PTI Availability Question

[antiquestamper]

I purchased stamps and dies from PTI for the first time in February. A number of the products I ordered (like stamps) had other coordinating products (like dies) that were out of stock, but you could click a button and indicate that you wanted to be notified when those products were back in stock.

I have been not-so-patiently waiting, but now that four months have gone by, I am wondering if PTI doesn�t actually restock and I�m just out of luck and left with incomplete suites. Do any of you who are familiar with PTI have some insight for me?

[maryalena]

Restocking is sometimes slow but that’s a really long time. I haven’t ordered anything but paper for awhile. I would email customer service. One of the owners is the CS manager so she would know something about inventory. Her name is Julie. They are retiring a lot of their stamps but so far they have never retired their dies. Could be happening though.

[Hoboken Paper]

Are the sets you're talking about on the retiring list? There were a few of those that I didn't order because the dies were not in stock.

For their regular products (not on the last call list), I regularly see products restocked. There are a fair number of dies still in stock on retiring sets, but I don't know if those are left over stock or stock that is being replenished.

[wavejumper]

I get notices for re-stocks. Some sooner than others but they come.

[uncbballfan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by antiquestamper

I purchased stamps and dies from PTI for the first time in February. A number of the products I ordered (like stamps) had other coordinating products (like dies) that were out of stock, but you could click a button and indicate that you wanted to be notified when those products were back in stock.

I have been not-so-patiently waiting, but now that four months have gone by, I am wondering if PTI doesn’t actually restock and I’m just out of luck and left with incomplete suites. Do any of you who are familiar with PTI have some insight for me?

This is a problem and it's getting worse. Their release is on the 15th of each month and the products are available at 10 p.m. With their June release, some of their dies were sold out within 6 minutes, and over half of the new dies were sold out within 20 minutes.

This tells me a) that they underestimated demand, which is not good, They've been in business for over 11 years now and should know their customer base; or b) the die manufacturer wasn't able to deliver the requested # of dies before the release, which IMHO reflects poor planning on PTI's part. The manufacturer should have gotten enough notice, or else PTI should have held off selling the dies until they had a reasonable # on hand; or c) they deliberately ordered fewer dies to avoid a large cash outlay and then ordered after the fact once they knew how many were wanted.

Any of these options is definitely not the way to drive business, but a darn good way to drive their customers away.

Something tells me the wheels have done fell off the wagon. Some strange things have happened in the past few months, but the strangest was a couple of weeks ago. They had a private sale of 4 new stamp sets. The sale was on YouTube, and they sent emails to a select few customers to let them know about this sale. I got this email, which said to keep this a secret. I thought this hush-hush was just a marketing ploy until I went to the PTI forum. A thread was already started, and some of my forum friends were asking what was going on. And other forum friends who had gotten the email were keeping quiet. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and could imagine how I would have felt if I had been one of the "outsiders." I promptly copied and pasted the email so everyone was in the loop.

This left such a bad taste in my mouth, combined with the June release fiasco and a few other things, you can stick a fork in me 'cause I'm done.

OP: your best bet is to go to the PTI site, click on Customer Service, follow the instructions and open a "ticket". Let them know your circumstances. You will get an automatic email acknowledging your request. Hopefully a solution will be provided to you in a few days. If not, open another ticket. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[bjeans]

I've been notified rather quickly when items were out of stock.

They do sometimes sell out the day of or after a release, or just after well known bloggers showcase an item. In my experience, those items are quickly back in stock. In fact it just happened last week. I "subscribed" to be notified and either late that same day or the next day it was in stock.
I've even wondered if when they blog about an item, sometimes they time the blog to coincide with the item arriving in their warehouse, and if once in a while the item is a little late arriving. So while it's out of stock, it will be in stock almost immediately. But that theory could be 100% wrong too.

Anyway, no problems. And like Elizabeth, I wondered if the items the OP wanted were retiring. When restocking seems iffy, contacting CS can help.

[antiquestamper]

Thank you everyone for your input! I went back and tried to research the release dates for the long-time out-of-stock items and the oldest one was March of 2017. That doesn�t seem �old� to me, but maybe since PTI does big monthly releases that would be considered old product and nearing retirement at this company.

I�ll try contacting customer service to see if they will offer me any insight. And I guess I will need to do a bit of sleuthing online to determine the age of product suites before I order because every die and coordinating stamp combo I want from them seems to have one or the other available but not both.

[bjeans]

CS can let you know if other items in a suite will be restocked. i wasn’t clear in my last post - I just sent them a quick note when in a similar situation. And if not available, it can be worth googling for the item since sometimes it can be found on ebay, etc.

[maryalena]

I still read their forum occasionally and it gets pretty vocal sometimes. About six months or so ago one of the designers explained that their die manufacturer has not been able to provide their full order in time for release and just ships what they have with more to follow soon after. That might be the reason things are sold out one moment and return soon after. As soon as they get notice that another shipment is on it’s way they change the status back to available. I’ll be interested to hear what customer service says about these older dies since I was thinking of ordering a stamp set on the Last Call list but hesitated when I saw the matching dies OOS.

