Stock Control On your Web site

[TotallySport]

Hi

Just a quick questions......or two

For all the people with an ecommerce web site, when customers purchase something when does it adjust the stock?

1 - as soon as it is added to the basket, so on one else can purchase it, but if not purchased it adds it back

2 - as soon as payment is made, and alerts any other customers with the same item in the basket of any additional short falls or delays.

3, as soon as payment is made and does nothing if there are any short falls or delays and expects manual intervension

Also as a customer which would you prefer, the problem with one is just because it is added to a cart doesn't mean it will sell and may loose out on other sales, but in the long run should be less work, option 2 could be confusing for the customer, and option 3 simple is time consuming to sort the problem.

So your comments are welcomed.

[DambTech]

This has being talked about by a few people in the past as it can depend on what you would like to do.

as soon as it is added to the basket, so on one else can purchase it, but if not purchased it adds it backIf someone just tests the site and adds alot of stuff to the cart then leaves you still have a stock but it is not showing on the site unless you give the customer a certain length of time to purchase then if nothing add back to stock.

as soon as payment is made, and alerts any other customers with the same item in the basket of any additional short falls or delaysif you have got 10 customers all buy the same item worth £30-£40 do you want to tell them you are out of stock or wait for them to pay and see if you can get more stock to fill the orders.

as soon as payment is made and does nothing if there are any short falls or delays and expects manual intervensionYou could have a stock level on your site so when it gets below a certain amount then you are notified so if you can order more stock you then can do it. If you cannot get more stock then you could put Limited Stock next to the item and customers will know.

The customers we deal with have a stock level for the website and one for the shops so if they do have 2 customers ordering the same then they just take it from the shop. As soon as levels drop then they put Limited Stock on some of the stuff if they know they cannot get anymore.

Hope this helps
Dave

[TotallySport]

The customers we deal with have a stock level for the website and one for the shops so if they do have 2 customers ordering the same then they just take it from the shop. As soon as levels drop then they put Limited Stock on some of the stuff if they know they cannot get anymore.

That isn't an option for us, one we don't seperate stock levels, and if we did they would be in different locations so would be impracticle.

Many lines we have are limited but even our continues lines have limitations.

We are already got a system to allow customers to know how many we have instock or if they need more than that how long it will take, but I want to try and get a system which avoids selection 3 but keep it simply.

I could have a stock check screen when checking out which shows if there items are still instock, or I could just ignore it to keep it simply, but I cannot think of a way which is quick and simple enough for all customers.

I know the bigger boys simply ignore it and try to restock but I would prefer a system which is accurate to keep customers happy, with little manage from staff.

[deniser]

My site sells few in quantity of lots of different items so this is a critical issue. They are not items that can be reordered so once they're gone they're gone.

My site is set up so that the item count reduces down only when the payment has been completed.

This is regardless of whether or not someone has the items in their shopping basket (which lasts for 2 days). If someone attempted to pay for their basket or order more than one of something so that the stock count would be reduced to less than 0 then it displays a message saying that the item is out of stock. They then have the opportunity of adding a different but similar item to their basket.

But I never end up with a lost sale because of no stock.

[TotallySport]

Thanks for the info, can you restock the items if they run out? Or can people buy will less than 0 stock?

If the item is in stock when they add it to the basket and then becomes out of stock before someone pays, does it inform the customer?

[Burden]

Thanks for the info, can you restock the items if they run out? Or can people buy will less than 0 stock?

If the item is in stock when they add it to the basket and then becomes out of stock before someone pays, does it inform the customer?

Most ecom sites when the item has run out / hits 0 it will take it off the website or display "out of stock" on the page. you can then log into the admin area and add more which will make it possible to buy it again (when you have more in stock) sometimes its better to have it disappear if out of stock though as it gets annoying going into an item you want and its soldout.

you can have it setup so you can have 5 products for sale, 10 people have it in there basket and first 5 to checkout get the product and when the other 5 go to it says out of stock

or if you have it setup so if 5 people add it to there basket it shows soldout or taken off site and if only 3 checkout it will appear as avail with 2 in stock.

lots of ways to do it

[TotallySport]

Most ecom sites when the item has run out / hits 0 it will take it off the website or display "out of stock" on the page. you can then log into the admin area and add more which will make it possible to buy it again (when you have more in stock) sometimes its better to have it disappear if out of stock though as it gets annoying going into an item you want and its soldout.

you can have it setup so you can have 5 products for sale, 10 people have it in there basket and first 5 to checkout get the product and when the other 5 go to it says out of stock

or if you have it setup so if 5 people add it to there basket it shows soldout or taken off site and if only 3 checkout it will appear as avail with 2 in stock.

lots of ways to do it

Thanks for the info, I know there are loads of ways of doing it, but I am trying to establish the best format for doing it, which won't confuse customers or create unecessary work for staff.

I want to state the amount of stock we have instock on all our items, we feels it builds trust and doesn't won't give customers expections we cannot deliver on, but also allows people to make decisions base 100% on the information infront of them.

