Disable products are being purchased

I have had a couple of instances when a disabled product has been purchased. My research into this hasn't been too fruitful. I am looking for a little bit of insight for figuring this out.

Here is what I know so far:- The product in question is not showing up in my catalog,

• The product_info page returns, "Sorry, the product was not found."
• When I visit the product_info page via Google's cache and try to add it to the cart, I get an empty cart.What else should I look for or try?

Thank in advance.

Do you have a very very busy site where multiple people could be checking out in the same few seconds with products that are near to sold out and are approved just prior to the finalized order so that each appears able to check out with the last remaining product and the processor time of the payment or shipping module might be delayed enough that both are getting from checkout_confirmation to the click of the button to complete the order?

No. I am positive this is not what is happening. We don't use the inventory control part of Zen Cart. All products are entered with 100s of items in the inventory and we don't sell that many of one item.

What payment method(s) are you using?

Which one(s) are doing this?

just credit card. we still process cc by hand.

Very odd behavior ... :unsure:

Perhaps an URL to your site and a few products_id that are not available would help in discovering this ...

Hello

I have the same problem. Disabled products have been purchased.

Bstopple: did you find out why – and a solution?

Regards,
Magnus

The products that have been disabled, are they linked to other categories?

Morning(?)

No, the products is not linked to other categories.

This thing has happened twice. The last time the same customer order two products that was disabled.

Maybe, just maybe it has to do with that these products are disabled AND has a status of "Out of stock". Maybe the status "Out of stock" overrides the Disabled status? It is my client who handle her own shop so if I can tell her why this happening, and how to avoid it, she will be happy :)

Regards, Magnus

Out of Stock or Sold Out means that you are displaying Products when their products_quantity <= 0 ...

If you do not have your Stock set to NOT allow purchases on sales for Products where the quantity being purchased is greater than what is in stock ... then the Product can still be purchased ...

How do you have your Stock settings setup?

Hi Linda

Under "Configuration - Stock" I have set "Product status when out of stock..." to OFF (0). But the two products in question are set to "Disable" (a red dot) – and they are not shown in the shop. And cant be search for.

Regards, Magnus

Were these purchased on the same order?
Why are these products disabled?
How did your customers get these products into their cart?
Was there ever a sale/promo associated with these products? Any URLs sent by email etc?
What payment module was used when these were purchased?
Any discounts/coupons/gift certificates involved?
What version of Zen Cart? has it ever been upgraded? from what versions?
What addons/contributions are installed?

DrByte:

Were these purchased on the same order?
Why are these products disabled?
How did your customers get these products into their cart?
Was there ever a sale/promo associated with these products? Any URLs sent by email etc?
What payment module was used when these were purchased?
Any discounts/coupons/gift certificates involved?
What version of Zen Cart? has it ever been upgraded? from what versions?
What addons/contributions are installed?

Alright,

1. The change in price was not confirmed yet – therefor disabled.
2. That is what I wants to know also! :)
3. No.
4. Cash on delivery (in Swedish "Postförskott")
5. No.
6. 1.3.7. Never been upgraded
7. Swedish language pack.

Regards, Magnus

1. So, the only way customers would have known about these products would be from search engines that had links to those products already (perhaps with old price indexed)?

2. Were these orders placed using Swedish language?

3. Is English available? Or have you removed English from the site?

Hello DrByte

1. Yes. I did a test and search with "offroad wintergreen sweets lössnus" (which is disabled). I could see the product if I clicked on "cashed", but was not able to add it to the cart.

2. Yes.

3. No. I have not removed English – just turned OFF the language sidebox.

Thanks for taking your time with this :)

Regards, Magnus

Do you see any evidence whether google has indexed your pages in english?
Can you see the product if you add &language=en to the URL?

Hello

Not sure how to check that. I did a search at Google on the same string, but only pages written in english. No result.

If I did it right, the answer is "no".

Regards, Magnus

Puzzling.

I can't recreate the problem. I can't force anything to get added to cart, let alone through checkout, if it's in disabled status. All the built-in safeties appear to be working fine.

Your best option is to ask your customers how they did that.

Thanks DrByte for your time and effort in this :)

I will see if/when it happens again – and try to figure out if there is a pattern. And call this customer and ask how he did it ;=)

Many thanks again!

REgards, Magnus