Out Of Stock Back Ordering

[Big Game Hunter]

Hello Community

Basicly im trying to make it so that when I set a product to be out of stock the add to cart does not disapear and thy are able to back order the product. so far I have removed the add to cart blocks so that it shows even if it is out of stock however that is still not working. It requires a minimum order quantity, i have managed to get the quantity to appear, but i must be missing a variable somewhere as it doesn't seem to be able to read it. any ideas?

I know that you are able to create a vaiable that says out of stock/in stock, but that is not connected to the stock system. That is just a text variable, meaning if i run my stock reports. The out of stocks will not show as the monotering is not switched on against those products.

Now on a different tangent entirely, if we get the first issued cracked then i was thinking of this. Could we create a new add to cart button to say back order and then put it inside a bloc if saying that if it is out of stock show that add to cart button and not the normal one.

Hopefully this all makes sense and someone has already cracked it.

Cheers
Shannon

[leehack]

What does switching the back order option on in business settings do if you select it? maybe that does what you want without any need for deleting things.

[pnagames]

Shannon

i think the solution of how to allow customers to order out of stock products exists in the Advanced User guide

[Big Game Hunter]

pngames - you were right, it was in the user guide. thanks for that. Applied it and it's working fine. Cheers.

Lee i'm just about to try your idea, will keep you posted.

[animal dreams]

I think the AUG method is confusing for customers because how can you buy if it is out of stock?

You can fairly easily create a specific back order function though without modifying perl scripts.

First create a couple of variables called BackOrderButtonText and BackOrderButtonImage which can be set at site level under General>Product.

Next create a new layout type Back Order Button and add selectors and layouts similar to Add To Cart Button. Replace all instances of "CartButtonText" with "BackOrderButtonText" and "CartButtonImage" with "BackOrderButtonImage".

Then create a new condition - IsBackOrderOrderButtonShown:

(<Actinic:Variable Name="CatalogIsSuspended"/> == FALSE) AND (<actinic:variable name="IsOnlineOrderingAllowed" /> == TRUE) AND (<actinic:variable name="IsInStock" /> == FALSE) AND (<actinic:variable name="StockLevel" /> > <actinic:variable name="StockSuspendLevel" />) AND (<Actinic:Variable Name="CanBeOrderedOnline"/> == TRUE) AND (<actinic:variable name="SingleAddToCartButtonIsUsed" /> == FALSE)

Finally add the following where you want the BackOrder Button to appear (probably next to out of stock message):

<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsBackOrderButtonShown%22%20%2f%3e" >
<actinic:variable name="BackorderButton" />
<p>Add whatever text message you want</p>
</actinic:block>

Now you can specify which products can be backordered and by how may by setting the suspend level to -nn, e.g -10 will allow 10 backorders.

You can see this on a site I was playing with in V8 (now V9):
www.thaigiftstore.co.uk. First vase can be backordered, but second vase is not allowed.

Still trying to work out how to get "backordered" message in the cart.

[EdHarrison]

What about the issue of payment, is there a way of avoiding them paying for an out of stock item by bypassing the payment options but still grabbing the order?


Ed

[animal dreams]

If you use deferred payment via your PSP you can release payment when back in stock. If will be out of stock for a long period then backordering is not advisable.

[lessharma]

Hi Alan,

I would love to use your 'pre-order / back order' set-up. But could not follow your guide. I'm not very good with that stuff. If you have a moment could you do a step by step guide?