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I like to build an order over time by adding things to my basket then checkout when I'm happy with it. Why would an online seller not allow thins and log you out/delete your basket after say 1/2 an hour? Screwfix has been doing this to me and it's doing my swede in. I'm used to great online retailers like CRC who will save stuff until you take it out. IS there a good reason for not doing this - does it cost them money if I just have stuff sat there?
First world problems I know -
Gaz
I'd guess some ecommerce systems may take the item out of stock once they are placed in the cart, so all that stuff sitting around in your cart can't be sold to someone else?
I accidentally bought a second, erm, something from Amazon because I didn't notice it was still in my basket from a while back when I bought something else.
I am why we can't have nice things, sorry...
That's why many commerce site use wish lists. Basically, the shop may not have a real time stock levels so therefore rely on the cart process to be completed relatively quickly. Or they don't want a bunch of stock being 'reserved' because it's in someones cart for days/weeks on end.
Depends on the ecommerce software, some use temporary server memory (sessions) which are cleared automatically after a certain amount of inactivity, not great if the server is busy and short of memory it eill clear them sooner - I've seen sites loose baskets after 30 seconds! A better way is to use an (encrypted) cookie to reference a basket stored in a database, that way the basket will last as long as the user doesn't clear cookies. Stock isn't generally allocated until paymemt btw.
Amazon's basket doesn't expire, I put books in there every so often and only purchase them when there's a handful or more there.
Anyone else want to know what phiiiil bought?
For anyone wondering about this from the other side. We found that for us the optimum revenue solution was about 2 weeks basket duration. Over that people don't seem to buy what's left in the basket - they delete it or become less likely to checkout, possibly finding it creepy - less than that and you lose out on return custom.
It was a "something" because I can't remember, not because it was anything interesting! My amazon recommendations based on what I've bought from there is a very dull place...
In the case of screwfix - they've got a much, much bigger customer base than CRC and probably a much much bigger range of stock, but also its not only the online customers - they've also several hundred trade counters each with a queue of customers all day every day that are drawing on the same central stock, so demands on stock levels are very high. You've also got trade and industrial customers ordering as well and DIYers, and they might be ordering in large multiples - CRC are never going to be making sales with dozens of product lines in in multiples of 10s or 100s per order. 1000s of customers all with large quantities in the their baskets for indefinite amounts of time would just be chaos.