I’m currently facing a recurring issue in a WooCommerce store that I cannot explain. Users are purchasing items that are currently out of stock.

Background: We are a service provider managing a WooCommerce store for one of our clients. For some products, we have added additional variants where we offer items in a different quality condition (e.g., used). We manage the available quantities via the WooCommerce REST API. Additionally, the store is connected to Billbee, which handles the stock of the “classic” variants. Our variants are set up as normal variants in the shop with the following settings:

Product Data:

• Variable Product
• Stock Management Disabled at the Product Level

Product Data > Variants (see also the response from the REST API):

• “Manage Stock?”: Enabled
• Stock Quantity: 0
• “Allow Backorders?”: Do Not Allow

The Issue: From our logs, shop display, the REST API, and Billbee, I have confirmed in several scenarios that the stock was at 0, yet a customer could purchase this variant, causing the stock to drop to -1. I cannot replicate such a purchase myself, as I always receive appropriate messages in the shop on the product detail page: “Out of stock” and “This product is unavailable. Please choose a different combination.” when trying to add it to the cart.

My Thoughts: Could it be possible if JavaScript is blocked or if the item is displayed as available through Google/other search engines? Has anyone encountered a similar issue before? Is there anything I might have missed checking? Any help would be greatly appreciated, and feel free to reach out with any questions.

Best regards,

Jonas

RestAPI Get response “/wp-json/wc/v3/products/95799/variations/159355”

{ …

“manage_stock”: true,

“stock_quantity”: 0

“stock_status”: “outofstock”,

… }

I have Googled this and it seems to be an issue that pops up pretty regularly but I can see no consistent cause other than the generic “probably a plugin issue).

NOTE: I added a quantity of 2 to the products but that did not solve the problem.

I have just installed the free version of your plugin. I have performed the initial optimization and my site has already sped up greatly. I am looking at caching and have a question I can’t find the answer to.

I have a WooCommerce store and many of my products only have 1 item of stock. I am also constantly managing my stock, so it is extremely important that customers see the correct stock value when they view a product. I am worried that the caching will show visitors old versions of pages from when the product was in stock, and not the correct stock level.

Does the plugin usually manage to deal with this or is it something I would have to do manually? Many of my products are rare and will never come back into stock once they sell out, so I really don’t want customers thinking it is in stock and then failing at the checkout.

Thanks in advance for your help

P.S. I am unfortunately quite the n00b when it comes to my website, I have been running and maintaining it for about 3 years now; I am not quite so much “flailing in the deep end” as I was then, but I am still unsure of a lot of things, so please be kind with your responses.

I am familiar with other platforms that allow for products to have a location field which allows for accurate location when using a supplier or dropshipper.

However, I have noticed woocommerce doesnt offer this or maybe I have overlooked it. Looking for help on adding a location field to each product on our website to allow more accurate shipping. Some of our products ship directly from the manufacturer and would like to have those products with a location set for that address.

We also offer local products, our website is not solely for dropshipping. So I need a versatile extension or plugin. Or just an explanation on why the products are not showing an item location.

Thanks in advance

I have stock management set up, which works with all of my previous products that have been on my site for years. However anything new i upload, as soon as a size is purchased on any of my new variable products it puts that size out of stock and into -1. Its almost like any of my new products dont talk to the products on my till even though the plu numbers that are meant to be recongnised between the till and website are correct.

Any guideance would be super helpful. I’m starting to miss sales because of it!

Many thanks

Jon