Holding an item on checkout

[Widget]

HI,

We have a store where every product is different. People often compete for the same item.  We have done tests and haven't found that the item is help on checkout. I can take 1 item to checkout on my computer and the same item all the way to checkout on my phone. This means its just a battle of first to put in Credit card details.  Is there anyway for this to not be the case? I thought that once you hit checkout items where held.  I have investigated countdown timers but this is literally just a timer and no form of hold on the items. Can anyone help me with a solution?

[Jason]

>  I thought that once you hit checkout items where held

No, that's not the case. Many (many) years ago it was but it's a real killer for conversion. A bad actor could go in and put things in the cart and stop anyone from purchasing it. That bad actor has zero intention of checking out so your sales can be hijacked.

[PaulNewton]

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@Widget wrote:

This means its just a battle of first to put in Credit card details. 

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Could you explain how first to input-credit-card is a bad thing vs being a battle of who first adds-to-cart?

What make the the outcome different?

To do this you will need a backed app to track products added to the cart then into checkout as part of a reservation flow (aka booking,allocation,etc) that simultaneously  keeps other customers out of adding the same item until the first customers checkout is finished, the cart is abandoned ,after a timer or some other effect.

As jason mentioned if you do this you have to build in a method to avoid products being held hostage.

[Widget]

Thanks for your feedback. Any chance you know of a “backed app”. We have found heaps of timers but nothing that helps us with a hold.

[Nick]

Hi @Widget,

Nick here from Shopify. 

To add more to Jason's response. Inventory is only held for a stores customer during the actual payment processing. Not held any other time.

Once the customers have gone through most of the checkout and attempt to pay, Shopify will check all products in the cart to ensure the products are still in stock. This is when Shopify will hold the products until payment is processed when they are removed from the store's inventory.

Hope that helps explain a little behind the "why" for it. 

All the best, Nick

[Widget]

Tha is. I’ll for answering the “why”. My biggest issue with this is that it works for big business. But we are a small non profit who sell 2nd hand clothes and therefore all items are 1 off. People scrambling to put in credit card details just isn’t nice. We can’t find any apps to help. Any chance you know of what could help us?

[PaulNewton]

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@Widget wrote:
People scrambling to put in credit card details just isn’t nice.

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Versus people scrambling to to put in in the cart first? 

There's a point where it becomes impractical to try and minimize the chance a few customers will spend time filling out checkout info for something already sold a few seconds ago because of limited inventory.

The only thing that comes close to solving that is using dynamic checkout buttons so customers can use accelerated checkout so entering information is basically skipped for some customers.

Consider a hypothetical fix for this race condition:

1. Disable a products add-to-cart for all customers after 1 person puts in in their cart
2. EVERYONE who visits the site during that time cannot even try to get the product.
3. First customer doesn't make payment...
4. ???

Outcome: you still have an unsold item and potential customers that were prevented from even making the attempt to purchase.

It's either a backend app or take orders manually over the phone or via chat.

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi @Widget,

There wouldn't be any apps which could override this. This would be because the checkout is protected and not able to be edited in any way. Regarding people scrambling to put in credit card details, @PaulNewton hit the nail on the head in the sense of the same concept occurs with people putting items in their cart. Holding inventory only when payment is actually processing is a better experience for customers.