Cart items bought while having no stock

  • Hello!

    I have a question about inventory handling in woocommerce.
    We use woocommerce as an intranet ordering system, integrated with our ERP. In our eShop all orders are paid upon delivery(externally handled), so there is no actual payment through woocommerce.

    Usually our customers keep updating their cart for more than 1 or 2 days before they actually submit their order. These long lasting sessions very often translate into having items/quantities in their carts that happen to be out of stock when finally the order is made. Nevertheless, woocommerce allows these orders to be made and does no intercept them(???). Why does woocommerce allow orders for items and quantities that do not match with available stock? Doesn’t it check inventory at the time-of-purchase?

    Every time this happens I receive a notification email that informs me that there is a “back-order”: “X units of product Y has been returned to order Z”

    Is there a setting I have overlooked or am not aware that forces woocommerce to check stock when the orders are made, and thus block (inconsistent to inventory) carts from long sessions. Please advise!

    Many thanks!

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  • At Admin page > Products > (your product) > Product Data section > Inventory tab, ensure “Allow back-orders” is set to “Do not allow”.

    At Admin page > WooCommerce > Settings > Products tab > Inventory, presumably you have already checked “Enable stock management”. The amount of time (hold time) you allow customers to complete their purchase is the next setting down. If its blank it will be disabled. I have mine set for 60 minutes.

    My understanding is that, when a customer selects an item, it is withdrawn from sale until either the purchase is complete or the “hold time” has expired.

    Thread Starter kelestor

    (@kelestor)

    Hello and thanks for you feedback!

    I have the exact same settings both for products and the woocommerce settings page.
    I don’t know if the “hold time” setting has anything to do with the cart. I think it maps the time between an order is made and when its payment is fulfilled. I don’t think inventory is reduced when a customer adds an item to his/her cart. Please can sby else verify or correct me in this.

    If what lorro says is right, then i can simply make “hold on” long enough so that it covers the average cart sessions of my customers. Even if this is the case, I cannot understand why doesn’t the woocommerce cross check users cart with available stock at the time the order is made. How can woocommerce allow my customers buy out of stock products.

    Again thanks lorro for you feedback.

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