Originally Posted by dunster
I really expect a site's online inventory system to prevent showing yardage that they don't have... Most of the sites have this feature; they show the current number of yards available and you theoretically can't order more than they have. I'm sure the system can get out of whack occasionally, but it should work most of the time.
There are several valid reasons why the inventory shown can be off. Most likely the problem is that while most customers are ordering via the online shopping cart (which will track inventory perfectly), some customers will be ordering by phone or as a "walk-in" and that is where things get "out of whack"... until the website owner runs a program to synchronize the website shopping cart with the actual (physical) inventory. Commonly this is done once a day. Also... there's the whole issue of "shrinkage". If you have a new 15-yard bolt, and you're generous in your cuts, giving an extra inch or two, you don't actually have 15 yards to sell, you have more like 14. Or you might encounter a flaw somewhere in the bolt, and that reduces the actual amount available to sell (but you don't know that, until you're unrolling the fabric).
And then... there's the problem that two three-yard cuts do not *really* equal six yards...