Stock and Checkout

Stock lives on each version of a product, not on the product as a whole. Fifty Mediums and ten XLs are two numbers, and they run out separately.

This page covers what happens to those numbers when someone actually buys, and what a buyer sees on the way through checkout.

Stock is held while a buyer pays

When a fan starts checking out, their items are reserved for them. Nobody else can buy those units while the reservation is running, and if the fan does not finish, the units go back on sale automatically.

This is simply how the store works. There is nothing to turn on and nothing to configure.

What the buyer sees

While the reservation is running, the checkout page shows a line reading Reserved for you with the time left counting down, and underneath it, "We're holding your items while you pay." Under two minutes it gets more insistent: "Complete payment soon: after this your items go back on sale."

If the clock runs out, the notice changes to say the reservation has ended, along with a Try again button. Taking the reservation again usually works, because the units are very often still there.

What it means for you

• Two people cannot buy your last unit. The second one is told it is unavailable rather than sold something you cannot send.
• Abandoned carts do not tie up stock forever. The reservation expires and the units come back on their own.
• Your stock number stays honest without you watching it.

When a version runs out

The moment a version hits zero, buyers see it as unavailable. On the product page, its option button is greyed out and cannot be picked, so a shopper cannot select Black Medium and then find the buy button dead.

If every version of a product is gone, the product page shows Out of stock.

Update stock by editing the version, on the product's edit page. See product versions.

The stock check

At the top of your products list you may see a banner about your stock numbers. It compares what your catalog says you have against what actually sold.

• When everything agrees, it is a single green line, with What was checked to open if you want the detail.
• When something disagrees, it lists the versions involved, what the number reads now, and what it looks like it should be.

Each row says what kind of disagreement it is: Reads high, Reads low, Stuck reserved, or Impossible number. Nothing is corrected for you. The report suggests a number, it never writes one, so you stay in charge of what your shelf says.

Open What this report cannot see for its blind spots, including how far back it reads, and use Re-check after you have made corrections.

If a specific product is involved, the same information appears at the top of that product's edit page, which is where you land when you click a stock notification.

Discount codes at checkout

Buyers can apply a discount code themselves. On the checkout page there is a Have a coupon code? prompt with a Coupon Code box and an Apply button.

When a code lands, the checkout shows Coupon applied with the code, what it takes off (a percentage or a fixed amount), and a Remove link. The discount then appears as its own line in the totals.

If the code is wrong, expired, used up, or does not apply to what is in the cart, the buyer is told right under the box and their cart is untouched.

For some checkouts the code is applied at the payment step rather than immediately, and the page says so: "Your code is applied when you reach payment."

You create and manage the codes themselves under Operations. Both percentage and fixed-amount discounts are supported, and a code can be limited to specific products, capped by number of uses, given an expiry date, or tied to one email address. See coupons.

Where discounts show up afterwards

Every order records the discount that was applied. The order's summary shows the total the fan paid with the discount noted underneath. See orders.

Where to go next

• Setting stock per version: product versions
• Creating discount codes: coupons
• Following an order through: orders
• Carts that never made it: abandoned checkouts