Stock Messages

[JCat]

I have regular and pre-order inventory, and like the inventory tracking turned on, and the way that it generates a message (in stock / out of stock) for the customer to see. I have it set for "ships within one to two business days" and when inventory reaches 0, "this product is currently unavailable'.

I'm hoping there's a tip/trick to get around the limited action of an in stock/out of stock item? If I set my pre-order items to an "on hand" amount just like the in stock items, the status shows my "ships within one to two business days" message. If I put zero, people can't order anything, and if I leave the inventory fields blank, then pre-orders can oversell, which is a big problem. Is there a way to have a third status show on the More Information page accompanying set just for pre-order products?

Also, Is there a way for stock status to populate the product description area? As it is now, it shows only the More Information page only. On a 0 inventory item, customers may attempt to add something to their cart only to be let down when they see the message in their shopping cart; not everyone clicks on the product name (for more information).

Thank you

[Jim]

You could probably do something with a custom template that would be assigned just to your pre-order items. I assume you have ShopSite 11 sp1 or later. If so you should look at the code that is generated for the Order Anywhere "Show Embed" option. This uses a custom template to display real-time data for the product in an iframe. (As far as I know there is nothing to prevent this embedded code from being used on regular store pages.) By using this method you could create your custom product template so that it looks like the iframe format of order anywhere code. You could then have the template called by the iframe code check the quantity on hand (actual pre-orders still remaining) with the out of stock limit and if it is greater then display the "Pre-order now" message, but if the QOH is equal to the out of stock limit (or less than ) then display your "No longer available for pre-order" message.

I think the older template tag for quantity on hand using server side includes can be used on regular page so that would allow you to put the quantity on hand on the page. (You could also use the Order Anywhere Iframe syntax but it will cause more server accesses so will slow down page loads.) Neither of these is in an ShopSite template so you will have to create them.