[ic] academic discussion about inventory under high checkout concurrency

Mike Heins interchange-users@icdevgroup.org
Tue Oct 22 10:19:01 2002


Quoting Jeff Dafoe (jeff@badtz-maru.com):
> > you should do inventory on IC at all, other than as an advisory...as I
> > have said many times, IC is not an accounting system and doesn't pretend
> > to be.
> 
>     Accounting is one thing, but I don't agree that IC shouldn't do
> inventory.  I wouldn't want customers trying to buy out of stock items
> because, for my personal store, I don't have any way to get more of the same
> item.  I utilize functionality based on some pieces of code you posted into
> the list that removes variants if their associated inventory level is zero
> (item-options inventory="inventory:quantity") and I remove the "buy it"
> button if the inventory level of all variants is zero.

These types of things don't require absolute reliability. If an order
comes in for an out-of-stock item, it can be handled and it is not the
end of the world. 

> > Any automatic inventory features have been put in by popular demand
> > and with me kicking and screaming....I have never pretended that they
> > were bulletproof.
> 
>     I think you have done a fine job with the inventory implementation that
> is currently present in IC and, at least for me, the inventory functionality
> is one of the major selling points.

That is whey we put it in, though I am always cautioning people about
relying on it too much. It is necessary to synchronize the online
inventory with your MRP/accounting system on a regular basis.
Inventory has never been an exact science because of various types of
shrinkage and human error, and that is why people still do physical
inventory counts from time to time.

Bear in mind that if we constrained Interchange to Postgres or Oracle, we
could do lots of things we cannot do with a database-independent setup.
You can do quite a bit with database constraints and stored procedures
that are outside the scope of Interchange.

-- 
Mike Heins
Perusion -- Expert Interchange Consulting    http://www.perusion.com/
phone +1.513.523.7621      <mike@perusion.com>

Few blame themselves until they have exhausted all other possibilities.
 -- anonymous