time an item remains in a shopping cart?

Hi -

Once a customer selects an item, how long does it remain in their shopping cart before being returned to inventory?

And, are there any tools to configure/manage this?

This is of special importance to me since everything in my shop is going to be one-of-a-kind.

Thanks.

You could try the Keep Cart mod (http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&products_id=1433%29; it stores the customer's cart in a cookie ... until they sign in.

Thanks, and that's useful, but...what I'm really trying to do here is prevent a customer from coming in, selecting a product or two, changing their mind and leaving forever with the product "locked up" by their selection. Can cart contents be made to "time out?"

It occurs to me that I may have made an inaccurate assumption here. So, at what point in the checkout process is a product "committed" to the customer? Can two customers have the same item (the EXACT same item, not just the same model) in their carts at once, creating something of a race condition?

The product is committed to the customer when the customer pays for it. Having it in the cart isn't enough, so it is a 'race' of sorts.

I believe guest carts stay active for 24 minutes (I remember reading that somewhere on the forum). Customer carts (someone who's logged in) remain longer.

Thanks, Mary Ellen. So, if I understand you correctly, someone could cart an item, and I could come in an cart it too. Whoever gets through checkout gets it. Is that pretty much right?

And, can the "cart active" times be configured through the admin area?

Yes, the first one to check out gets the item.

If you're selling one of a kind items, you might want to check the setting under admin>configuration>stock.Allow Checkout

Allow customer to checkout even if there is insufficient stock

and set it to false.

There's no setting in the admin for the "cart active" time that I know of.

afo:

Yes, the first one to check out gets the item.

If you're selling one of a kind items, you might want to check the setting under admin>configuration>stock.Allow Checkout

and set it to false.
OK, thanks for the suggestion. I'll look at that.

There's no setting in the admin for the "cart active" time that I know of.

Wow. I finally found something in ZC that's not configurable? I never thought I'd see the day.

Any idea where in the core code these settings might live?

Thanks.

It's in includes/functions/sessions.php - look for '1440' (24 minutes X 60 seconds). Changing this isn't usually recommended, but I don't know the reason.

Selling one-of-a-kind items can be a trial with any shopping cart software, since there are only two points in the shopping process that stock can be removed from inventory: 1) when placed in the cart and 2) when the order is confirmed.

The first only make sense when there is only one of each product, so most (all, I think) carts use the second. The whole order process would have to be rewritten to give the option in admin.

Thanks for the explanation, Steve. It sounds as though I need to put a warning about this somewhere on the site, to avoid confusion and upset. Any suggestion where such a warning should go?

Do you have any familiarity with the addon that lat9 mentioned above? I'm wondering whether that might alter this behavior (though possibly not in a good way for my purposes).

Thanks.

Any suggestion where such a warning should go?

You can use the Shopping Cart Define Pages section ( above the shopping cart on the shopping cart page) to post information.

Kim:

You can use the Shopping Cart Define Pages section ( above the shopping cart on the shopping cart page) to post information.

Thank you, Kim. I can't find such a page through the config->define pages editor menu. Do I need to make a new file?

Sorry - I gave you bad advice there - the path to the shopping cart info is: includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE/shopping_cart.php

Ah. So, I assume you're probably talking about changing the text for TEXT_INFORMATION? I just edit the file, right (not changing it through the admin panel)?

And, as an alternative (or perhaps in addition), what do you think about something in the welcoming email? I really want to be sure that people see (and understand) this.

Thanks.