I thought I'd chime in on what has happened over the last two or so weeks in regards to EB's online sales and the flurry of canceled orders many received.
At first, the stocks for EB Games' online sales and in-store sales were separate entities, where all online purchases would access stock from their distribution centre (somewhere in QLD I believe) and all in-store purchases were… well you guessed it, in-store.
But now, as of two weeks ago, online purchases can now access stock from both their distribution centre and the stores themselves - which naturally caused confusion.
I believe this move was done to clear out the old stock showing up on their Inventory Management System, most residing in rural/distant regions, where said stock would be available in low numbers (likely singular) and still show up as "available". However, the stores would not be able to fulfill the order from many problems, such as people from all over the country buying that one item in a short amount of time (a la the NES mini) and the stores themselves unable to locate it - such as misplacing items without reflecting its status in their Inventory Management System, discs with stolen cases, etc. In short, the stock would be wayward. Somewhere. There could be other ideas as to why they can't be fulfilled, but this one sounds the most plausible to me.
I imagine a distribution centre would have better management of stock than stores, since they don't have to deal with the pressure of customers waiting in person and all. They would only have to deal with stock and nothing else, with all online orders directed to them and that's that. Now that the orders now go through all stores around the country and since its EB's first go, naturally there will be miscommunication - in this case, the form of not telling which store should pack that item to mail away (which also explains the 20 boxes for the 20 items purchase by an individual).
As for the stock themselves, most of them (in-store) would have been literally picked from the shelves and packed up after the store closes. It's the same stuff people would trade in (if buying second-hand), such as missing discs and cracked cases.
Well, that's what I understand so far. Feel free to chime in yourself as I know I must have missed something.
One of the few intelligent rants I've read 😜. What confuses/annoys me, is I've ordered a $9 PS4 game twice. So far it hasn't been called the second time ..