Stock control and back ordering

[dysonco]

Hi There,

I'm pretty new to actinic but am slowly sorting my issues out. The current confusion is with stock control and back ordering. If stock levels hit 0 the site still allows you to make an order which is fine, the issue is that it doesn't actually tell the customer that its making a back order.

The perfect scenario would be a prompt on hitting buy now that said 'this item is not in stock, we can back-order and contact you in case this seems likely to take a long time.....' or something similar, its more than possible that I'm missing something obvious, but i can't seem to work out a way of doing this.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

Mike

[wjcampbe]

Have you included the available stock into your product templates - this would at least show your customers that you have 0 physical stock?

Normally, with long lead times for resupply, you would set the product up to suspend ordering at 0 stock, and replenishing stock would re-enable purchase OR even better, set the warning level high enough that you have time to re-order and receive new stock before you run out.

[jont]

If you have issues with the same products on a regular basis and cannot re-stock quickly due to supplier availability etc then may be worth putting a note in the product description about availability.

If it is a particularly rare item I find most buyers are fine to wait (not indefinately) so long as they are told at the outset.

[TraceyG]

Hi,

The perfect scenario would be a prompt on hitting buy now that said 'this item is not in stock, we can back-order and contact you in case this seems likely to take a long time.....' or something similar

I'm afraid that we can't do this as Actinic is not real time software. We do not have an on-line database that keeps track of the stock of products in the site. The way it works is that you upload products to the site. Even if you only have 2 in stock, a customer (or number of customers) can order more than that number. When you download the order(s), the stock levels are updated in the software. You would then have to re-upload the site to show any 'out of stock' messages on products where the stock levels have dropped below your 'suspend orders if below:'. Until that happens your customers can just keep on ordering those products.

If keeping stock levels correct is critical to your business then you could set up windows scheduler to download and upload at regular intervals throughout the day (see 'Help Topics' for command lines to use). Alternatively, you could check out the Mole End One Stop Automation plug-in that has a scheduler built in at www.mole-end.biz (or just the 'Stock Control Mole').

[dysonco]

I suppose the stock levels may help, unfortunately this site is slightly different than most as far as stock goes, basically its refurbished motor parts which means that often it may only be a day between stock running out and new being re-engineered. From my clients point of view they would like some way of showing when stock may be available?

I suppose at the most basic, pointing out that if stock isn't available that it may be in the next 48 hours would make sense??