Are items in cart reserved for xx amount of time - or is a race to the finish?

[kurtzilla]

I am trying to determine when inventory is accounted for in the shopping process. Many ecommerce systems don't adjust inventory until the order has been processed. I need a solution where if the customer puts an item in their cart, they are guaranteed that item for at least a few minutes until they check out.

 

How does oscommerce handle this?

 

 

[sample scenario]

I have a ProductOne with an inventory of 1.

 

If customerA puts this in their cart, can customerB also put those items in their cart prior to customerA checking out?

 

Supposing that were true, and if customerB checks out first - what message does customerA receive?

 

 

 

I would like to sell event tickets - and waiting until the customer checks out to adjust and/or control the inventory will not work for my needs. When I have 500 customer on the site at 11AM to buy 300 tickets, I need a way for them to reserve their cart selections.

If oscommerce does not handle this, it would be great to hear from anyone who knows of any workarounds, plugins, customizations, etc.

 

Thank you

[Guest]

@@kurtzilla

 

The item is not removed from inventory until the checkout process is complete. Therefore, if customer A places an item in their cart and customer B also places the same item in their cart, then the person checkout first will receive item. The second customer will receive a message stating there is insufficient stock complete the checkout process.

 

So, in your case, you would need to have custom coding to alter the checkout process to suit your needs.

 

 

Chris

[kurtzilla]

Is this possible to achieve with os commerce thru coding? Are their hooks in the process that would allow me to track inventory on my own?

[Guest]

@@kurtzilla

 

Yes, you can code the site to 'reserve' the cart contents for X amount of time, usually associated with the session time. When coding this, you should consider session life. If your customers log in an hour before they can check out with the tickets, then their osCommerce session time would end before they actually were able to check out.

 

Another factor to consider, is.....how far in advance do you want the tickets available ? I mention this because if I was coding the site, I would create a 'start time' and date so you can pre-load the product and ONLY at the set time would it appear on the site and available. Just my thoughts.

 

 

 

Chris