. They have down here, but not everywhere it seems.
That's Dorothy Perkins
Sounds like our B&Q.
You turn up to collect and note that the click and collect section has nothing in it, then effectively go and buy what you wanted in the normal fashion.
On the other hand, yesterday I ordered soemthing from ToolStation, (C&C) drove there, gave my 4 digit recept number and was handed my item straight away. TS are part of the Travis Perkins group.
charles snipped-for-privacy@candehope.me.uk> wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@candehope.me.uk:
I have bought quite a lot from them C&C this year and my branch have been very good, very cheery & helpful. The separate C&C lane gets priority service over any other queues so better than the Screwfix experience where you can still get stuck behind bumbling last minute choosers.
Just a shame that they are TP owned, not my favourite outfit.
My local toolsatan wasn't letting you in the building, you queued outside and they bought your stuff to a table under a gazeebo. Went to one in a different town this week and they allowed people inside, three assistants at the counter but as soon as one of them noticed I shuffled over to the C&C sign, they got my item before returning to serve the normal queue.
my 2 local Screwfix shops are both C&C only.
Were you able to tell if any of their IT stuff was working at the time? Was anyone using keyboards or copying stuff from their screen?
Yes well, click and collect has to have a traceability, but a simple electronic connection between the two places would have made it a one stop job. Brian
THere used to be a place in Rochester like that. It was complicated even getting to order something. Then, having jumped through all the hoops, found out they were out of stock.
Vast amount of clicking on a keyboard going on. Apart from the dockets - written by hand.
I got the impression their website had zero communication to their office system.
The odd thing is ToolStation owned by the same company seems quite efficient for click and collect - although I generally use Screwfix due to a more convenient branch. With them, all I have to do is show them the SMS on my mobile for the order number.
Sounds like it!
One nearish me (35 mile) is allowing you in without C&C.
TS used to be independent, and it showed. When Nook e-readers were reduced to £29 each, someone in TS's IT department must have snagged a bulk order because suddenly the branch staff were using them as handheld reminders of the orders they were picking.
The Nooks ran Android under the hood and presumably someone in IT wrote a custom Android app that hooked into the till system. That was a hack worthy of a startup and probably saved them a good bunch of cash (versus going to some industrial PC vendor and paying £500 a unit).
I don't know how much TS has been integrated into the Travis Perkins empire, but I think they have their own distribution centres so presumably not that much.
Theo
I believe the SF near me allows the same but most people seem to be C&C. In my experience for in stock items once the on-line order is placed the response to come and collect it is around 10 to 15 minutes - and the goods are ready (have been picked) when collecting so minimal time in store at the counter.
But B&Q seem to be still operating point of sales software run on a z80 which is not capable of supporting in-store actuate stock level reporting, self service tills (which have been ripped out locally) or a efficient C&C system
I used them just after the last lockdown for a bag of joint filler and there seemed to be a lot of staff wandering around aimlessly - presumably to try and enforce distancing rules in a massive warehouse with perhaps 50 customers. If they were serious about maintaining a safer store they would have put more than two people on the tills so people didn't have to queue for them for 10+ minutes.
The two local ones have their shops on TP sites
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