How to view sold items

[taogem]

Is there a way for both myself and the buyer to view sold items/images?

They are removed from the inventory which is great, but would be nice for the customer to be able to confirm that what they get is what they saw.

Also would be great if I could confirm that I have not made any listing errors and am sending what the customer saw..

Thanks

[swguy]

If you set Admin->Configuration->Stock-> Product status in catalog when out of stock to 1, you'll still be able to see the product even if it's sold out.

[taogem]

Sounds like it will still show up as an item for sale in the store though.

I just meant that I would still like to have it removed from store inventory, and yet be able to click on the items link and see it.

Like eBay.....

Even though the item is sold, and removed from listings, you can still click on the items link and view the item description and image.

[Ajeh]

If you have the track stock on and the Sold Out on and the Product Status set to 1 what happens is when stock is reduced to <= 0 when the order is completed, the Product remains showing in the Catalog but all Add to Cart buttons change to Sold Out image and everything works except the add to cart ...

Note: existing products that are sold out with quantity <= 0 and have been set to products_status = 0 will need to be change to products_status = 1 ...

[taogem]

Thank you Ajeh..

I think I get it.

Glad to know that it can be done..

Will go and give it a whirl....

Thanks very much!

[cochlear]

If you have the track stock on and the Sold Out on and the Product Status set to 1 what happens is when stock is reduced to <= 0 when the order is completed, the Product remains showing in the Catalog

How can I make it not show in the catalog, but given a link, customers can still access the product info page for the product they bought?

The reason I ask, is because for stores that sell unique items, you don't really want customers to browse your catalog and see sold-out products all over the place. But for the particular customer who bought the product, it's good to be able to refer back to the original product info page.

[Ajeh]

One idea is to setup the Products to move Sold Out items from the current category to a Sold Out category ... this would require custom coding ...

The advantage is, while yes, they are Sold Out, it encourages folks to buy things before they land in the Sold Out Category ...

Or, leave them in their category and marked as sold out as a constant reminder that you need to buy now ... or lose your chance like you did on all these sold out items ...

[cochlear]

Ajeh thank you for your suggestions , but I still prefer the eBay approach (the one I described above) though. With time the catalog will be flooded with hundreds or thousands of sold out items, I don't really want to show them in the catalog and store search results.

Do you mind giving any hints on how I could customise the code? Just the general direction or principle, I'll read up php books to work out the specific codes.

[Ajeh]

It would take a lot of work as Zen Cart is designed to prevent viewing Products that are products_status 0 so that no one can hack around on the site to see things that they should not ...

For something like this, you may need to post in the Commercial Help Wanted to work around a way for Sold Out items to be viewed by people who bought them ...

[cochlear]

Thanks Ajeh, your advice is very helpful. I think I'll work on hiding sold products_status 1 products then. I guess the sold category link can be hidden via CSS. Search is more difficult as advanced search has no options for excluding sold items. I'll see if there is any workaround.