Do products in someone's shopping cart preclude someone else from ordering them?

Hi,

I would just like clarification on this question:

As a food business we have a limited number of each product each week. Do products in someone's shopping cart preclude someone else from ordering them?

For example:

We have 10 of Product X available.
Customer A has 9 of Product X in their basket but has not yet checked out.
Customer B tries to put 2 of Product X in their basket.

Will Customer B be able to put 2 of Product X in their basket?
Will Customer B be able to checkout?

Assuming Customer B checkout is successful with 2 x Product X will Customer A be informed at checkout time and have to reduce the number?

Than

No, the Products in the cart are valid for both but whoever checksout first wins and the other customer find a nice message saying more or less "Too bad so sad" ... (ie: "We're sorry, we don't have that in stock anymore")

And if you fill your cart up and leave the site ... later when you login if the Product is gone you will have it removed from the cart with, again ... "too bad so sad" or something to that effect ... (ie: "We're sorry, here's something you had in your cart but we don't have that in stock anymore")

Do I have a way of knowing which customers have which items in their cart at any time other than when they checkout?

Phil Soth:

Do I have a way of knowing which customers have which items in their cart at any time other than when they checkout?Whos Online shows what happening on your site now and who has added items to their cart whether logged in or not.

Recover Cart Sales will show you what previously "logged in" customers had in their cart when they logged out or went away.

I suspect that NOT what you really want, so we need more explanation from you!

What business problem are you trying to solve?

Phil Soth:

Do I have a way of knowing which customers have which items in their cart at any time other than when they checkout?

Like gilby was saying, considering that this post is in addition to what the original poster had asked about, more information would certainly help. As for tracking products and controlling stock, the data of a cart is always available to be used in some way until it is removed/"lost". There are some things that happen automatically, and some that would need to be addressed to rework the system as described/suggested. For example, if the stock were set aside upon addition to the cart session, then all methods of the cart being cleared would also have to be addressed such as timeout of the session for someone not logged in (which also could become an issue if some spider goes and claims all of a product.) Or for logged in people then there is the hoax account again falsely setup. Maybe I'm duplicating what ajeh had brought up, but basically need more info about what is being attempted to doso that the solution can target the problem.

Sorry that I may have gotten this thread off-track.......but while I'm here....there really is no pressing buriness reason other than there might be an opportunity to remind a customer of their cart contents if it's been hanging out there for a long time ("long time" TBD). Since we also have an Amazon presence, it might help us to prevent a stockout on Amazon in the case of popular items. But again, maybe the amount of effort is not worth the vague benefits I've described.

Thank you for your thoughts so far....

Phil Soth:

Sorry that I may have gotten this thread off-track.......but while I'm here....there really is no pressing buriness reason other than there might be an opportunity to remind a customer of their cart contents if it's been hanging out there for a long time ("long time" TBD). Since we also have an Amazon presence, it might help us to prevent a stockout on Amazon in the case of popular items. But again, maybe the amount of effort is not worth the vague benefits I've described.

Thank you for your thoughts so far....

There is a plugin that does that, though I can't remember if it is only commercial software or if it has a free version as well.

mc12345678:

There is a plugin that does that, though I can't remember if it is only commercial software or if it has a free version as well.
I believe the plugin's called "Recover Cart Sales" ... or something of that ilk.