Never thought I'd say this, but...

[tartanphantom]

Midway USA has ticked me off.

As of today, they have disabled the notification system on most ammo. If you already have a notification in place, you will get that one when the product arrives, but you currently CANNOT re-new the notification.

 

With their system I had at least half a chance to buy some ammo at non-panic prices. Many times I got a notification, but wasn't near a computer at the time, and missed out on the opportunity... so what. big deal. my fault, not theirs.

But now, I don't even have that opportunity. Nobody who has a life can sit in front of a screen 24/7, endlessly refreshing a web page in the faint hope that something will miraculously show as "in stock".

Midway might as well just shut down the entire ammo section of their website until such a time that they have amassed as much ammo as DHS.

Granted, Midway USA has done nothing wrong. They just changed their policy to make it a little harder for the average joe to buy ammo at standard pricing.

 

Guess after my remaining pending notifications are expired, I'll be camping out at Walmart with the "breakfast club" folks.

 

I guess pissing & moaning doesn't really help the situation, and I may be venting over something trivial. But it's just one of those little things that gets my goat. I sent customer service an email on the matter, I'm sure I'll get a canned response-- I can't be the only person miffed by this development.

Edited May 7, 2013 by tartanphantom

[Oh Shoot]

Midway USA has ticked me off.

As of today, they have disabled the notification system on most ammo. If you already have a notification in place, you will get that one when the product arrives, but you currently CANNOT re-new the notification.

 

Probably became such a massive database it would create big system hit when it had to send out a bazillion emails.

 

- OS

[knewcomb]

Double edged sword. Now resellers dont get notifications either.

[mikegideon]

Probably became such a massive database it would create big system hit when it had to send out a bazillion emails.

 

- OS

 

That, and all the negative customer feedback when they sold out in 15 minutes. Sure am glad I knew Hugo Chebama was gonna screw us hard as soon as he got reelected.

[tartanphantom]

Double edged sword. Now resellers dont get notifications either.

 

True, but I doubt that the resellers were making much of a dent at Midway-- they already had pretty heavy order limits in place on the hot stuff like 22 and 9mm.

[mikegideon]

I'm such a big Larry fan that I'll cut him lots of slack over something like this. I'm sure he hates it as much as everybody else.

[MacGyver]

I expect it had more to do with the veritable DDOS attacks that gun owners were unwittingly unleashing on their site whenever Federal bulk packs and the like were in stock.

 

I seem to recall him saying something recently about the notification system being utilized recently far beyond the capacity it was designed to support.  I can appreciate them turning it down if it's not reliable.

 

That, and I can support them turning the volume down some - so to speak.  If you've got a bunch of gun owners reacting like Pavlov's dogs everytime they get a stock notification, this ammo shortage is going to last a lot longer than it needs to.

[tartanphantom]

I'm such a big Larry fan that I'll cut him lots of slack over something like this. I'm sure he hates it as much as everybody else.

 

 

I'm with you on that... Larry has done well, and Midway has some of the best (if not the best) customer service in the retail side of the industry. It's just terribly aggravating to the point that I had to speak my mind on this. I know that Larry can't change the real-world ammo situation, but if ya got something to sell, at least people ought to know that. Turning off the notification system does nothing except make the Midway web-server guys happy.

 

And I haven't bought every time I got a notification-- not even 3/4 of the time. Many times I'll talk myself out of it, either because I've got enough of a certain caliber, or because I can't order multiple items to keep from getting screwed on the UPS shipping.

 

Oddly enough, the stuff in the most demand (.22 and 9mm) are not what I'm usually hunting-- I'm blessed with a very comfortable margin on those. It's .22WMR, 45ACP, and 357mag that I'm hunting for personal use.

Edited May 7, 2013 by tartanphantom

[gregintenn]

LOL! I got ticked off at them waaaaaay back, when they stopped free shipping. I still buy from them, however, and get great customer service. I remember ordering from them when you called on the phone, and ordered from an actual catalog! Larry or his wife usually answered the phone then.

[Dolomite_supafly]

I hope it puts an end to the constant slow downs when surfing their website. I was shopping for some recoil springs the other day and it literally took me 20 minutes to get them added to the cart when it shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes. Constant slow downs.

