real time inventory

[Phil Spinelli]

Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[Nikolaus Gruchot]

Hi Phil,

no a direct answer, but something that works (fur us) real well:

We do not have any kind of inventory tracking, but I have rather created a
set of symbols/icons that are displayed with each product and reflect the
most probable shipping status of each product.

We have stock products that we do have always is large quantity and products
that are provided from very reliable manufacturers within 24 hrs. These
products have a symbol that indicates that they ship within 24 hrs on
workdays.

Then we have products that are order items, where the manufacturer is
reliable, but slow in delivery. So these products have an icon that
indicates "ships within 6 working days".

Even slower manufactures get a 10 working days symbol, then we have a symbol
"please call" when a product may have sporadic non-availability and a
"Product is not produced anymore and listed for information purposes only".
In the latter case the "add to cart" and "cash out" buttons are removed.

http://www.watersafety.net/d/order/dstatus.htm shows the pop-up page with
our symbols and explanations (in german).

I have created and implemented these icons 2 years ago. Result:

- 95% less calls "Is this product available?"
- increase in order volume as the shop looks a lot more credible, the 24 hrs
icon clearly indicate that the shop is operated professionally and that
daily shipping is standard

And we are not loosing customers by a "item is out of stock, please try
again later" message. I have once got a message like that when trying to
order spare parts for our network printer online. I have never been back to
this shop.

Best regards,

Niko


"Phil Spinelli" <phil@FlexYourMuscles.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:40FD5589.CAF55BC4@FlexYourMuscles.com...

Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[Brandon Eley]

Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com


Phil Spinelli wrote:

Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[Chris]

OK....I never quite got the inventory control feature to work quite
right....we don't really have a reliable way to upload up-to-date inventory
numbers to Shopsite anyway due to how our bill-of-materials work for
products with component items, etc.

But, when I did experiment, it seemed like out of stock items could not be
ordered. Am I correct in interpreting what you say that we can allow
backorders by setting the minimum quantity on hand field (actually I
believe it reads "out of stock limit" or do you mean "low stock
threshold") to a negative number?

This might prove somewhat useful to us.

However, our current system is to add "Backordered" to the product
name/description with a link to our manually edited backorder status page.

Chris

mlcswoodworking.com


Brandon Eley wrote:

Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:
Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[loren_d_c]

You don't have to set the out-of-stock limit to a negative number
(unless you want to stop orders once the quantity on hand reaches that
negative number), you can just leave the out-of-stock limit blank. Note
that there is no feature in ShopSite that would indicate to the shopper
that a product they have placed in the shopping cart is 'backordered',
however I believe that Brandon is saying that he has a workaround via a
custom template that tells the shopper that the product is
out-of-stock/backordered before they even place it in the shopping cart.

-Loren



Chris wrote:

OK....I never quite got the inventory control feature to work quite
right....we don't really have a reliable way to upload up-to-date inventory
numbers to Shopsite anyway due to how our bill-of-materials work for
products with component items, etc.

But, when I did experiment, it seemed like out of stock items could not be
ordered. Am I correct in interpreting what you say that we can allow
backorders by setting the minimum quantity on hand field (actually I
believe it reads "out of stock limit" or do you mean "low stock
threshold") to a negative number?

This might prove somewhat useful to us.

However, our current system is to add "Backordered" to the product
name/description with a link to our manually edited backorder status page.

Chris

mlcswoodworking.com


Brandon Eley wrote:


Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:

Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[Phil Spinelli]

Hi Brandon,
How did you show the units in-stock. Is it real time or pulling info from
shopsite qty.

We run a retail store and web store. Some kind of real time would be better
for us.


Brandon Eley wrote:

Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:
Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[Brandon Eley]

It's just a custom more info page template that pulls from the shopsite
qty on hand. the code below is the part that shows a dropdown box w/ the
sub-products and shows quantity on each:

[-- DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]
<option value="[--PRODUCT.RECORDNUMBER--]">[-- PRODUCT.FIELD1 --] ([--
Product.QuantityOnHand --] In Stock)</option>
[-- END_DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]

Of course, we're using the subproducts feature to track inventory on
attribute-level items (different size/color combinations of items) but
you could just as easily apply the concept to a regular template as well
to show the quantity for an item.

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com


Phil Spinelli wrote:

Hi Brandon,
How did you show the units in-stock. Is it real time or pulling info from
shopsite qty.

We run a retail store and web store. Some kind of real time would be better
for us.


