January 28, 2012

Carted vs Purchased

I'm just setting up my new store on Oz (insert gratuitous plug here) and just can't decide between items been removed from stock when they are actually purchased or just when they are added to the cart.

As a consumer I hate clicking through to checkout only to find my cart has been emptied by a quicker shopper.  But as a seller I would hate to miss a sale because someone carted something and later didn't by and prevented anyone else from buying it.

I've done a few micro polls about it (thanks Facebook!) and its seems its one of those things that people are one way or the other about.

I think I will be running with carted to start with - it seems the system will automatically return it to stock if its not actually paid for within 24 hours.  Not that I think its really going to be an issue for my store but I might look into a bit more anyway.  Now I'm interested to see how the "big names" do it.  I let you know what I if out but in the meantime which do you think works better?

Yours in confusion

Holly

1 comment:

leighdavenport.net said...

I'm in no way, shape or form a 'big name' but holding it for 24 hours seems to me like a good happy medium. Like you, I get cranky if I'm shopping and 20 minutes later when I go to pay the product has disappeared, but I also agree with your point that sitting on stock for ages and preventing it from selling to someone else is a pain too. So I think a 24 hour hold is fair.