Where'd It Go?

It's always a difficult question to answer when customers ask me why we stopped carrying something in the store.

Especially when I don't know the answer.
But also when I do know the answer.

Sometimes it's easy.
"Our Breeder stopped breeding this animal so we're no longer carrying it."
"We're experiencing a shortage right now."
"There was a recall on this product, we'll get more in once they fix the issue."

Other times it's hard. Like how do you explain to a customer that "Due to changes in a particular company's policies in regards to their food and selling said food, we've now limited their line of food within our store?"

Today's question about product availability involved some freeze dried veggies that we used to carry on our shelves.

Honestly, I hadn't realized that they'd disappeared from the shelves until the customer pointed it out to me. Though it was satisfying to finally realize what used to be in the empty spot. *shakes head*

In any case.
They noticed because the customer bought a tortoise, and bought some freeze dried vegetables to feed the tortoise on my suggestion since that's what we feed them in the store.

Only....for the past three or four months.
None of our stores have been carrying this product.
We have no freeze dried vegetables from any of the brands we used to have available. It's not even on our website apparently.

And do I know why?
Nope. I haven't the foggiest idea.

There are a lot of reasons why we stop carrying products.
a) not enough demand, so the company decided to pull selling the product.
b) they're repackaging/rebranding the product so it's temporarily off our shelves.
c) there's a shortage.
d) they feel they've oversaturated the market with the product and so pulled it.
e) there's an issue with production.
f) some other reason.

Honestly. I don't know.
And I feel bad for customers who suddenly don't have the product they always came into the store to grab.
Honestly, stores should give more of a warning. Or companies should. They should say "Hey we're no longer going to be carrying this, but try these other solutions!"
Because there are those picky animals out there that will only eat ONE thing and ONE thing only.
And if that thing disappears.
They're left scrambling to find a way or another food solution to get their pet to eat.

Which is what the customers today are dealing with.
The tortoise they bought is finicky. He'll eat the freeze dried and basically nothing else.
(they did get him to eat tomatoes)
So I did what I could offering suggestions
Which was met with "we already tried that."

*Exhales*
But I turned them towards fruits to try for their tortoise since they hadn't gone that route yet.
So *fingers crossed* that the tortoise takes to that. :S

Guess we'll see.

-Sarnic Dirchi