 

I have zero problem with making all buyers, individuals and resellers, put a little effort into getting what they need. Maybe if these resellers have to spend a few hours a day searching they will quit. I also like the fact that it puts me on the same, level playing field as everyone else. It gives people who normally can't buy it before it is sold out, like the OP, a chance to actually find it in stock.

 

Now it is quite possible for the OP to click on an item and it will be in stock because there are not 25,000 people getting an email all at once saying it is in stock.

 

I see this as a good thing.

[Garufa]

Good.  I think all dealers should disable in-stock notifications until this foolishness is past, if it ever is.

[itchytriggerfinger]

Being a programmer and sys admin myself, I'm surprised they made it this long.  I'd love to see their cloud hosting overages.

[tartanphantom]

Thanks for the input and perspective, folks. Now that I've cooled down a bit since earlier today, I've come to terms with it.

[John Wells]

Their inventory, along with a bunch of other places is still updated on gunbot.net

 

I've been able to find .223, .22, and 9mm from various places at mostly reasonable prices over the last couple of months.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Midway also puts up real educational gunsmithing type videos on youtube.

 

Doesn't matter to me whether they send notifications, but here is a "relative traffic" question--

 

I've got plenty of ammo this time around, but in the last crunch I haunted midway perhaps weekly or maybe only a couple of times per month looking for ammo and reloading supplies. Because most stuff was back-ordered or out of stock. Otherwise I could have just signed on once or twice a year and bought what I wanted.

 

So anyway, when I was routinely haunting midway during the last crunch, there was no way to find out if they had stock on an item except click thru to that item's page and get "close to buying". That would use their server resources to search, make lists, and visit many pages. But only result in rare sales to me (because they were out of practically everything).

 

So if there are potentially millions of people hitting a lot of searches and loading a lot of pages, looking for something, anything forinstance in 9mm that is in-stock-- You are talking about a lot of server resources and not many actual sales. Reckon that might eat more resources (not to mention millions of people's time wasted searching in vain thru out of stock items)-- Reckon that kind of perpetual resource hit would be bigger than occasional deluges of people buying in response to notifications?

 

Just curious, as I don't administer web sites.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Lester Weevils

[tartanphantom]

Their inventory, along with a bunch of other places is still updated on gunbot.net

 

I've been able to find .223, .22, and 9mm from various places at mostly reasonable prices over the last couple of months.

 

Yes, I've used that too. However, I found that for some reason Gunbot isn't picking up everything from Midway in its searches.

Edited May 8, 2013 by tartanphantom

[Penguin]

Their inventory, along with a bunch of other places is still updated on gunbot.net

 

I've been able to find .223, .22, and 9mm from various places at mostly reasonable prices over the last couple of months.

I got my .223 notice for 1,000 rnds $4XX today, and it was gone before I got there 5 minutes after the notice.... same experience, no ability to ask for the notification to be set again.  Still a good retailer, just wish I had seen they had it in stock when I placed an order for other shooting supplies this morning already....

[gregintenn]

I'll bet ol Larry ain't happy with the current situation right now either. He can't sell it to you if he can't keep it in stock.

[Luke E.]

I'm with you on that... Larry has done well, and Midway has some of the best (if not the best) customer service in the retail side of the industry. It's just terribly aggravating to the point that I had to speak my mind on this. I know that Larry can't change the real-world ammo situation, but if ya got something to sell, at least people ought to know that. Turning off the notification system does nothing except make the Midway web-server guys happy.

 

And I haven't bought every time I got a notification-- not even 3/4 of the time. Many times I'll talk myself out of it, either because I've got enough of a certain caliber, or because I can't order multiple items to keep from getting screwed on the UPS shipping.

 

Oddly enough, the stuff in the most demand (.22 and 9mm) are not what I'm usually hunting-- I'm blessed with a very comfortable margin on those. It's .22WMR, 45ACP, and 357mag that I'm hunting for personal use.

Don't know if your still in need of .22WMR or not But Outpost had a good bit this evening when i was through there.

[tartanphantom]

Thanks for the heads-up. I still patronize Outpost occasionally, and I realize that they had a pretty hard time keeping stuff in stock for several months due to the craziness, and probably had to pay a bit more for some items just to get them into the store. It's way on the far side of town for me, so I have to make a special trip down that way, but I will keep it in mind. :)

Edited May 10, 2013 by tartanphantom