fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I just got off the phone with AM. They are trying to decide if they are going to get any more FP 0673 motors in stock for this season. This will depend on demand and if they can get them before the end of the season. Let's help them decide by e-mailing and/or calling them to let them know we would like to buy more.

Bruce

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

We, for one, were planning on using a pair of those motors on our machine. This is unfortunate.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Us too. Why wouldn't you want the FP with the higher RPM and max power for something like a shooter?

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Im sure our team will need more so i sent them an e-mail. Thanks for the heads up.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I already emailed Andy about this a few hours ago. If these were available, I'd definitely be using two of them on the robot this year.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I also spoke with Andy on the phone earlier yesterday, it sounded like the chances were slim

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Back and gone again in a matter of hours. Is there any chance of more coming in in the next few days?

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Really? I didn't even notice...

I think we will be looking for teams local that are not using them, since the 0673 came in the 2011 KOP.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

0673's went on sale as of 7 minutes ago.

Have fun!

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

And out of stock again...
I hope you all got your orders in.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I had some in my CART and when I checked out I got the out of stock message. Kind of hard to understand how that worked AM.
Bruce

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Aww man:(

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

And were out of stock 6 minutes after they went on sale. So they were already gone by the time you posted.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

All I can say is WOW.

300 motors in 6 minutes...

How did people know when they would go on sale? I was checking frequently this morning...

I wonder how many teams actually got to place an order?

- Mr.Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

E-commerce must work at a faster pace than my fingers type.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

If they handled this shortage like their others, it is likely that teams placed orders with AM before hand so when the stock came in it was possible that 200 were already claimed leaving only a few still available. At that, it wouldn't be unrealistic for teams to order 10 at a time.

If I see someone posting on Chief Delphi or ebay offering 0673 motors for sale at a markup, I'm getting my hammer and comming to find you... ;)

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I was able to get some by being logged in and ready to go right at 12:00 EST. I signed up with AM's e-mail notification a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I got the email alert that they would go on sale at noon today. Those alerts really do work.

There must have been tons of people on their site at that time because it slowed to a crawl.

@Bruceb, the items are not actuall take out of the datadase inventory until the sale is completed. Someone else must have completed the sale just prior to you which meant that they were no longer available to you.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

They did not allow preorders

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

On AndyMark's site, if a product is out of stock, you can enter your email to be notified when the product becomes available again. He also posted a message on the 0673 motor page that indicated it would go on sale as of 12pm (noon) today.

Fox46, I'm not sure that people could pre-order these motors or anything that is "out of stock" for that matter. I tried that through the website and as soon as you click on add to cart, you get a message that says:

"(00801-0673 F-P (Fisher Price) motor (am-0821)) is currently out of stock. Please click "Email when Available" Below to be one of the first notified."

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

From what I have seen from their POS (point of sale not the POS) you can't buy more items than they have is stock. Getting it into your cart is not the same as buying them. Not sure if they had 200 already claimed if that were the case. I have a feeling that there were several folks who bought several at a time.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

The site would not allow you to pre-order out of stock items. I was refreshing the screen at 11 am central(an e-mail went out saying they would be available at 12 am eastern) and as soon as I saw them be in stock(like 11:00:03) I put 4 in my cart. I went to my cart and confirmed I had them then started check out. About half way through check out I got the message that they were out of stock so AM allowed someone with a faster computer or link to steal them out of my cart. I don't get how any retailer could see that as a good business practice. Never been disappointed with AM before. Hope they correct this in the future.
Bruce

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Truer words were never spoken. There were probably a fair number of people thinking that exact thing at 12:07.

As for how we knew they were on sale, AM sent out emails updating people on the incoming stock and when they'd go on sale, etc. Provided you signed up to be emailed when the item came back in stock. AM is using the heck out of that feature to keep people updated on the stock status of items. I think I got 4 emails updating me on the changing status of the 0673's.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I was on the site at 9:00 AM PST and could not get a refresh until 9:08 and didn't get any motors.

No pre-orders were accepted by AM so they all went this morning.

I do think that if teams ordered 10+ of them they were only thinking of themselves and not being gracious considering that many teams will not get them. AM asked teams to only order what they really needed.

You can only use 2 on your robot. so 2 and 2 for the practice robot/spares

Many teams got none...

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Is there another source for these?

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I did the same thing, logged on at 11:50am and kept refreshing the page until it said "Available". I also noticed how slow the site was as well when trying to place my order.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

What's your proposed alternative, exactly? They take them out of stock as people add them to a cart? And then put them back in stock if the person takes them out of the cart? What if your browser crashes? What if your internet goes down? How long do they wait before they decide you're not actually going to buy those motors after all?

