All true...What would be really nice is a dealer who had up-to-date web listings of the reloads they actually had on their shelf. Everyone has favorite reloads, no matter the brand. I do not have time to play phone tag or email tag with various vendors looking for a particular reload.
That's a great idea, in theory, but in practice, it's problematic.
Using our buddy Tim Lehr of Wildman as an example...
Providing current information requires that as product is sold, it's updating a database somewhere, which the website uses to produce availability information. That means a constant feed.
Now, Tim uses a computer as his cash register, which makes it theoretically possible. Except for the fact that his cash register goes to launches with him, and without an (expensive) cellular connection, he cannot keep that information current.
In addition, most affordable small business POS (point of sale) software is proprietary, and won't have the necessary hooks to provide such a feed.
Even exporting the data on a daily basis can be difficult, and would require custom development to convert whatever format the software
can produce (if any) to the format the web site needs.
For larger retailers, the POS software is still often proprietary, but because larger businesses require the ability to monitor sales at several stores, the ability to obtain feeds is built-in, and those same retailers have the IT staff necessary to write programs to convert it.
If the data is then made available, the website then has to be setup with the ability to utilize that information.
-Kevin
