Stock availability issues

[fuzzyphil]

Hi,
We've finally got our first ever live shop up and running (Max1.7) www.beseenonabike.com/shopuk/ however there are a couple of stock quantity display issues we are not happy with.

we dont want to display the actual quantity of items in stock as we will not be using the stock control part of osC. Instead we would prefer to say In Stock and if not in stock a message that we can modify to say what we want. eg Stock due in 3 days.

Has anybody else done this or a variation on this.
We have tried searching the forum but no luck yet. One thing we were wondering is could the stock quantity field be changed to a text entry rather than a number? That way maybe 1 = In stock and 0 = 2 - 3 days.

Still learning php mysql so simple help would be appreciated.

All ideas gratefully received.

regards
Phil.

[beahawk]

If you go to Admin then configuration then Product listing - here you can say whether it shows the product quatitiy (stock level) or not.

If you go to Admin then configuration then stock you can change what the message says when the item is out of stock.

These are the two settings for doing it the easy way. If playing around with these setttings doesnt do what you want to do then you will have to look into changing the code or installinga contribution.



BTW...

when I look at your site the top right hand "Be safe be seen" box is not fully aligned to the right. I am using firefox and my screen res is 1280 x 800 (I think!) it looks fine when I resize to 800x600. Also the cycling man in the top left hand and the header image get dragged apart (in the larger size). I can send you a screen shot if you like.

[fuzzyphil]

Thanks Beahawk. I have already configured the admin the way you state. I have set the product listing to 4 and the out of stock message to read Stock due in 3 - 4 days.
However what I really want to do is create a message that just says In Stock or Stock due in 3-4 days. I dont want to display the actual stock quantity.

I found a contribution that looked good on the outside but is proving a bit of a b***** to make work.
http://www.oscommerce.com/community/...l/search,stock

This contribution lets you show your customers at a glance whether your products are "In Stock" or "Out Of Stock" as they browse the product listings - so they don't have to actually go into the product, or even go as far as checkout, before realising the product is not in stock.

Basically, it modifies the "Quantity" option that can be displayed in the product listing to read simply "In Stock" or "Out of Stock" - personally speaking, I don't want the public or my competitors to know how much stock I keep at any one time.

All I seem to be able to show for stock status is zero. Its beginning to get a little frustrating now.

Anyway I will perservere.

Thanks.
Phil.

Drat! I've just viewed my home page in firefox and its not stretching correctly - thanks for the tip.