Doing things that way would make for an incredibly chaotic stock status. Those motors would have been going in and out of stock for 30 minutes, and you'd have people even MORE annoyed when they gave up at 11:10 and someone came in at 11:15 and grabbed some that came back in stock. Their current method makes far more sense. Especially from a database standpoint: process one transaction and you're done, instead of half a dozen transactions for every order. I think the only other sensible way they could've handled it would be to set up a lottery for the things with a limit on the number you could purchase. And even then, there would be people left out and offended.

I understand you're frustrated that you didn't get any of those motors, but I think you should cool down a bit and think things through before you start besmirching AM's handling of the situation. They did the best they could given the limited supply of these motors.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Pretty much all online stores use browser-side cookies to store what items are in your cart, and only process orders based upon a first-come, first-served basis based upon who pays first.

It would be unfeasible for online stores to track what items people put in their online carts in real time and deduct that from available inventory, as this would be incredibly easy for someone to abuse the system and screw over honest buyers. If such a cart-tracking system were in place, one random anonymous person could go to an online store, add EVERYTHING to his cart, leave it there and then simply never actually buy it, while meanwhile genuine customers could be prevented from actually buying it because those cart items were already deducted from available inventory.

Thus, the only fair way to prevent this is to process orders first-paid, first-served.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I believe our order for 4 0673 went though. We have been using a AM9015 in our shooter for the time being.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

Fab.com does exactly the process you are describing. The way they get around "hoarders" is by limiting quantities and placing a time limit on how long your cart is valid.

I akin this to ticketmaster. If anyone has ever purchased tickets to a concert through them, once you have chosen the tickets you want, ticketmaster holds those tickets for 5 minutes or so until you've paid.

Now, I don't think AM is quite at the traffic volume of ticketmaster. I find their system perfectly acceptable. I just wanted to point out that there are plenty of sites that do monitor inventory based on placement in cart versus final purchase.

-Brando

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I was originally hoping to use the 0673's in our shooter, but we ultimately decided to go with the banebots RS550 instead. We get similar performance to the 0673 with that.

What swayed our decision was we were using the FP gearbox for our turrent and were going to use BaneBots motors on it and the BaneBots gearboxes for our shooter and use FPs on it. I finally went, "wait a minute...":cool:

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

This was an email sent by AndyMark yesterday:

And another one earlier today, which in addition contained the same info as the one from yesterday:

AndyMark did the best they could to give everyone a fair chance at getting the motors.

We were lucky to have a mentor on top of this at the specified time and were able to get 4. (2 for competition bot and 2 for practice bot)

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

10 minutes prior to Noon EST:

- I rebooted my computer (fresh OS instance)
- I rebooted my Internet connection (fresh connection)
- Logged into my AndyMark account
- Added the credit card I would use to the stored credit card area

One minute prior to Noon EST:

- I started hitting the F5 key to refresh

At Noon EST:

- I saw the 0673 as Available and I pounced

I got mine plus the 15t sun gears... I think having the _stored_ credit card to instantly select was the beneficial advantage...

Because AM asked in their communications, I only bought what we _need_ since we're dependent on the AM Planetaries w/FP 0673 already on our competition and practice bots ... but, I have to say I was tempted to buy a lot in order to have something of value to help our friends... NOT SURE, ultimately, what would have been the better choice...

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

When we placed our last AM order they were out of the planetary gearboxes for the FisherPrice motors. We contacted them to ask about their availability and they offered to process our order and payment while holding the order until the gearboxes were in stock. The order shipped shortly after. I assumed they had done the same with these.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I think the situation's a little different since they're expecting to get stock of the AM planetaries in semi-regularly as they're manufactured. These motors were special ordered from Mattel, and there's a reasonable likelihood that they just won't be getting any more before the end of the season. Letting people secretly preorder would have been a pretty poor move, I think.

Re: fisher price 0673 motor AM update
 

I added to cart and went to check out and had some fun error pop up regarding non alphanumeric characters, and the shipping selection box got stuck loading, by the time I got around that at 11:07 they were gone.

very happily I found a team that had just the right amount laying around and willing to give to us. So I'm alright.

I do think for such things knowing how many are allowed per robot a cap should've been put on the max quantity allowed ~4 or so.

It almost starts to run afoul of the "vendor" rule with them not being available to everyone, but the legal motor rules cover it.