out of stock - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

There are a number of ways for etailers to handle the problem of unavailable items, from not displaying the products at all, or offering customers alternatives.

In last year's Online Retail 2007: Checkout Special report, we advised that customers should not be allowed to begin to purchase items that are out of stock, as this can frustate customers.

One guaranteed way to disappoint your customers online is to have them search and decide on the product they want to buy from your website, only to find that it is out of stock.

Visitors who find that an item is unavailable to buy are likely to form a bad impression of a retailer, and seek to buy the item from a competitor, so what is the best way to handle this problem?