Refund emails after a release
The new DIPA went live on the webshop at six on Friday. By Saturday it had sold out online, which was good, except that half the cans had already gone to a bottle shop order and the taproom sold a few cases over the bar. Now someone is writing refund emails, and a few of your most loyal customers feel short-changed.
It happens with mixed cases too. The shop sells a mixed four-pack of which one beer ran out on Wednesday.
Why the numbers drift
Most brewery webshops, often Shopify or WooCommerce, hold their own stock number, set by hand when a beer is packaged. Trade sales go through your brewery system; taproom sales through the till. None of them talk to each other, so each channel sells from a number that was true on the day it was typed.
- Webshop stock is set by hand after packaging.
- Trade orders reduce stock in a different system.
- Taproom can sales do not reach the webshop.
- Mixed cases are separate products with no link to the beers inside.
- Nobody decides how much of a release goes to each channel.
What overselling costs
Refunds, apology emails and payment fees you do not get back. Loyal customers disappointed on the release they were waiting for. Staff time spent reconciling orders. And the opposite problem: stock held back on the webshop 'just in case' that sits there until it is close to its best before date.
There is a slower cost too. Webshop customers are often your most engaged drinkers, the ones who follow every release and tell their friends. A couple of cancelled orders on a limited beer and some of them stop setting an alarm for the next drop.
One stock figure, shared
- Packaged stock is recorded once, when the packaging run is logged, per beer and pack size.
- Your webshop, brewery system and taproom EPOS all read and reduce that figure through their APIs.
- For releases, you set an allocation per channel, for example so many cases for web, the rest for trade, and each channel sells only its share.
- Mixed cases are built from their component beers, so a case goes out of stock when any beer in it does.
- Low-stock alerts go to the person who decides whether to repackage, move allocation or close a product.
- Anything that cannot be synced automatically, like a festival sale, has a quick adjustment screen.
| Channel | Stock before | Stock after |
|---|---|---|
| Webshop | Typed in after packaging | Synced from shared figure |
| Trade | Brewery system only | Reduces shared figure |
| Taproom cans | Till only | Reduces shared figure |
| Mixed cases | Separate product | Built from components |
| Releases | First come, first served | Allocation per channel |
Release day without refunds
When the web allocation sells out, the webshop says sold out, and trade still has its share. Mixed cases stop selling when a beer runs out. The person running the webshop stops counting cans in the warehouse before every drop. You can see at a glance where each beer sold.
After a few releases you also have a record of how quickly each channel sells a limited beer, which makes the next allocation a decision based on what happened last time, not a guess made at five to six on a Friday.
Is this happening to you?
- You have refunded webshop orders because stock had gone.
- Webshop stock is updated by hand.
- Trade, taproom and web sell from separate numbers.
- Mixed cases sell when one beer is out.
- Releases are not allocated between channels.