After two weeks of planning a switch and outlet purchase from @Lowes for our whole-home remodel, I went into the store today to make the buy, only to find out that Lowes has completely removed the *entire* brand from their shelves. As a 20 year web dev, this is interesting... 1/

The @Lowes website shows the brand in question, Legrand, mostly in stock. Each store shows between 10 and 20 different items on the shelf and available for pickup. There's no indication on the website that the brand is no longer carried, and to a consumer, all looks well. 2/

When I walked in today & was told the brand was gone I asked to speak to the manager on duty. He told me that their internal POS cant even pull up the old SKUs, yet they're still on the website. Was also told that the delay between the POS and the website is as much as 10 DAYS 3/

10 DAYS! I've worked for retail companies and consulted on POS systems before, and I've heard of such a lapse. Even Home Depot has a delay between the onsite POS systems and the website, but it's no more than 24 hours. 4/

It must be a nightmare to work for @Lowes IT department knowing that these issues exist. From what the manager was able to tell me, it very much sounds like these issues are pervasive throughout the organization, and that online accuracy and sales are still an afterthought. 5/

That in of itself blows my mind. This kind of situation is an abject lesson in the kinds of inefficiency and "we'll fix it later" approaches that erode consumer confidence in a brand, and ultimately hurt engagement and the bottom line for a company. 6/

For folks new to web development ( #100DaysOfCode #CodeNewbie #CodeNewbies) this thread highlights the kinds of red flags that you'll start to recognize in the real world, that have real world impact. 7/

For everyone else, I hope this was mildly interesting and read less as a gripe and more of an industry curiosity.