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From experience internally (not at Costco, but other t20 retail), here's what happened, from most to least likely. 1. Your order type fell into an edge cast that an incomplete batch system -> system transfer job choked on. Naturally, it silently failed. 2. Inventory count mismatch. 3. Incomplete transportation handshake. Logistics looks simple from a customer perspective: (1) order, (2) ship, (3) receive. From a vendor perspective it's (1+) bulk source, (2+) distribute, (3) maintain consistent inventory counts, (4) receive order, (5) source order items from stock most efficiently, (6) orchestrate multi-sourced items, (7+) provision & batch transportation, receiving and reshipping at multiple legs, (8+) fulfill last mile. All while stitching together 30+ year old systems for each of those. And the +'d items are all semi-outside of the company's control. (Ever wonder why there are so many transportation-abstraction companies?) Which is to say, no excuse for bad service. But it's a bear of a problem. Incidentally, why most retail has excellent customer support phone centers (usually onshore): they know their systems break a non-zero amount of time, and want the best touch when you need to have things fixed. |