LTT Store Idea - Be Able to Postdate the Order Ship Date 3 or 4 Months Out and Add Items Over Time to Save On Shipping Costs

[Toolman128]

With new items being released on LTT Store, often several times a month, I sometimes struggle with wanting to get that new item before it sells out or get that limited time available item before time runs out while also not shelling out money on shipping costs all the time. 

 

While I have been able to contact support and have an item added to a pending order such as the new Grey RGB shirt being added to a LTX Exclusives order that had not been shipped yet (Thanks Ryan for your help with this), this is an extra step you hate having to do on the regular.

 

I was thinking it would be cool to have an option to be able to place an order and postdate the ship date say up to 3 or 4 months out, i.e. place an order on August 1st with a set ship date of November 1st. During that time there would be a method for being able to add items to the order on your own up until the set ship date. This way you could build up a larger order over time, guaranteeing that the items that you want will be allocated to your order while also only incurring shipping costs once. 

 

Of course to get the items allocated to your order, you would have to pay for the items at the time of placing the initial order as well as pay for any items at the time they are added to an existing order over time. Some people might not like having their money tied up, but others would not mind. Similar to having money tied up during the months it took for the initial LTT screwdrivers to ship.

 

Just wanted to throw out an Idea I had. 

Thanks. 

[Mayday793]

I think the only problem with this is you're offloading all the logistics of organizing 100s of orders onto the shop that they then have to store and organize for months at a time. That would cost them money and even if they charged a fee, itd probably be not much different than paying shipping for the the items two times.

[Toolman128]

14 minutes ago, Mayday793 said:

I think the only problem with this is you're offloading all the logistics of organizing 100s of orders onto the shop that they then have to store and organize for months at a time. That would cost them money and even if they charged a fee, itd probably be not much different than paying shipping for the the items two times.

 

While I do not know exactly how they handle the logistics of organizing the orders, I would not expect that they would pick the initial order at the time it was placed then store it for months until the ship date. I would see it more as their inventory system would simply remove the items on the order from the qty available to sell, i.e. you order 1 screwdriver, they had 1000 available for sale, they now have 999 available for sale and 1 allocated to an order. The allocated items would stay on the shelf until it is time for the order to ship. 

I think they they would probably have experience doing this as when they opened the screwdriver and backpack for pre-sale, any other items included in the order were held until everything was available to ship, and in that case some orders took months to ship. 

 

I am sure there would be lots of things to figure with something like to see if it could even work, I was just throwing out an idea. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

6 minutes ago, Toolman128 said:

i.e. you order 1 screwdriver, they had 1000 available for sale, they now have 999 available for sale and 1 allocated to an order. The allocated items would stay on the shelf until it is time for the order to ship. 

Now times that by thousands of customers whom will be doing the same. It all adds up. Plus it costs them money to have inventory that's sitting in a warehouse. Having sold inventory taking up space is even worse because it costs money to now store and keep track of an item that should've left the warehouse months ago.

 

Even if they don't reserve the items you have purchased over time, the moment multiple people decide they're ready for shipping around the same time for the same item, then it's gonna cause problems. Now you could be in a situation where you don't have enough inventory to send out to fulfill all those items. Effectively making them drop shippers which is a whole different ball game.

[Toolman128]

14 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Now times that by thousands of customers whom will be doing the same. It all adds up. Plus it costs them money to have inventory that's sitting in a warehouse. Having sold inventory taking up space is even worse because it costs money to now store and keep track of an item that should've left the warehouse months ago.

 

Even if they don't reserve the items you have purchased over time, the moment multiple people decide they're ready for shipping around the same time for the same item, then it's gonna cause problems. Now you could be in a situation where you don't have enough inventory to send out to fulfill all those items. Effectively making them drop shippers which is a whole different ball game.

 

Absolutely, there would be a laundry list of things to take into consideration to be able to make decision if something like this made sense to implement.  

 

Is this a feature they would like to offer their customers?

 

Is the cost of storing sold items for X amount of time make business sense in exchange for getting the money from the sale now as well as money from any future added items and that money is available now as working capital for the company to make future purchases? Only the LMG team could make that decision.

