Make items in cart disappear from catalog

[swguy]

Thank you for the reply. Since my site isn't "live" I can't go through the entire purchase process, unless I can make an item free.

Clarification on this: you can install either the COD payment module or the Check/Money order payment module, and test your checkout and order processing.

[schoolboy]

You are assuming that browsers who "add to cart" have some intention of actually buying the items. I can tell you that browsers add to cart for lots of other reasons.

Absolutely correct here. After building and managing a couple of hundred eComm sites over the last 10 years, I can attest that this is true. More than half the customers on a site at any one time will have items in their cart. They MOSTLY do it to "keep track" of what they viewed - even when a "recently viewed" function is available to them. Some will have upwards of fifteen or twenty products in the cart. In MANY cases, these customers abandon the site, leaving the session live and the items lingering in a purposeless cart.

Under your "scheme", these would all then be unavailable for other customers.

Summary of your idea? It's dumb...

So first to checkout gets the item.
All others who have it in their cart will find it magically disappears.

Item sold, you're happy
Customer who checked out first got it, they're happy
The rest... well they learned a lesson to check out faster.

imo.[/QUOTE]

IMO too... Checkout is the point at which it all matters.

[vintageshop]

So now after "removing" the item from stock you will have to keep track of existing carts so that when they "expire" the product will "magically" appear "back in stock" for customers who could have already purchased it if you hadn't prevented them from doing purchasing it earlier.

From their "point of view" they see the item as available
Then its NOT available.
Then later its available again???

What about a customer who is "logged in", their cart will be "saved" for the next time they login to the website. Do you still want them to have the item "exclusively", forever?

That last is an interesting point. You are saying that zencart will save the cart indefinitely for logged in customers, which would definitely cause a problem with the model I was thinking of. In some other carts I've seen it where the cart tells people that the item is in someone's shopping cart and may be available again later. I guess if the item will disappear after from one cart after purchasing then it will alleviate some of the problem.

It still doesn't stop the fact that zencart allows you to add an item multiple times even though you set the maximum limit to 1 and the stock number is 1. Certainly a developer can do anything I suppose, I may go that route, but I was first trying to explore the options within the available coding before looking at more customization.

Thanks to everyone for the input!

[DivaVocals]

It still doesn't stop the fact that zencart allows you to add an item multiple times even though you set the maximum limit to 1 and the stock number is 1. Certainly a developer can do anything I suppose, I may go that route, but I was first trying to explore the options within the available coding before looking at more customization.

Thanks to everyone for the input!

Not sure why you keep saying this.. Have you tested the checkout process to see how it all ties together. Your statements give the impression that you have not...

If you configure products so that you remove the quantity box (Products Quantity Box Shows: No) AND set the product maximum to 1 (Product Qty Maximum: 1), the quantity box no longer shows on the product info page NOR does it appear in the shopping cart. If a customer adds this product again (and they can only do this from the product_info page, they are given a GREAT BIG warning that they CANNOT add this product again in a single session, that the item is out of stock (because it's in their cart) AND (to be doubly sure the customer can't do this) the store prevents them from checking out and completing the purchase until they fix their cart..

Please update your order.
The item: Matrox G200 MMS ... Maximum Quantity errors -
You ordered a total of: 2 Max: 1

Products marked with *** are out of stock.
Items not in stock will be placed on backorder.

Suggest you try testing the entire checkout process so you can see how it works.. You can test many of the things you've been informed about how the checkout functions that we've all shared here.. You might want to do that before running out to get a developer to create functionality you probably do not need..

[gilby]

It still doesn't stop the fact that zencart allows you to add an item multiple times even though you set the maximum limit to 1 and the stock number is 1. Certainly a developer can do anything I suppose, I may go that route, but I was first trying to explore the options within the available coding before looking at more customization.

Not sure why you keep saying this.. Have you tested the checkout process to see how it all ties together. Your statements give the impression that you have not...

I suspect its a misunderstanding about how the cart works.
Setting the max to one allows a customer to ONLY add one to their cart.
But it also allows 10 other people to do the same.

vintageshop wants this to mean ONLY one person can add it to their cart exclusively.
Thats NOT how it works.

