Adios Academy

[rotor]

I have nothing against Academy except that they won't let me dry fire a gun and therefore I don't want to buy a firearm from them. I do like sgammo for mail order. I like Academy for mail order and free shipping for over $25 purchase. Finally, if you want the best ammo deals go here
https://ammoseek.com/

[carlson1]

If your in the Dallas Area you can always go to grabagun.. They smear Academy on prices and you can pick up local. ....

I agree with this if buying retail.

[bmwrdr]

I agree with most on this topic.
Grabagun.com beats Acadamy by far and they have a much greater selection.
Another dealer in Grapevine is Republic Arsenal, their website is a tad flimsy but they habe good deals.
As far as ammo goes I order from SGAmmo.com.

[Oldgringo]

I'm trying hard to remember the last time I went into an Academy anywhere?

[The Annoyed Man]

The problem is that if I need something, and Academy (or anyone else) accepts my order via an order confirmation, then I will not buy it someplace else. That could result in a delay in most cases, or in the case of the OP, the loss of an opportunity to take advantage of a really good rebate from Remington (as noted, other vendors had these rounds in stock). Academy's screw up here ended up costing folks real $$ to the tune of $90 assuming they wanted the same ammo and bought it elsewhere after the rebate period ended.

I seem to remember a concept called "detrimental reliance" or something similar, from my Business Law class. I'm sure Academy's lawyers would just argue that no one should rely on their promise to actually deliver what you ordered, because they have told you in the fine print that they are not reliable and won't be held to their promises. But I'm not sure that type of messaging is a great way to win new customers, or to keep existing ones.

IANAL, but wouldn't this fine print also imply that you have no contract with Academy, and can therefore cancel your order at no penalty, right up until the time that they do deliver? After all, they are telling you that they have no binding commitment up to that point.

Well, you’ve studied more law than I have. 99% of what I’ve learned about the law, I learned here on these pages, so I’ll take your word on it. And to be honest, I am not personally familiar with the terms they were offerings on that ammo. All I’m saying is that, while I understand what you said previously about “not all they could do”, I also understand on the vendor side that there are certain unavoidable practicalities.

For instance..... In your desired paradigm, the seller must KNOW to a reasonable certainty exactly how many units they will need to purchase to satisfy their day to day sales AND their special event price offerings, and then they must have some percentage ABOVE that number on hand, so as not to anger a customer just in case they sell more units during special events than expected. But as you certainly must be aware, inventory across virtually all business types has shifted to the “just in time” model. They no longer warehouse the volume of inventory that they used to, because it’s too expensive to run your business that way, and with just in time delivery systems, there is, generally speaking, no need to warehouse humongous volumes of every product they sell. And Academy has had to go along with that in order to be competitive with other big box sporting goods outlets.

Here’s another problem with it.... the culture demands that a given product be updated or “improved” in increasingly short cycles, and businesses have had to adapt to that. If a seller buys too many 2017 widgets to meet the Black Friday demand in November 2017, he won’t be able to sell the remaining unsold units when the 2018 widgets come out in January. He’ll have to sell them at a loss to move them off the shelf....unless the manufacturer will take them back (no doubt at a lower unit price than he paid for them) as a partial credit against the delivery of the 2018 models. His overestimated inventory becomes a loss. And heaven help him if his 2018 order is too small because once burned, twice shy, and he arrives a month shy of the end of the year completely out of inventory and unable to get more until the 2019 model comes out in January.....again. All of a sudden, his customers are going somewhere else anyway. He gets hosed if he buys too much and takes a loss. He gets hosed if he buys too little and misses out on sales, and he gets hosed if his calculations are pretty spot on, but a few customers at the very end have their sales reversed because the inventory ran out, and now they’re PO’d at him and will ‘never buy from him AGAIN’!!!

So, the seller has a Herculean task to calculate and buy just enough inventory to get him through the year without taking a loss on unsold merchandise, missing out on sales, or ticking off his customers, and that task is only further complicated by having multiple outlets with multiple cash registered at each one, in addition to any online presence he has.

The fact that Academy has to have that kind of caveat language in their sales documentation is a direct result of their existing within the context of a litigious society. Back when adults were all adults and practiced adulting, people didn’t sue a store because it ran out of merchandise. Instead, they pulled up their britches and started looking around for where else they could get a deal on that same product. And if they missed out entirely, they said “oh shoot! Well, I’ll get ‘em next time!” And then they take steps to not miss out the next time.......or......they figure out that in the greater scheme of things, disappointment at missing out on sale pricing for .22 LR ammo at Academy is pretty much a 1st world problem.

