How to make out of stock attributes (T-Shirt sizes) not show up in drop down menu?

[4130]

My zencart store is used mainly to sell T-shirts. I only apply one option value as an attribute to each product and that is SIZE. So for each T-shirt I'm selling, the customer has the option of selecting small, medium, large, xl, xxl, or 3xl.

My problem is this: Sometimes I run out of certain sizes before others, say Large and XL. When this happens, the quantity is marked down to 0 for those specific attributes which are out of stock, but zen cart still shows the out of stock sizes in the drop down menu on the product description page.

In my old online store, Big Cartel, if I ran out of a certain size that sizing option would automatically be removed from the drop down menu. It wouldn't even let the customer select a size that the inventory shows as 0 or "out of stock"

On zen cart, it leaves all sizing attributes in the drop down menu regardless of whether that specific size is in stock or not. I would like to know how to get zen cart to automatically remove any size options from the drop down menu so the customer doesn't even have the chance to add it to their cart.

I've gotten a lot of complaints lately that customers are adding multiple products to their cart only to find out later that many of the items they added to the cart are actually not available for purchase and must be removed before they can check out.

This is not a fun way to shop, and is causing a lot of frustration. I've searched and searched and searched online but have not found a definitive answer as to how we can get zen cart to automatically remove any sizing attribute which shows an inventory level of 0.

I DO NOT want to have to manually remove a sizing attribute when I know it has sold down to 0.

I also do not want a message to pop up saying that the item they have selected is invalid and unable to be added to their cart. I just want the size to be completely unavailable for them to even select so it saves them this hassle and they know what is available for purchase or not before they ever add it to their cart.


I'm running Zencart version 1.3.8a and it was freshly installed on 04/10/2010.

As far as I know, no add-ons are installed but I didn't build this site. my old designer did and now he's MIA.

My store can be viewed at this link: http://4130clothing.com/www/offroad-apparel

A specific item where I have this issue is the Branded Bypass T-shirt. I know for a fact that we have zero 3XL's in stock and that sizing attribute is marked at 0 in the back end of the store but it is still showing up in the drop down menu and allows you to add it to your cart even though there's no way to actually order that item since it is out of stock.

Try and add a 3xl branded bypass shirt to your cart to see what I mean: http://4130clothing.com/www/offroad-...products_id=86

I'm sure other people have ran into this issue before. Strange that I couldn't find an answer really but hopefully someone on here can help us out. Thanks!

[kobra]

I'm running Zencart version 1.3.8a

First thing is to upgrade as the code base you are using has known vulnerabilities

that sizing attribute is marked at 0 in the back end of the store

Default code does not track stock for sizes or any attribute

As far as I know, no add-ons are installed

If you can enter a value in the admin for an attribute quantity there is an add on
There is a 3rd party add on for "Stock by attributes" you can look at and it may require a bit of customization with some if/else logic on what the stock value is

[4130]

Found the stock by attributes module. installed it but it doesn't seem to be working perfectly yet. we'll tweak it today and see if we can get it to install properly cuz it sounds like it will work even though it's very difficult to install. I'm extremely surprised this is not an option that zencart was built with from the beginning. why anyone would want to go in an manually have to manage their attributes or sizes that are out of stock instead of the software doing it automatically is baffling to me.

[kobra]

I'm extremely surprised this is not an option that zencart was built with from the beginning. why anyone would want to go in an manually have to manage their attributes or sizes that are out of stock instead of the software doing it automatically is baffling to me.

ZenCart is for many types of shops and not all sell clothing or have sizes

[4130]

Well they should be prepared for the ones that do have different sizes since the "size" attribute doesn't only apply to apparel. Although I'm sure many of the zencart users do use it for clothing sales and have run into this problem judging by the amount of issues we found as we googled this problem. Just seems like a natural thing to me to remove any option of buying a product that is currently not in stock. The other carts we used in the past were much more simple than zen cart and even they employed this idea.

[kobra]

The other carts we used in the past were much more simple than zen cart and even they employed this idea.

Are they also secure?

[4130]

Never had an issue over 3 years of use so yeah I'd say so. But I'm no expert so maybe we just got lucky...

I like zen cart, it's just on a whole new level of customization and some of it is a bit hard to figure out.

like right now i have all these out of stock items showing up in "new items" and confusing the hell out of my customers. we installed the new script but it still does it. very annoying. but obviously something wasn't done correctly.

[dysfunctional]

There is a really simple hack out there to make "stock by attributes" work the way you want but I cannot find it right now - I have get back to you tomorrow with the solution as I'm not on my computer right now, hold on :).

[4130]

right on thx dysfunctional

[dysfunctional]

Here is the solution :

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpo...&postcount=625

I've used it on several sites to make "stock by attributes" behave the way I want, which means that it will hide sold out items (attributes) from the drop down menu.

Should be a default setting for sure, I totally agree, but it's not :).