If you have only one in stock that means ONLY one can be SOLD thru checkout
It doesn't mean (as you want it to mean) that only can be in one of the customers carts at the same time.

[DivaVocals]

I suspect its a misunderstanding about how the cart works.
Setting the max to one allows a customer to ONLY add one to their cart.
But it also allows 10 other people to do the same.

vintageshop wants this to mean ONLY one person can add it to their cart exclusively.
Thats NOT how it works.

If you have only one in stock that means ONLY one can be SOLD thru checkout
It doesn't mean (as you want it to mean) that only can be in one of the customers carts at the same time.

Ahhh that makes sense..

Seems like the OP is determined to make this work the way he thinks it should work. I'm not sure he fully understand the full scope/impact that will be required to implement this change with custom development.. (which is why a full solution is unlikely to be posted here on the forum)

As others have pointed out it seems to be a LOT of effort over what will be an EXTRAORDINARY/EXCEPTIONAL set of circumstances. On top of that if two people DID add the same item at the SAME time as long as the customer who lags in checking out is provided CLEAR on-screen messages about what has transpired, why go through this extraordinary development effort.. What is the gain from the shopper's POV and what is gain for the shopowners POV?? Will this HELP sales?? (not likely)

That said if the OP is SET on walking down this path.. Will it take a LOT of development effort to achieve correctly?? Proabably since the changes he wants affect inventory management, saved carts/sessions, product page behavior, product listing behavior, shopping cart behavior, and probably other areas I can't think of right now off the top of my head..

[swguy]

Yes, this ability to subtract things from the catalog can be an issue, but the cart expires in relative short order unless you sit there and keep actively updating it. Certainly this is the way many shopping cart programs work on different websites, gilt.com comes to mind. So, the risk of this shouldn't be that severe.

This is NOT the way many shopping cart programs work. The fact that gilt.com has a timeout feature does not mean it works the way you are suggesting. YES this risk *is* severe. Most shopping carts are abandoned, not fulfilled. And you'd be turning down people who were actually willing to give you money just because someone else had made the incredibly low commitment of adding something to their cart. This makes no sense at all.

[gilby]

This is NOT the way many shopping cart programs work. The fact that gilt.com has a timeout feature does not mean it works the way you are suggesting. YES this risk *is* severe. Most shopping carts are abandoned, not fulfilled. And you'd be turning down people who were actually willing to give you money just because someone else had made the incredibly low commitment of adding something to their cart. This makes no sense at all.

This says it all really!

[DivaVocals]

This is NOT the way many shopping cart programs work. The fact that gilt.com has a timeout feature does not mean it works the way you are suggesting. YES this risk *is* severe. Most shopping carts are abandoned, not fulfilled. And you'd be turning down people who were actually willing to give you money just because someone else had made the incredibly low commitment of adding something to their cart. This makes no sense at all.

Well stated.. As schoolboy said.. it's a DUMB idea, and Scott is right.. it makes no sense..

If it don't make dollars, then it don't make sense.. This idea will COST money while potentially LOSING income in the process..

[vintageshop]

Not sure why you keep saying this.. Have you tested the checkout process to see how it all ties together. Your statements give the impression that you have not...

Yes, I tested it and I see the error. An error that can only be fixed if the user deletes all of that item from the cart and starts over. I was wondering why this was allowed. Why not give the error, but not increase the number of items in the cart beyond 1? My cart will keep adding items so long as you go to the item again and hit add to cart without any seeming limit. I understand it probably would not let you check out, I just wanted to prevent the entire ability to have more than one in your cart. I posed the possibility of shifting the continue shopping button so it didn't immediately take you back to the same item that you just added to your cart. This would cause less temptation or mistakes in trying to add it again.

Many people seem to think this is a dumb idea. Maybe. I've seen it work for other sites so I would say not everyone agrees with this assessment. Still if zencart saves the cart for logged in users then this isn't something that would be easy to apply, but before I abandoned the idea I wanted to see if I was missing something within the zencart structure. Seems I'm not. This is just the way it is programmed to work.