Google Product Availablity Tag

[GiftSpecialists]

What is the tag for Google Product Availability?

I would like to use that same tag in my templates to tell SS whether to show the Add to Cart button or not on product MoreInfo pages. Somthing like this:

[-- IF GOOGLE.Availability "in stock" --]
Display the button
[-- ELSE --]
Sorry.. Out of Stock
[-- END_IF --]

Would something like this work?

[Jim]

There is currently not template tag for the Google Availability field (or gender or age ). The fields were put in for use in the Google feeds so the developer didn't feel a need to have them for templates. I have logged a work order to have them added to a future release.

The developer suggested using the quantity on hand inventory field instead.

[GiftSpecialists]

Will that work even though we are not using inventory?

[Jim]

If you have a Pro store it should work. I turned the Inventory Tracking off (Preferences > Inventory Tracking).
I went to a product and set the Quantity on Hand value to 1.
I added this to a product template
[-- IF product.quantityonhand "1" --]
item is in stock <br>
Display the button
[-- ELSE --]
Sorry.. Out of Stock
[-- end_IF --]
and it printed
item is in stock <br>
Display the button

I changed the product quantity on hand to 0 and published and the page now displayed
Sorry.. Out of Stock

In the ShopSite version 11 some evaluation parameters were added to the tags.
See the IF section on http://www.shopsite.com/help/11.1/en-US/templates/custom.template.cheatsheet.html

using those evaluation parameters you could do something like print a "Getting low on stock order soon" or "Just a few left, order now."
I used this code
[-- IF product.quantityonhand GE "10" --]
item is in stock <br>
Display the button
[-- ELSE_IF product.quantityonhand GE "1" --]
Just [-- product.quantityonhand --] left, order now
Display the button
[-- ELSE --]
Sorry.. Out of Stock
[-- end_IF --]

I set the quantity on hand to 10 and it printed the "Item is in stock Display the button"
I set the quantity on hand to 8 and it printed "Just 8 left, order now Display the button"
I changed the quantity on hand to 1 and it printed "Just 1 left, order now Display the button"
I changed the quantity on hand to 0 and it printed "Sorry.. Out of Stock "

So try experimenting with it and you can customize the messages you display with the add to cart buttons. Note: the pages are static so it won't change unless you change the quantity and publish.

[GiftSpecialists]

Cool. Thanks for the testing!

My goal is to only have ONE place to have to set a product out-of-stock. It would be nice if there was either:

1. A parameter for the Google Availablity (coming soon)
2. A way to have one parameter set the value of the other.

Is it possible to code something into a template like this?

If [-- IF product.quantityonhand "0" --] set Google Availablity to "out of stock"

Probably not since there is no parameter for the Google Availablity...

[loren_d_c]

In ShopSite Pro in the Google Product Search config (Merchandising -> Google Services -> Product Search -> Configure) for the 'Availability' setting you can choose 'Use ShopSite Inventory Tracking'.

-Loren

[GiftSpecialists]

So if I set it at "0" it will change the availablity to out-of-stock when I publish, and visa versa? That is exactly what I need!

See, if I mumble and talk aimlessly about something long enough, it always comes together in the end. Thanks Jim! I'm gonna start using that.

[GiftSpecialists]

Jim, I just tried it with one product.

I set the Google configuration to "Use SS Inventory Tracking"
I changed QOH to 1, saved & published - Availability = in stock
I changed QOH to 0, saved & published - Availability = in stock

So it is not working for me. Is it becuase I do not have the Inventory Tracking module enabled? We do not currently use it.

[Jim]

I did not have Inventory tracking turned on when I did the test. Make sure that you do a browser window refresh after you publish since the browser may be caching the page. (Ctrl -F5 or right click on the window tab and choose Reload Tab depending on the browser you are using.)

The setting Loren mentioned will only make a difference for Google Feeds, not for the quantity in a custom template.

[Jim]

If the browser refresh doesn't fix it, post the exact code that you are using for just that section of the template.

[GiftSpecialists]

In ShopSite Pro in the Google Product Search config (Merchandising -> Google Services -> Product Search -> Configure) for the 'Availability' setting you can choose 'Use ShopSite Inventory Tracking'.-Loren

I am not using any code. I simply changed the setting for Google Availablity as Loren described. And I assumed that when I went from "1" QOH to "0" QOH, SS would automatically change the Google Availablity field to "Out of Stock"... but it did not. The Google Availability foeld stayed as "In Stock".

