Stock level

Posted on 27/02/2009 15:09:28

Hi guys,

We had a discussion today abou a bug fix in relation to stock level, but since we were in a Friday mood, the discussion got further than this;)

We ended up talking about handling these instances where stock level somehow reaches zero or even a negative number:

1: Stock level is 10

2: I add 7 items to my basket

3: In the meantime another customer completes an order for 5 items

4: ?

1: Stock level is 10

2: I attempt to add 12 items to my basket

3: ?

1: Stock level on an unreleased product is 0, but it's available for preordering

2: Stock for another product is 0, and this product is sold out

3: Hiding products not in stock won't work in this example - what to do?

We talked about extending the "Stock state" so you could make more individual settings, but it would also be great to have your view on this, so if you have an opinion here, please let us know.

Have a great weekend:)

Replies

Posted on 27/02/2009 20:24:52

Hi Lars,

The problem is also payment related. For example, we have a payment gateway that generates a payment code, people go to the atm or use home banking system to pay. It's largelly used in Portugal. This payment gateway does not mean the client actually pays. If he forgets or doesn't perform payment, good are not shipped.

In direct relation to your question, the system should recheck product availability upon payment (submit button in step 5 of shopping cart) and if not available, cancel payment and render a message of sudden out of stock message (template managed). This could only be activated if "stock control" was active.

If a person tries to add more products than available, render a message of lack of stock. Had to be rendered in step 1 of cart in case someone tries to update a quantity, and also in the product list. a good ideia is to disable (but still visible) the "add to cart button" for situation like:

1. Client added Product A to cart

2. The page reloads, updating the cart, but stock level suddenly became 0

3. "add to cart" button is disabled so the user sees the item he just added to cart and doesn't get lost, but cannot add no more.

By default a product stock level could be 0, because with the "stock control" feature, it couldn't be sold (3rd scenario).

To avoid stock level values, I believe there should also exist a "stock update" feature, so the user enters +10 or -2 to a product update. The product could be selling as he in editing, and this way Dw could do the correct update.

How about this?

Best Regards,

Nuno

Posted on 02/03/2009 12:59:47

Thanks for your inputm Nuno, it's much appreciated:)

You must be logged in to post in the forum

Developer forum

Stock level

Replies