Shopping Carts - Inventory Control

[windflame]

Hello All,

The past prints i've put out have left me spending hours and hours comparing spreadsheets of who paid when, sending emails and waiting to hear back, refunding payments for those who didn't make the cut. I really need a system that just WORKS. What do you guys use to control your releases and make sure that when you are out of the inventory it says "SOLD OUT"

Thanks a ton,
Mark Forsman

[Chris G]

Mark,

You don't say what system you're using.

What kind of volume are you talking about?

At least it sounds like a good problem to have (selling out of your work so fast you cannot keep up with it, that is... congrats)

-Chris

[windflame]

Hey Chris,

I am using Big Cartel, and it was a mess today.

I am extremely lucky that EB'ers have gone crazy over the two prints i've released, but it has had an EXTREMELY swift learning curve. The latest print was three different variants.

The first one (edition of six) sold out in under one minute and a few orders still got past (7-10 from what i can tell right now)

The second one sold out in the following hour and proceeded to continue to oversell. It was an edition of 25.

The third one sold out a few hours after that but i think (and hope) that it didn't oversell at all. Maybe one or two at MAX. I manually cut this one off once i realized i had a huge problem on my hands.

It's a blessing and a curse at the same time.

any help?

THANKS,
Mark Forsman

[fantasygoat]

Zencart.

[surrender]

Mark, i explained the situation on your thread on EB.

check it out.

[andydiesel]

we've had good success for the most part with Zen Cart on the DFP site.

[windflame]

hey all,

Thanks Chris, they suggested that i add the bigcartel IPN address as my ipn address on paypal and that will hopefully help.

In regards to zen cart, does the inventory control subtract it as soon as it is added to a cart or after they have payed?

I'm working on the ugliest spreadsheet to get this oversell organized. It's not making me happy.

Thanks a ton,
Mark

[naduval]

you could also start doing more than 6 piece runs.

That may help solve this problem as well.

It seems there is interest in your work, so you should give the people what they want.

[danieldanger]

no cart system works flawlessly. if you have a sale every minute or so, youll be fine. but any rush of any kind is going to result in problems. too much info going back and forth at the same time. numbers and lines get crossed. sales that are occuring the same time as another is processing often get viewed as a single sale to the inventory system, or no sale at all. i pay almost $100 a month for a hosted store on a dedicated server to combat as much of those problems as i can and it still has issues from time to time. best thing you can do is make sure you stash enough aside for oversells, you can always add more to the store slowly once you check the orders later that day. and anything with a realllll small edition, just dont announce a time, or do sales through email. all ecommerce stores 'work', but its more about finding the one that fucks up the least when the hammer comes down. the rampaging army of F5's from the EB crowd are going to cause issues with anyone using the store too. the more traffic trying to access the server at the same time, the more its going to slip up.

i use monstercommerce, and im happy with it. i pay for that happyness, but im happy none the less. its got an insane amount of bandwidth, so it can hold up to large amounts of people being on at once, and the store software holds up well. but you still have to account for the few errors its going to have, and you still need to double check things.

[windflame]

you could also start doing more than 6 piece runs.

That may help solve this problem as well.

It seems there is interest in your work, so you should give the people what they want.

Hey Nate,

the art store across the street only had 8 sheets and one got REALLY messed up!

I am trying to cater to everyone, which i guess is my problem. A small edition for the collectors and a larger edition for the people who just like the art.

Artist killed by the F5 star!

no cart system works flawlessly. if you have a sale every minute or so, youll be fine. but any rush of any kind is going to result in problems. too much info going back and forth at the same time. numbers and lines get crossed. sales that are occuring the same time as another is processing often get viewed as a single sale to the inventory system, or no sale at all. i pay almost $100 a month for a hosted store on a dedicated server to combat as much of those problems as i can and it still has issues from time to time. best thing you can do is make sure you stash enough aside for oversells, you can always add more to the store slowly once you check the orders later that day. and anything with a realllll small edition, just dont announce a time, or do sales through email. all ecommerce stores 'work', but its more about finding the one that fucks up the least when the hammer comes down. the rampaging army of F5's from the EB crowd are going to cause issues with anyone using the store too. the more traffic trying to access the server at the same time, the more its going to slip up.

i use monstercommerce, and im happy with it. i pay for that happyness, but im happy none the less. its got an insane amount of bandwidth, so it can hold up to large amounts of people being on at once, and the store software holds up well. but you still have to account for the few errors its going to have, and you still need to double check things.

Thanks for the suggestions Daniel. I looked in to monstercommerce and it looks like its a bit more than i could handle/afford. Next time i will have a few set aside from the edition and also take all other steps recommended. I have also come to realize i should pre-tube everything. It still seems like a risk to me since I believe the interest and buzz will wear off, but i'd rather take the precaution than deal with spreadsheets and refunds.

If it keeps going this way i am just going to have my old php guy build something from scratch that is designed just for me. How does obey manage everything?!


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