I do realize that I sound unsympathetic. I’m not. I’ve been in that boat myself. I’m just willing to see both sides of the problem. But.....”I’m NEVER going to shop there again!!!???” I have bigger fish to fry in life than that. He bought something; they were unable to fill the order; they returned his money without him having to hassle them for it. It’s a safe bet that if they could have fulfilled the order, they would have been more than happy to take his money. I just don’t see where they did anything morally wrong or intentionally discourteous here. What I do see is a bit of bad luck for BOTH the OP AND Academy, and the OP being in a bit of a snit over it. I just don’t think it’s worth a snit.

[mojo84]

The terms of service seem pretty clear Academy can decline, refuse or cancel a transaction at any time. Those terms of service are accepted by the customer when the order is placed. There could be any number of reasons they decided to cancel the order. Sometimes in life we are inconvenienced and it doesn't warrant getting all up in arms over it.

[The Annoyed Man]

The terms of service seem pretty clear Academy can decline, refuse or cancel a transaction at any time. Those terms of service are accepted by the customer when the order is placed. There could be any number of reasons they decided to cancel the order. Sometimes in life we are inconvenienced and it doesn't warrant getting all up in arms over it.

Mojo said it fewer words than I am capable of.

[Richbirdhunter]

I’ve had great luck with academy, when ever I find a cheaper price online the beat that price by 5%. I’d call their C/S and see if they won’t fix this for you.

[puma guy]

Not to do a beat down on Academy. I still shop there even after my cancelled order incident. But they have a history of shenanigans from what I recall. As I remember it they got in trouble for failing to ring up items at advertised sales prices and would then correct it only if the customer complained.It happened to me when I bought some jeans that were on sale. I think they also were found advertising "sale prices" on items that were not reduced from everyday prices, which is a no-no. That's what I remember anyway. That was before KKR bought out the family that owned Academy. From my retail days I know you have to have the merchandise you advertise unless its identified as limited quantities, while supplies last, first XX number of customers, etc. Also once a merchant accepts payment for an item or service the contract is made, done deal. Goods or services are to be delivered, though certain exceptions apply I.E. force majeure, etc. Academy's wiggle words about cancelling at any time as part of the sale may or may not hold up. Parking garages using attendants to park your car try to use "not responsible" notices to vacate responsibilities of a bailment. I know from personal experience they can not when one caved the in the side of my '64 Pontiac GTO! They paid. But as I said IANAL.

[Soccerdad1995]

I agree that from a practical standpoint, it's not worth it for most folks to fight with Academy over this issue. So they will just let it go. But they will leave with a sour taste in their mouths which will likely impact their future shopping behavior. They will be less likely to buy from Academy, less likely to talk to their friends in a positive way about Academy, etc.

I also understand that it is very difficult for Academy to keep perfect track of inventory on a given item when they are selling both in store and online. So they have a decision to make. They can: A) keep a reserve level of X units, and program the online engine to stop selling the product once they get to that "safety cushion" level of inventory; or they can B) set no reserve level and if the system shows inventory greater than 1, then keep selling online. If they choose this option, they can then decide how to handle situations where they oversell.

Option A costs them sales. But option B costs them as well. They can pay the cost immediately by getting more inventory at higher prices and fulfilling at a loss, or by giving customers a gift card for the inconvenience along with a refund. Or they can pay a greater cost later by losing future business that they need to recoup through marketing and other customer acquisition costs.

I think Academy is making a dumb business decision that also happens to be less ethical than their available alternatives. That is what I meant when I said that this is not "all they can do".

By the way, the same goes for Cabelas and many others. It is a symptom of a myopic focus on short term results at the expense of long term business health. And that infects most every larger company, especially if they are publicly traded (which KKR is).

My profession deals with the accounting recognition of revenue, which is why I found it interesting that Academy apparently does not consider a deal to be complete and final when they send an order confirmation. That type of trigger is generally used to recognize revenue in a companies accounting systems. Given their legal terms, I'm assuming that Academy is overriding this and instead using something else as the trigger (payment clearing from a customers credit card, or whatever they legally consider to signify a final and complete deal).

[BBYC]

It seems that many companies have jumped head first into "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday/Week" offering great deals on limited quantity items without having the back end systems in place to keep people from placing orders when the item has gone to out of stock status. When your online ordering system isn't capable of real time inventory then you take orders until such time as the warehouse tells the ordering department stock is exhausted. At that point all they can do is issue refunds to customers who placed orders after the stock ran out and,hopefully, an apology for the inconvenience. I'd bet that somewhere in the fine print of Academy's online transaction there is verbiage stating that they will refund money if the item is out of stock.

