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    Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

    I have a Miva 5.5 client who will be having a baseball ticket sale shortly where they are likely to have several hundred people hitting their site at exactly the same moment - 9am sharp - when the sale begins and we activate online ordering.

    There is only one Miva product that we'll be selling. That product has two attributes - game date and departure point. The game date attribute will be inventory controlled. I have the Restock Shelves module installed and my plan, pending your advice, is to set the store basket timeout to 5 minutes, with a note to that effect to visitors. I also plan to set the Restock Shelves module to "Run restock every 5 minutes."

    Certain of these games are in HUGE demand. At the same moment, a couple hundred people could easily be trying to order a date where we have only 35 tickets available. And in years gone-by when we ran Miva 4.24, those games always oversold, despite having inventory control enabled.

    My questions is whether you think my plan outlined above will be sufficient to prevent overselling. And if not, what other steps would you recommend I take so that I can prevent overselling.

    Many thanks for your input.

    Scott

    #2
    Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

    My concern wouldn't be overselling, but people holding up all of your stock.
    Thanks,

    Rick Wilson
    CEO
    Miva, Inc.
    [email protected]
    https://www.miva.com

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

      Having worked on a "ticket" sales site, I can say that the architecture required to successfully prevent over-selling is vastly different from what Merchant (or any other ecommerce software) would use.

      So, to replicate that architecture, you'd need to build up your own sub-system to manage that process...
      Bruce Golub
      Phosphor Media - "Your Success is our Business"

      Improve Your Customer Service | Get MORE Customers | Edit CSS/Javascript/HTML Easily | Make Your Site Faster | Get Indexed by Google | Free Modules | Follow Us on Facebook
      phosphormedia.com

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        #4
        Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

        Originally posted by Rick Wilson View Post
        My concern wouldn't be overselling, but people holding up all of your stock.
        Hi Rick,

        Thanks for your reply. I was hoping you would be on of the people to respond.

        The client has run this sale before, but never with this level of promotion and advertising, and never with Miva 5.5. But in previous years, certain dates ALWAYS oversold. It seemed that the huge number of people putting those games into baskets at the same moment, when the sale first started, overwhelmed the inventory control. So that's why I'm trying to prevent that. If you have thoughts on ensuring that, they are much appreciated.

        Your comment about holding up stock got my attention. I wonder if you wouldn't mind elaborating on that, in case there's something we haven't anticipated. I thought that by instituting the 5 minute basket timeout, we could avoid a situation like that. It's never been a problem in the past, but if you see a potential weakness here, I'd sure appreciate you telling me more.

        Do you think the combination of Miva's own inventory control, plus Restock Shelves, plus the 5 minute basket timeout should prevent an overselling situation? I know no one knows this software like you, except maybe Bill W :)

        I really appreciate your input.

        Scott
        Last edited by shooter56; 02-18-13, 03:13 PM.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

          Do you think the combination of Miva's own inventory control, plus Restock Shelves, plus the 5 minute basket timeout should prevent an overselling situation? I know no one knows this software like you, except maybe Bill W :)
          I can tell you we test for race conditions and you shouldn't have an issue with that specific issue, however it's virtually impossible to solve for all race conditions so depending on how many people are fighting for those tickets it's hard to say.

          What I imagine being your big issue is if you only have 35 tickets and say an email list of 2,500 people getting notified of their release. The first 35 tickets that end up in baskets could happen almost instantly, and if those people don't checkout then depending on how you have restock shelves running (I would suggest every minute in this circumstance) it could be 6 minutes of it seeming to be sold out, only to find out it's not actually sold out.
          Thanks,

          Rick Wilson
          CEO
          Miva, Inc.
          [email protected]
          https://www.miva.com

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

            Make sure restock is up to date as I've speeded up a couple of things. I'd be inclined to make it 10 minutes. When I buy at ticketmaster, if I don't like my choices I know to go back at about 10 minutes because that is about when folks bail. By waiting 10 you are less likely to get the race condition. Taking some out while putting some back in at the same time may stress things a bit. 10 gives it a few minutes to get over the initial frenzy. I don't think I would do restock emails either. It slows the restocking.
            Bill Weiland - Emporium Plus http://www.emporiumplus.com/store.mvc
            Online Documentation http://www.emporiumplus.com/tk3/v3/doc.htm
            Question http://www.emporiumplus.com/mivamodu...vc?Screen=SPTS
            Facebook http://www.facebook.com/EmporiumPlus
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              #7
              Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

              Originally posted by Rick Wilson View Post
              I can tell you we test for race conditions and you shouldn't have an issue with that specific issue, however it's virtually impossible to solve for all race conditions so depending on how many people are fighting for those tickets it's hard to say.

              What I imagine being your big issue is if you only have 35 tickets and say an email list of 2,500 people getting notified of their release. The first 35 tickets that end up in baskets could happen almost instantly, and if those people don't checkout then depending on how you have restock shelves running (I would suggest every minute in this circumstance) it could be 6 minutes of it seeming to be sold out, only to find out it's not actually sold out.
              Thanks for that input, Rick. I understand what you're saying about the 6 minutes. More than likely that WILL occur. I think it always has. But so long as we don't sell 135 tickets, I'm good :) It seems in the past that people just keep trying, since we make the 5 minute basket timeout message very prominent.

              If I could make sure I understand what you're saying about the Restock Shelves settings, are you saying I should set the module to "Run restock every ONE minute"? If you could confirm that, I'd appreciate it.

              Thanks again for your input. If there's anything else you'd recommend, I'm all ears!

              Scott

              P.S. Just to clarify. The 35 tickets figure is for one or two particular dates. There are hundreds of tickets available between about 50 dates total. But one or two tend to give us trouble with overselling. Those are the highly coveted Red Sox vs. Yankees dates.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

                Originally posted by wcw View Post
                Make sure restock is up to date as I've speeded up a couple of things. I'd be inclined to make it 10 minutes. When I buy at ticketmaster, if I don't like my choices I know to go back at about 10 minutes because that is about when folks bail. By waiting 10 you are less likely to get the race condition. Taking some out while putting some back in at the same time may stress things a bit. 10 gives it a few minutes to get over the initial frenzy. I don't think I would do restock emails either. It slows the restocking.
                Hi Bill,

                I just spotted your reply after responding to Rick's. I have v. 5.0230. Is that current? I'm probably staring at it, but I'm not seeing a means to check for an update.

                So you're advice is to set Restock Shelves to "Run restock every TEN minutes" in conjunction with the 5 minute basket timeout? If you could confirm, I'd appreciate it.

                Many thanks as always, Bill.

                Scott

                P.S. I don't have restock emails enabled, so I should be good there.
                Last edited by shooter56; 02-18-13, 04:09 PM.

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                  #9
                  Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

                  I'm not a restock shelves expert, so I'll defer to Bill. If you set it to 10 minutes, then it's possible I could put all 35 in my basket, let them expire and if timed just right they'd be "out of stock" for a total of 15 minutes before coming back online.
                  Thanks,

                  Rick Wilson
                  CEO
                  Miva, Inc.
                  [email protected]
                  https://www.miva.com

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Inventory Control with MASSIVE Traffic

                    That is current. 10 and 5 would be good.
                    Bill Weiland - Emporium Plus http://www.emporiumplus.com/store.mvc
                    Online Documentation http://www.emporiumplus.com/tk3/v3/doc.htm
                    Question http://www.emporiumplus.com/mivamodu...vc?Screen=SPTS
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                    Twitter http://twitter.com/emporiumplus

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