Timed Product Inventory Availability

[lesliekirk]

I would like to be able to make a specific product available to purchase during a specific timeframe. I want the product to be available to view but not purchase but I don't want to have to get up in the middle of the night to make that happen. I'm using the product inventory to prevent the purchase, it would be great to have the inventory level adjust at a preset time and then return to zero at the end of the timeframe.

[eldon99]

What if you created a couple custom product fields: (e.g. starttime / endtime). Then add some conditional logic around the addtocart section?

[oliverands]

I agree with eldon99 . I do something similar when I am going to release new product. I have the section of the PROD template that presents the add to cart button set up within a conditional statement. If the product code meets the condition, the page will not display the button to add to cart but will display a countdown timer showing how long until the product will be available for purchase. If the product code doesn't meet the condition, the add to cart button displays. I imagine you could add a second condition with server time so that before and/or after a certain time the add to cart button will not display.

[William Davis]

Is there a reason not to have the best of both worlds? Let customers buy the product at a higher price if they chose to with a countdown timer of when the item goes on sale should they decide to wait (why lose a sale if the customer can't wait)?

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Either way, I'd use javascript/jquery as using miva conditionals would mean the customer would have to keep refreshing the page instead of just waiting with the page open.

[mcrmedical]

Sounds like an interesting feature. I'm sure you've solved it pending a new dream feature, but if not, how about creating two "Standard Scheduled Tasks: Import" Scheduled tasks (with Update Inventory... selected)? The first task imports at a set time, adjusting the inventory up to whatever is set in the CSV file, and the second that imports at the end of your time period to zero it back out. That's something that can be setup without any coding, lets you schedule it any date/time, requires only a couple of really simple CSV files dropped into a secure directory on the server (with only that product in it), and the configuration of two scheduled tasks. Total setup time wouldn't be much at all, and is pretty flexible as long as the person using it can FTP the CSV files over when you want to use the functionality.