Actually that is not "all they can do". There is no law that I know of that prevents them from fulfilling the orders, possibly at a loss to the retailer. They can do that. Alternatively, they can decide to not hold up their end of a deal, and take the loss of future business from affected customers, as well as folks those customers complain to. Let's not confuse what a company is able to do, or even what they are legally required to do, with what they can do.

Exactly. Unless the range buckets we're discontinued by the manufacturer, Academy is able to fulfill my order. They are making a choice and that choice says something about them.

The terms of service seem pretty clear Academy can decline, refuse or cancel a transaction at any time. Those terms of service are accepted by the customer when the order is placed.

They accepted my order. They charged my credit card.

If you're saying they can use the fine print somewhere on their website to weasel out of the deal, that's probably true, but it's certainly true it brands them weasels. I don't want to do business with weasels. That's a reasonable precaution and I don't understand some immature people being in a bit of a snit over it. I just don’t think it’s worth a snit.

I guess that's the internet for you.

[The Annoyed Man]

What I do see is a bit of bad luck for BOTH the OP AND Academy, and the OP being in a bit of a snit over it. I just don’t think it’s worth a snit.

That's a reasonable precaution and I don't understand some immature people being in a bit of a snit over it. I just don’t think it’s worth a snit.

I guess that's the internet for you.

Oh touché!

Thankfully, I’m not in a snit, so I’m not one of those immature people.

In all seriousness though, it’s just that I’ve reached an age where I tend not to give as much of a hoot about these things - so that definitely color’s my judgement on the topic. I participate, because I enjoy a good conversation with some give and take. But like someone else said above, I don’t have a dog in the hunt.....or words to that effect....so I try to see both sides of the issue.

[waxing philosphical]The older I get, the more precious time becomes to me, and the more important it is to me that my time was quality time, well spent. Two weeks ago, when singer David Cassidy of the old TV show “The Partridge Family” passed away, his family said that his last words were “So much wasted time.” That actually hit me right in the feels because, if I am lucky, I’ve got maybe another 20-25 years left in this life. That would put me at 85 or 90 years old. All of a sudden, particularly when I think about how the last 25 years seem to have flown by, that doesn’t seem like enough time. Since there’s not likely anything I can do to add to that time - that I’m not already doing - it’s too short, and I’m not going to get any more. So that 20-25 years seems very suddenly more precious to me than I would have thought. I do NOT want to spend any of it being angry about the impersonal decisions of faceless business executives which might rob me of an opportunity to score a deal. Compared to the great time I’ve had with my grandkids this morning, missing out on a deal for two buckets of .22 ammo just pales in comparison of importance. Give me the time spent with my grandkids every single time over the time spent being angry or resentful about losing out on a deal. I don’t have time enough left for that. So that’s where I’m coming from in this conversation. I’m not trying to insult anyone. I just refuse to see - for myself - any value in being upset over these kinds of things. So please forgive me if I offended.[/waxing philosophical]

[Abraham]

I think with every day, I'm lucky to be above ground as I'm well past the 'sell by date' of my life. In my family we tend to croak early...

My Dad died at 58 if that indicates much and I'm quite a bit beyond that age.

Don't count on living some imagined X numbers of years left either. Your number (and mine too for that matter) may be up in the next moment. Aortas go in an instant, dead right now heart attacks occur daily throughout the world, fatal car accidents, and no, I need not go on. You get my message.

So, much like TAM, I avoid getting too exercised by misfortune. Am I always Gandhi like in my response to things that annoy/aggravate...no, of course not.

What I don't do is dwell on them...they will pass. Kinda like a kidney stone.

[G26ster]

I think with every day, I'm lucky to be above ground as I'm well past the 'sell by date' of my life. In my family we tend to croak early...

My Dad died at 58 if that indicates much and I'm quite a bit beyond that age.

Don't count on living some imagined X numbers of years left either. Your number (and mine too for that matter) may be up in the next moment. Aortas go in an instant, dead right now heart attacks occur daily throughout the world, fatal car accidents, and no, I need not go on. You get my message.

So, much like TAM, I avoid getting too exercised by misfortune. Am I always Gandhi like in my response to things that annoy/aggravate...no, of course not.

What I don't do is dwell on them...they will pass. Kinda like a kidney stone.

You and TAM are causing me to question my status as a curmudgeon. What's the point of getting old and not being able to complain about everything, and be perpetually "annoyed?"