FYI - I do not have Inventory turned on at this time.

[Jim]

When you change the setting on Merchandising > Google Services > Product Search > Configure > to Use ShopSite Inventory Tracking , then when you submit your feed to Google it will use he Quantity on Hand to determine if i sends "in stock" or "out of stock". That will have no bearing on what shows up on your store pages. If you are using the Google feed then doing something with that field would be important but it still won't affect the way products display on your store pages.

Now lets step back and start again.

Your original question was will this code work.

Code: Select all

[-- IF GOOGLE.Availability "in stock" --]
Display the button
[-- ELSE --]
Sorry.. Out of Stock
[-- END_IF --]

The answer was no, it will not because there is no tag Google.Availability.

I suggested that you use the product quantityonhand value and set it to 1 or 0 if you want to use code like this.

Code: Select all

[-- IF product.quantityonhand "1" --]
item is in stock <br>
Display the button
[-- ELSE --]
Sorry.. Out of Stock
[-- end_IF --]

This does not require that you are using the Inventory tracking feature. However, if you were using inventory tracking it would make your job much easier.

I added some additional code which would allow other options but for what you originally asked the above code will work. But you must put it in your template to get it to work.

[GiftSpecialists]

Jim, I understand that coding... and yes, that works fine. That issue is resolved and it works great!

The problem I am having is this:

Configuring SS to "Use ShopSite Inventory" to determine its availablity in Google Products does not work.
It doesn't matter of I set QOH to "1" or to "0", the product ALWAYS shows up in my Google Merchant Center as "In Stock". This is what I did:

1) I configured SS as follows: Merchandising > Google Services > Product Search > Configure > Use ShopSite Inventory Tracking.
2) Picked a product and changed it's QOH to "1", saved, and published.
3) Sent product feed to Google Merchant - Merchandising > Google Services > Product Search > Send Feed
4) Viewed the same product in Google Merchant Center - Availability shows up as "IN STOCK" - good.
5) Edited the QOH field for the same product to "0", saved and published.
6) Sent product feed to Google again
7) Viewed same product in Google merchant Center (refreshed page, etc) - Availability still shows up as "IN STOCK" - not good.

It is my understanding that the product should show up in Google Merchant Center as "Out of Stock" when I set the QOH to "0".

[Jim]

I checked with the engineer to see exactly how the two values for on the Merchandising >Google Services > Search Settings > Configure > Availability: work. The two options are Use ShopSite Inventory Tracking or Use Availability Product Field.

If you have it set to "Use Availability Product Field" the Google feed will always contain the setting you have configured for the Availability field for the product.

If you have it set to "Use ShopSite Inventory Tracking" then the feed will contain either "in stock" or "available for order" or "out of stock" depending on whether the Quantity on Hand (QoH) value is greater than or equal to the Out of Stock(OoS) limit value.
If the QoH is greater than or equal to OoS then the value you have you have selected in the Availability field will be sent in the google feed.
If the QoH is less than OoS then "out of stock" will always be sent.

Here is some of the reasoning for this functionality.
1. Google requires that items that take longer than 4 days to ship be listed as "available for order" or if less time they can be listed as "in stock"
2. Google requires that items which cannot be ordered be "out of stock"

ShopSite inventory does not know if the quantity on hand is actually in stock or if the merchant has to get it from an outside source which may take a period of time, or if the product is in design stage and you are taking preorders for it. So the Availability field allows the merchant to specify if the product is actually "in stock" (i.e. they have it ready to ship) or "available to order" (i.e. we can get it quick from a supplier) or "preorder" (i.e. we'll make is for you). Or the merchant can indicate "out of stock" (i.e. don't have any and can't get it soon).

So to relate these possible 4 states of Availability to the QoH field the only thing the software can decide based on the QoH and OoS values is if the product could be ordered or not. The only way to determine that is if the QoH is => OoS then send the value that the merchant has configure. If the Qoh < OoS then the product can't be ordered, so the value to sent to meet Google's requirement is "out of stock" .

So the Merchandising >Google Services > Search Settings > Configure > Availability: setting, when using the ShopSite Inventory Tracking option, allows the Google feed to contain either the Availability option the merchant configured, "in stock" or "available for order" , or "out of stock" depending on QoH vs OoS limit values. This makes it so the merchant doesn't have to manually go in each time an item drops to the OoS limit and switch the Availability to out of stock and then go back and set it again when new product arrives.