[maryalena]

I went over to their forum and found out two things. There are others who have been waiting for a longer time than usual to have dies restocked. It used to be a month. Also one of their designers noted that they had returned to their old die manufacturer. This is good news in terms of quality since there had been a problem with gray residue on the dies with the second manufacturer but maybe not so good news in terms of speed. Speed was a factor in making the first switch. A new website has been in the works for awhile which may improve some of the backend ordering and inventory stuff. I’m not an authority on any of their inner workings just an occasional forum reader and a fan of their card stock. I still use a lot of their older sentiment sets, dies and stamps, because of the font sizes and classic styles.

[maryrose]

PTI has been notoriously sloooow in re-stocking, especially with their dies. I had been waiting forever for the Mix and Mat Plaid die to be back in stock. I got notification yesterday that it was back. Yay! When I went to place my order, two other die sets that were in my cart were then out of stock. Ugh! It's like two steps forward, one step back! I signed up for the email notification. I expect them to be back in stock sometime around Christmas, when I really won't need Meadow Greens dies at that point.

I wish that they would remove things from the site that they have no intention of restocking. For example, I have been waiting for the Year of Flowers collection dies to come back in stock. But now, the stamp set has been retired. Are they really going to make restocking the dies a priority? I doubt it. Perhaps this will happen when we get the long promised updated website.

To the OP, if you look at the tab "Last Call", it shows you the stamp sets that are retiring. If the stamp set is not listed here, but it still appears in the shop, then the stamp set hasn't retired. If the stamp set does not appear in the shop, then it has been retired. Hope that helps.

[CraftyMel2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryrose

I wish that they would remove things from the site that they have no intention of restocking. For example, I have been waiting for the Year of Flowers collection dies to come back in stock. But now, the stamp set has been retired..

I have not had this happen with PTI but I have with WPlus9. I signed up for notification of a stamp set that was out of stock but the dies were still there. Crickets. A few months went by, still nothing so I decided to email them. I rec'd a quick response that they have retired that set and should have removed it from their site. Said they were sorry and they would remove it ASAP. Weeks later, still there. Another few months later...still there. Eventually was removed, more than 5 months since my original inquiry. I hope PTI will remove items from the site that they do not plan on ever having in stock again. I understand if it is a problem with their supplier or something, but if they are legitimately retiring it, it should be removed or marked as "Retired" with a date so I know what my chances are of ever getting it. So far I have been lucky I guess because I have been able to order 90% of the items on my wish lists when the time comes to order.

[maryalena]

I did get an answer from PTI about availability of a die that matches a stamp set that is in the Last Call status. CS said probably not on the die since the stamp was in last call. This is a set that could work without the die but my plans were for using it with the die. The response was within a day so it might be helpful to contact them if you are unsure of matching dies.

[Hoboken Paper]

This is the entire list of retiring stamp sets. Even if the stamp set is not in the "last call" section, it may be slated for retirement.

https://blog.papertreyink.com/wp-con...-Stamp-Set.pdf

I don't think you can count on how old or new a set is. Some of the items on the list are relatively new, and there are some very old sets that are sticking around.

[maryalena]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hoboken Paper

This is the entire list of retiring stamp sets. Even if the stamp set is not in the "last call" section, it may be slated for retirement.

https://blog.papertreyink.com/wp-con...-Stamp-Set.pdf

I don't think you can count on how old or new a set is. Some of the items on the list are relatively new, and there are some very old sets that are sticking around.

Good point. Notify me is no guarantee of restocking either. I have had a Notify Me out for an ink refill of a current color stamp pad with another stamping company for seven months and they don�t even respond to an inquiry about it.

[purpleflowers]

I have a bunch of dies on my wishlist at PTI that were out of stock, some as far back as July of 2017. This thread prompted me to put in a ticket for customer service with a list of the dies I was looking for and they did respond (put the ticket in June 30, got the response today, so not bad response time there). And now I understand why some dies have been out of stock for so long:

Quote:

We suffered a server crash and lost a lot of our files for our dies. We are recreating files and getting them to the manufacturer so they can be made. It just takes some time to get them recreated. They are expected to be back in stock in the next 1-2 months.

Eight of the dies I want were "lost" so I guess I wait 2 more months for them.

PSA for the day: back up your files, in multiple locations. If you have your files saved on a CD in your house and the house burns down along with your computer and CD, you have still lost your files. Make sure a copy goes to your bank box or some other secure offsite location.

[maryalena]

That’s interesting. It would be great if they put that info on the forum or their blog. Customers would be more understanding if they knew the reason.

[maryalena]

Just found this info on the forum. Might help for those looking for specific dies.
<aside>

</aside>
Here's basically what I got from my C/S request:

They suffered a server crash which wiped out a lot of their die files. They are now in the middle of the huge task of recreating them and having them retooled by the manufacturer. Some of them have already been done, such as some of the Mix & Mat dies. Any die that is out of stock in the range of PTD-1159 to PTD-1307 were a part of the crash. We expect them to be restocked in the next 1-2 months.

And there you have the latest! Looks like the time frame is from October 2016-October 2017.