Inventory ghosts: why "in stock" is a moving number
Our website doesn't have a real-time inventory page and probably never will. Here's why every gaylord yard's stock number is a forecast, not a fact.
About once a month somebody asks why our website doesn't show real-time inventory. The honest answer is that we tried it twice and both times it caused more confusion than it solved.
Why stock isn't a number
On any given Tuesday morning, we have somewhere between 4,800 and 6,200 reconditioned gaylords on the yard. That number isn't precise because boxes are constantly moving through grading, refinishing, holding, and dispatch. A box that's grading at 8:15 isn't sellable yet. A box that's on the refinishing line at 8:30 will be sellable at 9:00. A box that just got staged for outbound is technically still on the yard but already sold.
Every stock number is a snapshot, and the snapshot is wrong before the website renders it.
The two times we tried
The first time was 2021. We integrated a live yard-tracking system with the website. Within a week, customers were ordering boxes that were technically in stock but functionally not available, and we had to call them back to apologize. The website was telling them the truth as of fifteen minutes ago, which turned out to be a worse lie than telling them the truth as of yesterday.
The second time was 2023. We tried a 24-hour-delayed feed. That worked technically, but it confused buyers who expected real-time and didn't understand why a number that said "in stock" turned into a four-day lead time.
What we do instead
We answer every inbound quote inside one business day with what's actually available and when. The answer is more accurate than a website widget could ever be, and it doubles as the start of a relationship with a real human at the yard.
There's a reason our website has no add-to-cart button. The yard does the cart math better than the cart could.
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