 

Since you would be paying for the items in advanced, that should guarantee the item is allocated to your order, there should never be an issue of running out of inventory for fulfilling orders already placed. Yes there may be an issue where inventory is incorrect and they run out of something, but they should always have a small reserve qty of items to take care of replacing items lost in the mail or warranties or ...

[Harlem_Shaker]

I think Linus has been pretty up front about not wanting people to order things if they don't have the money to order them so I expect they wouldn't even consider implementing something like this.

IE:  If you can't save the money on your own to justify a large enough purchase, don't purchase because you don't have the money to do so.

[Mayday793]

You also mentioned using this for limited time purchases like the Potato farm linus water bottle for example. 
Imagine having those all sold out but 2 of them still sitting around from April 1st of this year because they were on a reserved order. They'd have to have a special spot for those items and have them named and tagged and not be lost until one day the customer decides they want it shipped to them

At what point do they say "ya we are shipping this now we cant hold on to this for any longer"

[BeefSupreme]

On 8/6/2023 at 9:11 AM, Harlem_Shaker said:

I think Linus has been pretty up front about not wanting people to order things if they don't have the money to order them so I expect they wouldn't even consider implementing something like this.

IE:  If you can't save the money on your own to justify a large enough purchase, don't purchase because you don't have the money to do so.

The feature that OP is proposing doesn't go against any of this. Paying upfront means you have enough money to buy, it's just about not wasting money on shipping if you have to place multiple orders in a short period of time.

 

23 hours ago, Mayday793 said:

At what point do they say "ya we are shipping this now we cant hold on to this for any longer"

And obviously any system like this would have some sort of limit, probably 6 months at the absolute longest, that they'd hold orders for. That's just a policy point that the team would have to work out if they did decide to implement this.

 

Honestly, I see the benefits of something like this far outweighing the supposed cons. I can't tell you how many times I've considered ordering something, but decided not to because I have to automatically add $10USD to anything on the store in shipping costs. Simply not worth it unless I'm placing a large enough order, at which point one of the items I wanted originally is probably sold out.

[Harlem_Shaker]

5 hours ago, BeefSupreme said:

The feature that OP is proposing doesn't go against any of this. Paying upfront means you have enough money to buy, it's just about not wasting money on shipping if you have to place multiple orders in a short period of time.

Ok... But Linus has still addressed this type of thing.  Literally put the money in your own savings account and earn a few pennies on it and then place your order when you're ready to place your big order.

I get the whole not wanting to miss out on items, but expecting them to do a lay-a-way type situation is pretty far out there as far as ideas go.  The logistics would be horrible and I can't think of a single incentive for LMG.

I suspect that this really is more of a matter of opinion though and maybe we just don't agree.  And that is ok.  

[LogicalDrm]

There are some good pros and cons brought up here. Here are couple of mine.

 

Payments. You are suggesting that you buy/pay for items the moment of choosing them, then paying later date for shipping. This could work. But since you are asking LTTStore to keep items for you, there should be added cost for warehouse space. Which could be per week or per month payment. For LMG it would be more of cost/benefit measure. For you it might just undo any benefits you might get from "lowered" shipping costs. Do remember that shipping costs are based on size and weight of shipment. There's some base cost ofc, so you would be saving only that. So if LMG said you can hold your order up to 3 months with $1 per week (lowest possible amount!), waiting 12 weeks would not save you anything on shipping fees.

 

How does this differ from pre-orders? Linus has said (which may or may not reflect on what he does) that he doesn't want to take money and keep it for months and months. This was reason why some high demand items have been on without preorder. This changed? maybe for some of the latest high-demand items. But its essentially same thing. You deposit money to LMG Banking Inc. and get your items at some point. If LMG was scummy, they would sell your reserved items while you are collecting batch of things.

 

This would only work if you pay upfront. As businesses need money to operate, anything in warehouse is waiting to be profited from. Warehouse space being commodity and with some items, getting stock gone is what they are looking for. So for that, having some significant portion of stock on hold as service would need to be evaluated whether is net zero, net positive or net negative. And if its zero to negative, by how big margin. Too big margin, them just good service doesn't cut it.