Change "add to cart" button to Pre Order when out of stock?

I am looking for ideas and if this can be done. Basically I do not want to show quantities available as I dont plan to use the cart to track inventory as it is too difficult with both a walk in and online store at the moment. But what I would like to do is what I am doing on the current site I use which is all just static html with form buttons. When something is out of stock i change the button to say preorder and the customer can still add to the cart if they choose. Best I see at the moment I can have the cart tell the customer something is out of stock once added to the cart but the product description page seems to have no way to do it, and would like to not have any customers think I am trying to "fool them" to adding it. When I set the cart to display the Sold Out image you cannot add the item for purchase, is there a way to set it so that it can be added?

Check my Request Restock mod.

Finally got to look at this, not sure it does what i want. I am hoping to basically be able to let people add items to the cart even when they show out of stock or backorder. I am able to set it now to where when added to the cart it will say backorder/preorder but I cannot figure out if it is possible to have the product page say preorder/backorder while doing this and the order confirmations do not show the pre-order/backorder status

Well actually I guess I did not get this working how I thought. When I set the product quantity to zero I am able to still add it to the cart and shows preorder when added but if I complete the transaction the quantity the store sees becomes -1 and disables the product even though I have the "allow checkout" option set to True

EDIT - FIGURED THIS PART OUT MISSED AN OPTION

1 quick question: When customer pre-order, do you require them to pay?

No we would charge for the missing item at time of shipment. I am going to suggest your mod to the store owner might be the better way. Some customers seem to like the way we do it now as they would not have to make separate orders for the missing items etc....

I think I found part of my answer it looks as if the changing sold out image to show backorder and still add to cart is not possible. Still looking into the adding backorder status is possible to be added to the confirmations

There is a switch in Admin panel that you can turn off so that it will not check for stock (hence allowing customers to add product even when it's out). I dont remember exactly where tho, some where under configuration - stock maybe.

Thanks i found that part now and it does work, but was hoping to get it to show out of stock before a customer adds it to the cart so they are not suprised when they do( this is the part that I found was not possible here http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=489436#post489436 ). Or if not that then add the backorder status to the order confirmation so that there is proof the customer was shown the status at some point in the order creation

So now the sold out button is not there any more?

No it is not, just has the add to cart like any other item and is able to be added.

this item for example I have set to zero stock
http://saltycritter.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_8&products_id=1

Well, if so it's not really impossible, but you may need to change the code a bit to make that appear.

The file you want to look into is: includes/modules/pages/product_info/header_php.php

Not that I know how to edit php but this file would control the product status in the cart or the email or both?

The display of the product info page.> shawnz28:

Not that I know how to edit php but this file would control the product status in the cart or the email or both?

Gotcha, thanks for the info, who knows maybe at some point I can figure it out

shawnz28:

Thanks i found that part now and it does work, but was hoping to get it to show out of stock before a customer adds it to the cart so they are not suprised when they do( this is the part that I found was not possible here http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=489436#post489436 ). Or if not that then add the backorder status to the order confirmation so that there is proof the customer was shown the status at some point in the order creation

wow this is exactly what I want :(

2008... I am guessing its still not available? :(

Me too!