Don't like new Real Time Stock value

[bentleybloke]

Is it just me or is adding the stock suspend level to the stock level a cack-handed way of carrying on? You're effectively lying to your customers about how much stock you have.

e.g. Your stock level is actually 5, you allow backordering of 10, so you have -10 as the stock suspend level. Actinic tells your customers you have 15 in stock!

The other issue is what if "the revenue" look at all the stock you say you have online, but don't have in your accounts? They're sneeky like that you know!

[leehack]

Depends whether you class it as an 'in stock' value or a 'what we can get hold of value' i guess. If you're only interested in real time in stock figures, back ordering wouldn't be allowed. I think there will be 2 sides to this story or angle of looking at things. I can't see how you can limit back ordering otherwise, unless you have a stock level and an acceptable back ordering level and completely confuse people on screen.

[Mike Hughes]

I'm not sure what you think the problem is.

Actinic allows distinction between what you have in stock and what you are willing to take orders for. This makes a lot of sense.

Some retailers have no stock and might use a drop shipper to supply the goods. Others might have a 20 items in stock but know their local distributor has 200 they can drop off in the afternoon if needed.

Whether you display this as 'stock' or 'quantity available to order' or whatever is up to you.

Mike

[george]

This is the thing that needs to be a zillion percent right to even slightly tempt me to upgrade to v10, if it works as I imagine it should then it will make the release very much worthwhile for some people.

Heres a couple of test cases.

You have stock levels activated for goatheads.

You have two goatheads in stock, that is what is showing in Catalog.

Two scenarios...

One.

Customer orders two goatheads online and the order is then completed by the customer without any problems and payment is made online as it should be.

My question, when does this item then become showing as `out of stock` online?

Two.

Same quantity showing and so on.

Customer places order online for two more goatheads the next week. Although, he forgets his password for his 3d secure so the order is then placed, but incompleted.

My question, what then happens to the stock showing online for this order? (has it been taken off as the order has been placed therefore reserving the items, or has it not taken them off since the order has not been completed?)

[brucet]

Jonathan, if you use a minus number for 'suspend below' to allow back-ordering, you could always change the in-stock message to something like '15 available'.

I appreciate that the setup seems a bit back to front, but it does work and it does give you control. If there is a lot of demand for an option to remove the block on ordering out of stock products, though, we would consider it for a future release.

I do have some questions about how that might work, however, and while we're discussing it I would be interested in your opinions.

Would it be an overall site setting, or would it need to be on a product by product basis.
Would you want to give an estimated delivery time for out of stock products? (Otherwise people might not be willing to order them.)
If so, could that use a general site message, or would delivery times need to be on a product by product basis?
Would you want to set a different option for the MOTO form?
Are there any other complications we would need to consider?

[Mike Hughes]

Bruce,

I think you've solved the problem.

If someone wants to track stock in RT but not disable ordering, then if they use -100 for the stock suspend level, all they have to do is adjust the stock message javascript for the extra 100 that's been added to the total.

I.e. use -100 for all the suspend quantities and then set the quantity available mesage to display 'stock' - 100. The correct stock level will then be displayed (and can be adjusted to say "on back order - allow extra 2-3 days" or whatever if below 1).

Mike

[brucet]

You have stock levels activated for goatheads

I think I feel a yodel coming on... Oh no, sorry, that was goatherds ;-)

Seriously, in your first scenario, if you have two in stock and a customer orders two, goatherds would be taken out of stock online immediately the order is confirmed.

On the desktop, goatheads will be taken out of stock following a synchronisation between the desktop and the website. This can take place automatically and frequently. The default is 60 seconds, but I have tried it every 20 seconds on a single-user system with no noticeable performance impact. That's less time than it takes to place an order in most cases.

In scenario two (assuming you have added more stock, otherwise no-one can order any more), the stock will be decremented because the order has been confirmed. You can take payment later and complete the order and the stock will be available. If you don't get paid then you should cancel the order, the desktop stock will be reinstated at that point, and the website stock following the next synchronisation.

Btw stock synchronisation downloads orders but does not execute a 'Publish to Web'. Only stock changes are uploaded, and it's very fast.

I hope this helps

[brucet]

Mike, that's a good idea. You're cleverer than me but if I can work it out I'll put it in the Advanced User Guide.

[Darren B]

Whats needed is a trigger that allows you to only show real positive stock and when you get to a negative figure the message changes but still allows the customer to buy - something like "normally ships with X days" instead of x instock.

[leehack]

That functionality is available from v8 onwards via blockifs, so that should present no problems. It would need a publish to update though, perhaps some on site JS would be the answer to real time messages.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Would it be an overall site setting, or would it need to be on a product by product basis.

I would want it on a product by product basis

Would you want to give an estimated delivery time for out of stock products? (Otherwise people might not be willing to order them.)
If so, could that use a general site message, or would delivery times need to be on a product by product basis?

Yes, and I currently do this in V9 using the 'Out of Stock Message' variables.
Again on a product by product basis as some products can be obtained within 2 days, while others may be 5-6 weeks, but the exitsing variables "OutOfStockMessageNoBackOrder" and "OutOfStockMessage" could be used and can already be set on a product by product basis.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Whats needed is a trigger that allows you to only show real positive stock and when you get to a negative figure the message changes but still allows the customer to buy - something like "normally ships with X days" instead of x instock.

Spot on, but why have the Actinic team not done it.
My V9 site, already shows the if item in stock with a nice green tick (although I chose not to display actual actual values) and when the stock level drops below 1 it changes to say 'Due in 2-3 days' or similar, or 'Out of Stock' if below the suspend ordering level.

This is all achievable in V9 already, I guess the problem arises with the real-time stock control in V10 which only upates the stock values and not the static html.

EDIT: I hadn't spotted Lee's reply in Post#10 which says basically the same thing but with less waffle.

[Mike Hughes]

I suspect this can all be done in the current implementation.

- javascript can be used to display the message and adjust the stock quantity displayed.

- Different layouts can be used for when this is wanted / not wanted.

- A user variable can be used to define whather the messages says '2-3 days', '1-2 weeks', etc.

Mike

[leehack]

This is all achievable in V9 already, I guess the problem arises with the real-time stock control in V10 which only upates the stock values and not the static html.

In a nutshell. If no html update occurs, you'll be needing to use JS to do it for you.

[brucet]

The current implementation uses Javascript interacting with CSS to change the stock message dynamically, I'm almost sure it could be adapted as Mike suggests.