Forum Moderators: buckworks
I have read previous threads all the way back to 2004, and am mostly getting more confused. Please forgive me if this thread gets too long.
1) I have only a few handmade products, and only a few of each product, so inventory control is very important.
2) I will be happy to use PayPal for all my credit card transactions.
3) My website already has most of the "look and feel" that I want, and I am getting the help I need with HTML to make it better.
4) A cart that tells my customers that an item is already gone before they "select" it would be an added bonus.
Keeping in mind that I am not a professional site developer, but don't mind learning a few things, do you have any new information?
Thank you,
Bo
I don't have any commercially available solutions as I code them all myself. I will say, the inventory part was the one that gave me the most headaches! But here is what you might LOOK for . . .
- When an item is put into a cart, do nothing. Yes, some other user my get the the checkout first and take the last one, but that's just the way it is - see Wal-Mart on the day after Thanksgiving . . .
- My system(s) are set up with three database tables relating to inventory: stock, pending, purchases. When a customer checks out, stock is decremented by the number of items purchased and pending is incremented by those numbers. You don't want to immediately decrement stock because
* Items may be on backorder
* customers may cancel an order, so it may need to be deleted
* You want an immediate inventory report on actual in-stock items without having to do math on what's pending
* Easier public-display queries (see below)
* Key reason, if someone orders 6 widgets and you only have two, and they elect to send what you have in stock and the rest when they come in, when you update the order with two sent, it will still show 4 pending so you don't forget an incomplete order. The pending field is used to let you know about orders that are not fully resolved.
- On fulfillment (shipping,) pending is decremented by the number shipped, purchases is incremented.
- All of the above features adds up to an obvious and accurate display to customers when they visit the page: it will say "5 in stock" if there are 3 red widgets and two green widgets, with a list showing the two:
Widgets
Red: 3 in stock
Green: 2 in stock
Using the pending field, I only have to read in the stock table for public displays. Pending items have already been removed.
- On checkout, all of the above allows me to check stock before checkout, and present the shopper with a choice if any items are out of stock:
"Some of yout items are not in stock. Please choose from the following:
* Send entire order immediately and the rest when it comes in at no extra shipping charge
* Hold entire order until all items are in stock
* Remove out of stock items from my order"
- Ours is a "click and mortar," and there has to be an administrative interface to make accurate changes to stock when items are sold out of the store as opposed to automated Internet sales.
The part that gave me the greatest grief was inventory control on products with options. I won't get into the technical specifics, but if your items have options, simply a count of all the widgets won't do, you need to count the widgets that are large and red separate from the ones that are small and green, as well as a total count of both.
Although it's got the fields in our database, one item we have not added but you SHOULD be able to do in an inventory control is look up specific dates of the changes to stock, pending, and inventory to track down any miscalculations or connect them to a given sale or change in stock.
Thank you very much for this timely and personal reply. I wish your code was available to someone like me, as I haven't seen anything close to it advertised in my search of existing carts.
Do you know of anyplace (book, website, tutorial, etc.) where I could find examples of "Inventory Control" code?
Thanks again,
Bo
Not Free. Reasonable price. Great Support.
Maybe a little beyond your skills right now, but easy to learn.
Thank you.