Brandon Eley wrote:


Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:

Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[Phil Spinelli]

Is this pulling real time inventory from shopsite database or do you have to
rebuild pages to show QOH?

thanks.

Brandon Eley wrote:

It's just a custom more info page template that pulls from the shopsite
qty on hand. the code below is the part that shows a dropdown box w/ the
sub-products and shows quantity on each:

[-- DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]
option value="[--PRODUCT.RECORDNUMBER--]">[-- PRODUCT.FIELD1 --] ([--
Product.QuantityOnHand --] In Stock)</option
[-- END_DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]

Of course, we're using the subproducts feature to track inventory on
attribute-level items (different size/color combinations of items) but
you could just as easily apply the concept to a regular template as well
to show the quantity for an item.

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:
Hi Brandon,
How did you show the units in-stock. Is it real time or pulling info from
shopsite qty.

We run a retail store and web store. Some kind of real time would be better
for us.


Brandon Eley wrote:


Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:

Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[Phil Spinelli]

Is this pulling real time inventory from shopsite database or do you have to
rebuild pages to show QOH?

thanks.

Brandon Eley wrote:

It's just a custom more info page template that pulls from the shopsite
qty on hand. the code below is the part that shows a dropdown box w/ the
sub-products and shows quantity on each:

[-- DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]
option value="[--PRODUCT.RECORDNUMBER--]">[-- PRODUCT.FIELD1 --] ([--
Product.QuantityOnHand --] In Stock)</option
[-- END_DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]

Of course, we're using the subproducts feature to track inventory on
attribute-level items (different size/color combinations of items) but
you could just as easily apply the concept to a regular template as well
to show the quantity for an item.

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:
Hi Brandon,
How did you show the units in-stock. Is it real time or pulling info from
shopsite qty.

We run a retail store and web store. Some kind of real time would be better
for us.


Brandon Eley wrote:


Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:

Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[Phil Spinelli]

Is this pulling real time inventory from shopsite database or do you have to
rebuild pages to show QOH?

thanks.

Brandon Eley wrote:

It's just a custom more info page template that pulls from the shopsite
qty on hand. the code below is the part that shows a dropdown box w/ the
sub-products and shows quantity on each:

[-- DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]
option value="[--PRODUCT.RECORDNUMBER--]">[-- PRODUCT.FIELD1 --] ([--
Product.QuantityOnHand --] In Stock)</option
[-- END_DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]

Of course, we're using the subproducts feature to track inventory on
attribute-level items (different size/color combinations of items) but
you could just as easily apply the concept to a regular template as well
to show the quantity for an item.

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:
Hi Brandon,
How did you show the units in-stock. Is it real time or pulling info from
shopsite qty.

We run a retail store and web store. Some kind of real time would be better
for us.


Brandon Eley wrote:


Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:

Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com

[jim]

Since ShopSite pages are static and the tag that is being used is in the
product template the information would not be real-time. You could
publish the pages on a daily bases (or more frequently) to get a
pretty accurate picture of availability but it would not be true real-time.

Jim

Phil Spinelli wrote:

Is this pulling real time inventory from shopsite database or do you have to
rebuild pages to show QOH?

thanks.

Brandon Eley wrote:


It's just a custom more info page template that pulls from the shopsite
qty on hand. the code below is the part that shows a dropdown box w/ the
sub-products and shows quantity on each:

[-- DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]
option value="[--PRODUCT.RECORDNUMBER--]">[-- PRODUCT.FIELD1 --] ([--
Product.QuantityOnHand --] In Stock)</option
[-- END_DEFINE SUBPRODUCT --]

Of course, we're using the subproducts feature to track inventory on
attribute-level items (different size/color combinations of items) but
you could just as easily apply the concept to a regular template as well
to show the quantity for an item.

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:

Hi Brandon,
How did you show the units in-stock. Is it real time or pulling info from
shopsite qty.

We run a retail store and web store. Some kind of real time would be better
for us.


Brandon Eley wrote:



Yes, we currently show our actual inventory in a drop-down via a custom
hack of the cross-sell feature and a modified page/product templates.

You can see it at www.2bigfeet.com - just go to any of the shoe's more
info pages.

We can set an item to either not allow a backorder or allow them (by
setting the minimum qoh to either 0 or -999).

Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com

Phil Spinelli wrote:


Hello,
Has anyone configured any kind of real time inventory status with
shopsite.

Inventory status is a real concern with on-line shoppers.

We need to prevent orders for out-of-stock items in real time, or at
lease let customer know.

Sometimes the manufactures are out and this creates a real problem.

thanks,
Phil
BigSupplementSale.com