An ant lion hides in a sandhill, lying in wait for its prey. Any ant that happens to get too close to the edge is a goner. Similarly an Ant Lion Warehouse is a warehouse that immediately processes an order the moment it is submitted, failing to provide both the customer and the representative an adequate means to cancel the shipment before the customer is charged and the order goes out. The customer's money is the ant. The theory is that this occurs due to there being multiple manufacturers with multiple warehouses, but you'd think one of them would have the decency to install the computer system necessary for canceling an order, to encourage more customers to buy from the company. Of course, this looks nice for the sales figures, as it artificially inflates the amounts of purchases and puts the refunds on a separate bank book. That being said, if the situation were different, it's unlikely that customers would ever be able to get their items delivered in three business days or overnight (TNSTABD).
Common call flow:
- Customer places order on phone or online, but some crucial detail is neglected (payment method, amount, type of item, coloration, etc.)
- Shipping speed or product type locks it into `shipping soon' status within two hours of it being placed.
- Customer cannot cancel it, calls your department.
- Your system cannot cancel the order because it's at a warehouse that does not support shipment cancellation. You send a message through the system asking the warehouse to cancel it, while giving customer advice on how to return or refuse the shipment. You cannot phone them. See The_Nophone_Department.
- The warehouse guys read their e-mails once every week, probably on Tuesday. If you're lucky, they read the e-mail on time and cancel the order.
- If you're not lucky, they read the e-mail three days after it's left the warehouse and send an e-mail saying, "Oops! It's already shipped. Tough break on that whole `canceling the order' thing." Either that, or a week later you get an e-mail like this one: "I'm sorry, "Dropship.Inquiries" is for Direct Vendor Ship (DVS) warehouses only. The encrypted shipID you provided is not for a DVS order. These warehouses are NOT DVS: bla bla bla bla bla..."
- The customer calls you and tries to bite your head off through the phone.