When I saw the "free shipping for the next 24 hours" deal that Austin Homebrew is running today, I figured that I would jump on this. I wasn't planning to order quite yet - I won't be brewing again for another three weeks - but free is free.
The only issue was that AHS happened to be out of German pilsner. I'm brewing an Oktoberfest, so this was a bummer. I figured that I would sub in Belgian pils... but it was also out of stock.
In addition, both caramunich and carapils were also out of stock.
We're talking about almost half of my grain bill being unavailable. I would have to add in extra stuff to still qualify for free shipping, and I wouldn't have everything that I needed, anyway.
So, last night, I sent them an email. Explained what had happened. Asked if there was any way that I could make the order now and just have them hold it until everything was in stock. After all, I'd hate to miss the free shipping deal.
They responded to me this morning with an apology. They mentioned that their sales were up enough to throw off their ordering schedule, and while that was a nice problem to have, it was frustrating for their customers. They had placed some rush orders for grain, but it would be a week or so before those were in.
They told me that they couldn't take an online order for items that were out of stock, but they did include a coupon code in the email for $6.99 off - in other words, for free shipping.
Stuff like this is why I continue to do business with AHS.