This purchase went rapidly from a high to a low. I was looking for some additional pieces for a set of dishes we recently bought elsewhere. Boscov's had what we were looking for, with attractive prices and free shipping. I ordered three different but related products (23 Nov).

Three days later (26 Nov) I received an email saying my order had been packed and was awaiting UPS pickup. There was no mention of this being a partial fulfillment, so I assumed all three products were safely on their way.

That same day I got another email with an invoice showing just one of the three products, but with footnotes saying my order may ship from multiple locations on different days, so I didn't worry about it at all. (Orders from amazon often are split across different warehouses and it all works out fine.)

The next day (27 Nov) things started to get noticeably weird. I have to quote part of this for you: "We have not yet been able to locate part or all of your order." I suddenly had this image of them managing inventory like I manage the junk in my garage: I know something's out there, but I can't locate it. They can't locate it? What does that mean? They either have it or they don't, but this sounds like they just can't find it.

The "can't locate" email also said they'd "allow 3 more business days to locate the merchandise." Now my mental image is they give some stock picker three days to poke around the warehouse seeing if they can find my ice cream bowls. That's efficient.

The very next day (28 Nov) I received a pair of emails--one for each of the two missing products--announcing that they're no longer in stock and the order has been canceled. Those three days of trying to locate the products had dropped to one, but I actually feel good that the poor stock picker could go back to doing something more productive sooner.

The real gripe is that the products were listed for sale in the first place. There was no indication that they were out of stock or back ordered or anything like that. I get the impression their Web site software doesn't talk to their inventory software, which is an unforgivable state of affairs for an online merchant. Or perhaps their inventory management is so sloppy that they really aren't sure what's in stock--also unforgivable.

So here's the punchline: after getting the cancellation notices, I went back to the Web site pretending to start shopping all over again. The canceled products were still listed for sale!

The one product that did ship is due to arrive tomorrow. We'll see how that turns out.