Most rose nurseries atleast put a little tag
saying will ship late or out of stock.

When your availability is September you
are out of stock.

I understand these tend to be small operations
and can't afford the overheads, Im not asking
for Amazon like next day availability.

I'm perfectly happy getting it @ the end of May
as most nurseries plan but September?

Any way I've canceled the order.
Compare this with Vintage which has
a very basic site(no pictures) but their
not available roses are pulled rapidly
so they have no ****ed off customers.

--
Theo in Zone 5
Kansas City

"saki" wrote in message
...
(Shiva) wrote in news:730ff03d4ac569a1c462d570e18893a6
@TeraNews:

On Thu, 01 May 2003 16:31:43 GMT, "Theo Asir"
wrote:

I'm a little p***ed off at Ashdown right now.

I tried to place my first order w/ them
yesterday. After the entire billing procedure
was over online, I'm told half my roses will
be shipped in September!!!

Theo, that doesn't sound like Paul--but if I were you I would cancel.
Make them take it off your card. That's BS. You are in an area where
fall planting could be negative.

Perhaps first a phone call might be in order. Sounds to me like a coding
error in the script rather than a true scheduling error, but a call might
clear this up for you. You could also check on actual availability this
way.

I've noticed that with online merchants there's a widely varying
difference in the real-time reliability of order interfaces. My approach
(as a programmer myself) is to assume that they're first and foremost
plantsmen, not programmers. Some certainly don't have the resources to
support a full-time web designer who can assure that online systems
communicate with inventory or shipping databases, much less calculate the
appropriate shipping time for your USDA zone.

Sure, it would be nice to have Ashdown's system work as smoothly as
amazon.com or whatever, but I'd rather have them put their effort into
budding roses or maintaining healthy own-root plants for me rather than
providing top-notch online ordering systems.

My approach, I readily admit, may be retrograde. As you say, perhaps
selections shouldn't be offered if the plant isn't in stock. And IMHO
it's an error to force the customer to complete the billing process
before informing them when an order will be shipped. There should be a
back-out process before purchase to let the buyer know what's available
and what's not.

My experience with Ashdown has been entirely positive. However, I don't
use their online ordering interface. I phone them or order through my
local nursery (which will special order from Ashdown if asked). The
plants I get from Ashdown are healthy, large and ready to trot. I
appreciate this. But I know that there are variables in online commerce
that sometimes make a more personal transaction the truly satisfactory
one.

Just a thought.

----