Adding "Register your interest" function to Out Of Stock items

[adder]

Hi,

I have this issue with one of my shops that many items go "Out of stock" every week, then they re-appear anytime in the future. Instead of having this "Out of stock" message near the item, I wanted to display a small form that a visitor could fill in to register his/her interest.

I could contact the visitor once the item is back in stock.

What I did was:

1. Design -> Text -> General Information
2. Changed the default text bit "OUT OF STOCK" to this:

Register your interest: <form name="formular2" method="post" action="interest.php">
<input type="hidden" name="ref" value="<Actinic:Variable Name="ProductReference"/>"/>
<input onclick="this.focus();this.select()" type="text" name="email" value="your email" size="15" />
<input type="submit" name="formular22" value="GO" size="8"></form>

Needless to say that this doesn't work.

It displays an odd /> near the "Register your interest" bit and when I click the button, it shouts something like Cannot add this item to cart. What cart? Don't ask me...

I think that this is a lovely idea (even if you think it's rubbish ) and I suppose many webmasters would like to use this. I, honestly, have no more ideas on how to make this work. Maybe you could kindly join in!

[leehack]

You will be falling foul of the nested forms problem. It's not a rubbish idea, but it isn't great either. You often have one bite at the cherry to make a sale, i'd be infinitely more interested in stating that it is out of stock and offering the facility to back order instead.

[adder]

That's a great suggestion. How do I make this back-order facility? I cannot find anything like that neither in Actinic Help nor in this forum.

Thank you.

[leehack]

Type in 'Actinic Order Processing' or words to that effect in the help within actinic, there is a setting in business settings that you enable so back orders can occur. I think the other thing to bear in mind is getting the message across clearly that they are back ordering.

[adder]

Thank you. I appreciate your comments. Now I remember this back order thing. I enabled it a while ago thinking that it will actually let people to back-order items. I was very disappointed to discover that it does nothing - it just allows me to process a part of the order now and part of it when I got stock...

So, if I want to use it, I have to update all out-of-stock products manually so that their descriptions would read: "Sorry, out of stock, however, you can back-order this item". Sounds impossible for a shop that has hundreds of products...

I hope an advanced back-order function will be included in the next version of Actinic!

[leehack]

You could get a condition to do the automatic updating of the message, you would not need to do it manually at all. You'd set a stock level condition to be added to the product, the message will show if condition is met and will do nothing if not. Therefore the message interacts with the stock level automatically, not yourself. The important thing of course is that the add to cart button needs to be visible so they can actually buy.

Some clever solutions i have seen also get the add to cart button to change to reflect that they are back ordering, so it is all dynamic, often a different button or different text on it. All depends how confident/determined you are with regards to blockifs and conditions. The good news is that the 3 stock level variables that you need are readily available to use, so it is just the maths logic and understanding conditions/blockifs to grasp.

Have a read of Gabe's blockif tutorials in the layouts forum for a good grounding on them and also open up some existing ones in your store to see what they are all about.