Plus the reason people don't take it off their web site when things are out of stock is because it will stop them being indexed by search engines, so in that sense it is better to have items you can restock stay live but show out of stock than take them off.

[J-Wholesale]

Thanks for the info, I know there are loads of ways of doing it, but I am trying to establish the best format for doing it, which won't confuse customers or create unecessary work for staff.

It depends very much on your stock levels, and how busy your site is. For example: if you stock, on average, 100 of each item, and typically sell 2 of each item per day, then the probability of two people buying the same item within minutes of each other is very low. However, if you sell 30-40 of each item a day, then the chances of two people trying to buy the last available item increase considerably.

I want to state the amount of stock we have instock on all our items, we feels it builds trust and doesn't won't give customers expections we cannot deliver on, but also allows people to make decisions base 100% on the information infront of them.We found this to be a mistake, and not in a way we expected. Strangely enough, when buyers saw that an item was almost sold out (1-5 remaining), they almost never purchased it, preferring to buy items that had hundreds remaining. The only explanation we could come up with was that buyers were assuming low stock levels meant 'unpopular', when the opposite was actually the case. Too much information is not always a good thing, as it can, at times, lead to confusion. Keep it as simple as possible.

[TotallySport]

It depends very much on your stock levels, and how busy your site is. For example: if you stock, on average, 100 of each item, and typically sell 2 of each item per day, then the probability of two people buying the same item within minutes of each other is very low. However, if you sell 30-40 of each item a day, then the chances of two people trying to buy the last available item increase considerably.


Thanks for the info, interesting point but we do have this problem hence the question, we have smaller numbers than you first option which creates the problem, so we buy say 50 of an item and sell say 10 a day, the stock is generally limited so we cannot get any more once it has sold, I guess there is no easy way around this so will have to try and see.

We found this to be a mistake, and not in a way we expected. Strangely enough, when buyers saw that an item was almost sold out (1-5 remaining), they almost never purchased it, preferring to buy items that had hundreds remaining. The only explanation we could come up with was that buyers were assuming low stock levels meant 'unpopular', when the opposite was actually the case. Too much information is not always a good thing, as it can, at times, lead to confusion. Keep it as simple as possible.

Another interesting point, can I ask if you did this on a wholesale web site or retail?

At one point we only purchase in very small numbers and would have taken 1's and 2's without question, but now we refuse to buy ones and twos due to the work that has to go into it for the revenue it will create. Where if we buy 20+ the same about goes into selling them so it makes it worth while. But on the retail side more and more people are expecting 24 hour delivery and we find people will shop about for it, if people have the confidence we have them in stock they will order even if there is only one, so by displaying that information it builds buyer confidence. There are companies that do offer information on shipping, but don't state how many they have instock, but have no limits on how many you can order so if you add 10000 to the cart it lets you and doesn't offer any information, more and more customers expectations are increasing, so we want to offer more information than our main competitors. There is one major sports retailer that does with with great success.

But again it will be trail and error.

[J-Wholesale]

Another interesting point, can I ask if you did this on a wholesale web site or retail?

We're a wholesale site. Of course, retail buyers might behave differently.

[TotallySport]

Just a thought, it is also much more accepted that wholesales don't fullfill quantity orders, (eg they might be 5 short or sizes might be different), but you cannot do that with retail customers, or you might have been able to before but certainly not now.

[bizman99]

It does depend on how quickly you can get stock back in... from my perspective, I know I can get stock back in again, so i keep the product live, but once it goes out of stock I increase the turn around time on that product. So If a customer still wants to place an order, they at least know it might take a little longer to get it, and we still get the order. If you take it down completely, you run risk of losing a sale, when customer is willing to wait.

[TotallySport]

Thanks for the info.

So if you have say two people buy one and you only have 1 instock, does it inform the 2nd customer before the payment stage that it may take longer for their order automatically? Do you do it manually? or do you just get it fast and hope they don't complain?

We have a mixture of lines, some which we can replace and some we won't, hence the dilema.

[bizman99]

well, it is manual at the moment. We try our best to forecast sales of individual products and manage our stock levels quite tightly..and order a percentage of safety stock on popular lines, so we don't have too many stock outs. But thats not to say from time to time we do get instances where yes we get an order and the item has just gone out of stock. If we can get it in quick enough we carry on as normal..but if we know it will take a while, we phone the customer and see if this is ok with them and if not suggest an alternative (not ideal). Sometimes another sales channel will oversell, and dip into stock assigned for web sales, and we have to adjust based on that. We could obvisouly link into our warehouse systems on monitor the stock from there, it hasn't become that big an issue due to forecasting and regular communication within company to monitor the stock levels.

for non replaceable items, you would definately need something that disables the product once the order goes through. If another user is half way through shopping process while another completes sale on the item, you would need some logic to double check availability as the order is being submitted.

[TotallySport]

Thanks for the info, interesting points.