[thelist] Homemade Shopping Cart Question

[Hassan Schroeder]

Rob Smith wrote:

> When a user "Adds an Item to their cart," you want to reserve that item and
> take it off the shelf so that no one else can put it in their cart. Each
> item is unique. To accomplish this feet, I have created a separate table
> (basket) that will hold their items to their customer id. 
> 
> My question is that when they return to browse other items, how can you hide
> the items that were stored in this temporary table. 

? When the customer puts the unique item in their cart, remove it
from inventory, just as if it were sold. (You can use a 'quantity'
field for this, a 'status' field -- available, sale pending, sold --
or whatever seems appropriate.

Just make sure you return things to inventory if the session times
out and the cart gets discarded.  :-)

(I'm working on just such a site right now, BTW.)

HTH!
-- 
Hassan Schroeder ----------------------------- hassan at webtuitive.com
Webtuitive Design ===  (+1) 408-938-0567   === http://webtuitive.com

                           dream.  code.