One Product two different orders at the same time.

Hi

I have just received two orders for the same item from two different people.

Problem being is that there was only one in stock.

What looks to have happened is the orders completed within seconds of each other and now the stock count is -1.

Using Paypal website payments pro.

First time this has happened in two year. Had the odd two identical orders from the same customer but not two completely different ones.

Any one got any ideas on how to stop this happening again.

Rob

It sounds to me as if it's just one of those things. If your site was taking credit cards so the entire transaction was handled by ZenCart, it probably would not happen. But because the customers are handed off to PayPal, it's a little more complicated. ZenCart doesn't have total control while the customers are over at PayPal.

What if PayPal denies payment from one of the two, or what if one customer gets through PayPal faster than the other? Programmers could invent a series of rules for these scenarios, but how are you going to tell a customer that has just PAID that now they cannot have what they paid for? It's probably better to let a human being take over at that point.

It's a fluke thing that two customers would pay for the exact same item at (almost) the exact same time. Probably won't happen very often.

That's my 2 cents anyway.

Since Zencart removes stock from inventory after the transaction is complete, it's possible for two customers to place the one remaining item in their carts, then contuinue to shop. The first one to checkout gets the item, and, if you have Admin - Stock - Allow Checkout set to False, the other guy will see an out-of-stock message when he tries to check out.

I have Allow Checkout set to false.