Special Orders Nobody Knows You Take

The shelves are only part of it

Most shops can get far more than they keep in stock. A hardware store can order the other sizes, a bike shop other frame sizes, a fabric store the rest of a maker's range.

The website shows the shelves. It lists what is in the shop today, because that was easy to photograph and count.

A customer searching for a particular size, model or part does not find it on the site and draws the obvious conclusion: you do not carry it.

They do not phone to ask. They go to whoever says they can get it, and the order you could have taken never reaches you.

What customers conclude

Online, absence reads as a no. A customer who sees eight models listed assumes those are the eight you sell, not the eight you happen to have this week.

In the shop the same customer would ask at the counter, and staff would say it can be in on Thursday. The website has no counter unless you build one.

The customers most affected are the ones with specific needs, who are often the ones most ready to buy.

What can usually be ordered

• Other sizes and colours of products already on the shelves.
• The rest of a maker's range from suppliers you already use.
• Parts and replacements for things you sell or service.
• Larger quantities than the shelf holds.
• Items built to order to the customer's specification.

The last is the one most often left unsaid. A business that can arrange something built to a customer's choices usually mentions it only when asked, and online nobody asks.

What the page should say

What can be ordered, in plain categories, with the makers or ranges you deal with named where your supplier agreements allow it.

How long it usually takes, as a range, with a note of when the range was last checked. Customers plan around it.

Whether a deposit is needed, and whether special orders can be returned. Many cannot, and saying so up front prevents an argument later.

How to ask: a short form, a phone number and an email address, with a promise of when you will reply.

Lead times, honestly

Disappointment with special orders usually comes from the wait rather than the price, and often from a vague answer at the start.

Give a range, not a best case, and say what makes it longer: busy seasons at the factory, items shipped from overseas, holidays.

When an order is placed, confirm the expected date in writing, and tell the customer as soon as it moves. A late item with warning is an inconvenience; one without is a broken promise.

A worked example

A horse trailer dealer on a rural highway keeps a dozen or so trailers on its lot: two-horse bumper pulls, a few goosenecks, a stock trailer. The website listed that inventory and nothing else.

Buyers wanting something particular, such as a four-horse slant load with a dressing room, or a taller and wider trailer for big horses, found nothing like it on the site and assumed the dealer did not handle it.

In fact the dealer could order most configurations from the manufacturers it represented, built to the buyer's choices, and regularly did so for customers who happened to phone.

The fix was a page on ordering a trailer built to specification: the choices available, the usual build time by season, the deposit, and a request form asking for the number of horses, the towing vehicle and the features wanted.

Photos of past custom builds went on the page, each captioned with its specification, and every inventory listing gained a line saying other configurations can be ordered.

Making it easy to ask

A special order form should ask what a staff member would ask at the counter, and no more.

What the item is, with a make, model or part number if known. The size, colour or quantity. When it is needed. A photo, because a picture of the worn part or the label settles most questions at once.

Say when you will reply, and reply within that time. A special order enquiry is usually a customer deciding between you and someone else.

Searches for things you do not stock

Many special order customers start with a search for the exact item: a model number, a size, a maker's name with the town.

A page that names the ranges and makers you order from, in plain text, gives search engines something to match. A gallery of what happens to be in stock gives them nothing.

A separate page for every model you could in theory order, each saying only that it can be ordered, is a different matter. Google has said it is acting against near-identical pages made to catch search variations.

Link it from where people look

A special orders page that lives only in the footer is barely better than none.

Link it from category pages, with a line such as other sizes and colours can be ordered, and from product pages where the range is wider than the stock.

Show it, too, when the site's own search finds nothing, which is exactly when someone has looked and given up.

Staff who answer the phone should know the page exists, so the answer is the same in the shop, on the phone and online.

The counter-case

Some special orders cost more to handle than they earn: one small item, shipped alone, from a supplier with a minimum order. The page can set limits, such as minimum quantities or a handling charge.

A shop whose suppliers do not allow their ranges to be listed may need to describe what it can order in general terms rather than by model.

For most shops, though, the page simply says what is already true: what can be ordered, how long it takes and how to ask.

The special orders page

1. List what you can order beyond your stock.
2. Ask suppliers what may be named publicly.
3. Note typical lead times as honest ranges.
4. Decide deposits and returns for special orders.
5. Write the page with a short request form.
6. Link it from categories and empty search results.
7. Brief staff so every answer matches.

Step six is what makes the page work. A customer who has just looked for something and not found it needs to see, at that moment, that you can order it.

For parts, the matching question of what fits is covered in parts and accessories without a fits-what list.

Frequently asked questions

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