Confirm Stock

[SethF]

Hi there

I am not a fan of the "x units in stock" on the product info page, and would much prefer a "confirm stock" or "in stock" button. Clicking confirm stock would take you to page where the customer must fill in a short form (working like the "Ask a question about this product" add on)

Is there something like this out there for Zen Cart? Would someone be willing to give it a go?

Or, can the "Ask a question about this product" add on be modded to comply with this?

Any input appreciated.

Thanks
S

[kuroi]

I'm not aware of anything like that and can't see a good reason for it.

The stock indicators, whether they're numerical or merely confirmation that the item is in stock, is to reassure shoppers that if they place an order, it can be delivered from stock without a long wait while it's obtained.

If sharing that information isn't appropriate for your store, that's fine, it can be turned off.

But what's the benefit of sharing it but making your visitors jump through hoops to get it? That just sounds like a way to kill sales by creating an extra barrier for somebody who's interesting in your products and delaying (and therefore risking losing) a purchase from that person.

[SethF]

Actually, if you are a reseller, with over 2000 products in your product database, updating realtime stock of your supplier is virtually impossible without enough employees.

By having a "confirm stock" button, it would make it easier for the sales team to assure the customer of the stock of a particular item rather than updating each product manually.

Do you see where I am coming from?

[kuroi]

I do, but it's a store-centric perspective.

Our most successful clients are customer-centric.

[stevesh]

I do, but I tend to approach these things as a visitor to the site would, and there's no way I would fill out a form every time I wanted to know if you had the products I want to buy in stock. I've never done a reseller (dropshipping) site, but many here do, and seem to manage stock.

It may be there's something about your products, though, that could make something like this work.

[SethF]

I do, but I tend to approach these things as a visitor to the site would, and there's no way I would fill out a form every time I wanted to know if you had the products I want to buy in stock. I've never done a reseller (dropshipping) site, but many here do, and seem to manage stock.

It may be there's something about your products, though, that could make something like this work.

http://www.pcselect.co.za

You can see what I've done to the product description page for the mean time. I can not add accurate stock levels for all my products (1700 of them haven't been added yet)

So.. perhaps a sidebox telling customers to call to check most up to date price and stock before they order? Calling is instant, etc...

[kuroi]

That would feel more customer-friendly than asking them to fill in a form and wait for a response. It would give them an immediate response and your staff the chance to start establishing a relationship with them.

[SethF]

That would feel more customer-friendly than asking them to fill in a form and wait for a response. It would give them an immediate response and your staff the chance to start establishing a relationship with them.

I wish there was a sidebox specifically for this purpose.. I have major problems with blank sidebox add on.. as you can see it leaves massive inconvenient spaces.. (Its not the content.. it does it with plan text as well)

[stevesh]

That I can fix - remove the <p> tags in tpl_blank_sidebox.php.
Leave the single quotes, though.

$content .= '<p>' . TEXT_BLANK_SIDEBOX . '</p>';
$content .= '<p>You can include text, links, images, HTML markup and even PHP code</p>';

p.s. You have the constant SITE_TAGLINE in your title.

[kuroi]

Your blank sidebox problem is because you've included empty paragraphs above and below the livechat div. If you didn't do that the spaces they create wouldn't exist. Have you possibly put the live sidebox div inside P tags? Of so, remove them.