Inventory hold time during checkout

1. Use to the setting at: Admin page > WooCommerce > Settings > Products tab > Inventory page > Hold Stock (minutes).

2. Orders become records in the database table wp_posts, where the field post_type = shop_order, along with lots of other types of information, so Order ID numbers may not be consecutive.

An abandoned cart doesn’t generate a database record. To find the number of abandoned carts, maybe you could look at your analytics page hits on the checkout page, and deduct the number of completed orders, but I don’t know what you could do with the number since it gives no understanding of the reason why the cart was abandoned.

So the stock limit refers to whoever checked out first, not just adding it to the cart. Adding it to the cart does not reduce the stock. So an order can go through and let’s say it is pending/on-hold for some reason and thus “unpaid”. That hold stock limit when reached, will release the stock back if this order still remains unpaid.

Orders at just custom post types so will use the same auto generated ID from the posts table. So it is normal to see a jump in numbers. So for example if an order came in now and has the order number of 200, then you create a page or a blog post, the ID would be 201. And if you now get another order, the order number will be 202 which in the orders page seems to be skipped 201 but in fact it was assigned to something else…etc.

Thanks Lorro, and Roy.

I was expecting a table exclusively for orders which is why I was perplexed, and also explains the jumping order numbers for me perfectly.

I was also looking for a way to prevent cart jacking, but I don’t think there’s any way to prevent that other than changing the behaviour of the plug-in to decrease stock when it’s added, and increasing it again if the cart’s abandoned or times out. That could be acceptable for some people, but as we use the waitlist plugin that would get ugly real quick.

I guess we’ll just let the chips fall where they lay when it comes to that. I don’t know how other people get around the issue. But you’ve both answered my two questions which is really appreciated.