ok i don't know if this is even possible, but i am trying to figure out how to mark items as sold once someone buys them. i sell handmade crafts and don't want to wake up to 50 ppl ordering an item that i only have one of. i am totally new to all this, but have managed to build my site. i kinda need to figure this out before i can publish any of the pages with items to purchase.

www.thoughtfulthingsfrommomandme.com

Depends on your cart. Some carts allow you to import the iitial stock, and also to add further purchases, and they will also detract the quantities sold.

I don't think that PayPal cart supports this.

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ack...kk that's what i thought after reading the entire paypal forum...does anyone know if mal's ecommerce will do that? or if there is another free cart program that will?

Before you send yourself into a tizzy trying to deal with the "what if's" why don't you simply give it a whirl to see how your site does overall?
Unless you are getting tons of traffic, you probably don't have much to really worry about....

In the interim, I would suggest you simply add some 'text as Policy' on pages where you deem it necessary to further define the uniqueness of your offering, and to explain the processing of "orders" (thus you categorize each transaction as an Order - an important distinction): maybe something like this ~ "As items are individually hand crafted, no two are perfectly alike, and retain the aesthetic value for which they are intrinsically desired. Should the item you order be temporarily out of stock, please allow up to 10 days for it to be ready for shipment."

Online customers are an intelligent crowd, and are cognizant of such practices. NOT having something similar as a disclaimer could prove to be detrimental to your business, and those that do not favor such open terms are not the type of customers you want anyway - trust me (they are the type always looking to find loopholes to get something for nothing).

IMO

"Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan"

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thx vasili! that was just what i needed. i spent the last couple of days reading websites and forums and watching tons of tutorials. i wish i would have checked for a reply sooner.

the text you suggested is perfect. we had something similar but not quite right. however, 10 days is no where near enough time to make a queen size quilt by hand.

although, i learned alot from everything, there is a whole world of things yet to learn. we have decided in the end that the best way for us to go is with a shopping cart. there are alot of features, including inventory control, which will just make things alot easier in the long run.

now, i'm gonna go try out all of the shopping carts and figure out which i like best that will suit all of our needs/wants.

thx again vasili!