More Doba Issues

[a1webshopping]

I'm having some trouble getting a grip on using Doba with SS.

An issue we're having is that products that are pulled in from Doba don't store inventory quantities in the database (I'm under the impression that they're pulled live from Doba?).

We're using a feed management system that is looking for the quantities in ShopSite and naturally they're blank.

Am I missing a setting somewhere in SS that will fix this issue?

[Jim]

ShopSite does not get an "on hand" quantity with the doba information. Even if it did it would change minute by minute since there hare thousands of people using Doba as a product source. What happens is when the shopper places the item in their cart Doba is contacted to see if the item is still in stock. If it is still in stock then the item is added to the cart and the shopper can proceed to either continue shopping or checkout. At the time the shopper goes to finalize the order payment another check at Doba is done to see if the item is still in stock. If it is then the shopper will have purchased the item and they will get the thankyou screen with the item(s) that they paid for. If, however the item is no longer available when the final check is made at Doba then the shopper will be notified that the item in their cart is no longer available and they will be taken back to the first shopping cart screen and the item deleted from the cart.

So it is a first to pay for it is the first to get it type of policy. Just because you have it in your cart is no guarantee that someone won't purchase it before you get finished checking out.

[a1webshopping]

Thanks for the clarification Jim.

Here's where I see a problem with it though.

If I download my SS product database all of my Doba products (actually Doba is all I use) have a blank inventory field. This makes it essentially impossible to use Doba any further than just populating my site. There's no practical use for it any further than that (using a feed manager as my example but there's probably more applications that would be affected as well).

Would it not be possible to grab inventory info from Doba while downloading the database?

The feed manager I'm using (SmartFeed) uses a file map to grab product info from SS daily (actually hourly for Amazon inventory).

Am I at a dead end here? Without this working SS just self-destructed for my purposes.

[Jim]

You may want to read Doba's newsletter about inventory. It looks like you can have them email you when a product gets to a certain level of inventory at the supplier. The inventory is not in the data that ShopSite receives with items in a Watchlist.

http://www.dropshippingblog.com/announcements/03/new-features-inventory-notification-by-email-and-customizable-product-data/

[a1webshopping]

Yikes....

I'm looking to completely automate things and that's not even close.

I really feel that SS claiming "integration" with Doba is extremely misleading. The current state of things is hardly "integration".

Sigh....time to look for another solution.

[a1webshopping]

Hold the phone....

Jim, what you're saying isn't quite correct from what I can see.

Currently, if I try to add more of an item to my SS cart that is in stock on Doba it won't let me check out. Obviously the quantity is being passed somehow.

How exactly does SS know the actual quantity?

There must be a way to access this information. I know about Doba's API buy I'm assuming here that SS doesn't use the API (since it's a pay-to-play model) so how exactly does SS get the quantity from Doba?

My apologies if I came across as abrupt with my last post. I'm just exhausted trying to find a solution and SS looked like it was going to be perfect until I hit this latest SNAFU. Grrrrr....

[Jim]

At the time that the item is added to the shopping cart ShopSite makes a call to Doba with the product ID. Doba sends back if the product is available at the quantity that was added to the cart, what the actual cost is, what the shipping charges are etc.

If there is enough to fulfill the order then the total number will be added to the cart. If there are some but not enough for the quantity asked for then a message will display to the shopper saying there are not as many as were ordered and they will have to reduce the quantity ordered. (I'm not sure if it is automatically reduced for them). If there are none available an error saying none are available will be displayed to the shopper. These messages are configure in ShopSite under Commerce Setup > Doba.

As I mentioned earlier a second check is made at the time the order is being finalize and payment made to make sure there was not a change in the available quantity of items from the time they were added to the cart until the time of the final transaction. The same type of messages will be displayed if the quantity available doesn't meet what is in the cart.

As far as I know there is no other way to obtain the quantity available. I'm not even sure Doba has an exact availability since they are just passing on the inventory from their suppliers and that could vary second by second.

ShopSite is using Doba's API. It is the Merchant who has to pay any fees since they are the ones that actually have the account with Doba. ShopSite just simplifies the process by coding to the API so merchant's don't have to do it themselves.

[a1webshopping]

Thanks for the extra info Jim.

Since SS is already using Doba's API does it make sense to think that someone could extend that somehow and use the Doba API to make this work?

You're correct that the merchant (me in this case) pays Doba. The odd thing is that we only pay $60/month for the advanced account. There is an API account available (SMB) but it's in the neighborhood of $250/month.

I'm confused as to how SS uses the API I guess. Does Doba have a developer program for the API as well as a merchant program? I'd be curious to know how they differ (in other words I'm curious to see if the developer API - assuming it exists - can be used for this rather than paying the $250).

This would be so much easier if I could get a look at the code - I'm used to Open Source so this is a tad frustrating. I can see the doba.cgi file (which I'm assuming has the API code in it) but I have no idea how to actually open it so I can see what it's doing.

I'm already talking with a SS developer. Hopefully he can come up with something.

[Jim]

ShopSite's cgis such as doba.cgi are compiled C code so there is no way to view what is in them. It would not contain the Doba API, only the code to access that API.

ShopSite is a member of Doba's Certified Integrated Shopping Cart Partners. See details of their Certified Partners program at http://www.doba.com/about-partners .

[a1webshopping]

Well, I know this is possible since I've found at least one other shopping cart that fully integrates with Doba *and* has the actual inventory available in the download.

http://www.instantestore.com/

Not sure what they're doing differently but I signed up for the demo to test and the numbers are there.

Would much rather use ShopSite since I've already started with it but it looks like it's not going to be possible.

[a1webshopping]

And the next obvious question....

Is there some way to talk to someone at SS about getting this added/integrated into SS?

At this point I'm perfectly willing to pay for the development if need be (although it looks like this is really needed to be able to say SS is "fully" integrated with Doba).

[Jim]

I have forwarded your request to the product development manager. He'll probably be in contact with you.

[a1webshopping]

Thanks a million Jim.

If need be I can PM you my contact information for you to pass along as well.