Out of Stock?  WTF?
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Mar 29, 2009
Updated:  Mar 29, 2009
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/outofstock.txt

If I want to buy a widget, a broom, a toothbrush, a certain brand of
paint, a box of cereal or an attic fan, I go to my local store and get
one or I order one on the net.

There will be times when Widget X, the most wonderful and innovative
widget since Widget W, will not be in stock.  I am OK with this; 
not happy, of course, since I need to find it elsewhere, wait until
more arrive from the manufacturer, find a suitable replacement or
do without.  Physical things are made, sold and when they run out 
more need to be made and delivered. 

Digital Things, however, do not require this.  The time, effort and
cost of making the n+1th copy is essentially zero.

So why aren't Digital Things *always* in stock?

Here are two recent examples that torqued me.

1) After spending $12/copy to pick up RetroGamer at my local Barnes & 
Nobles, I noticed that the publisher was offering the first 30 issues
in DVD form for 20 pounds.  I went to the website yesterday and the
DVD is out of stock.

2) I found a comic I really liked (_Girls with Slingshots_), read through
the 600+ comics and was sold.  Or rather, I was not sold as I couldn't
buy all three volumes in paper form, only the first one.  The other
two were out of stock.

Do sellers not understand how shortsighted this is?  

Offer me something, OK?  If the fancy-shamancy DVD with color inserts is
no longer available for 20 pounds, sell me the no-frills copy for 10
pounds.  If I can't have all three volumes of the comic with the glossy
covers, sell me the printed-out-on-local-a-printer version.

In the digital age, sellers should make it stupidly easy for me to do 
what is right.

Here is the reality:  if sellers do not make it easy for me to purchase
digital content when I want to purchase it, I'll get it anyway.  The
seller will end up with nothing and I will be disgusted that I tried to
do the right thing but the seller couldn't be bothered to sell me a copy.

Digital Things are not Widgets.