Why did Square sell more items than I had in stock?

[rustynailwinery]

We are hosting a Halloween event, and had three VIP tickets available that included a tarot card reading. I created the event for the general event and set that stock to 27, and then I created the event for the VIP version and created three variations: one for the tarot reading at 5 PM, one for the tarot reading at 5:20 PM and one for the tarot reading at 5:40 PM, because we can only do one tarot reading at a time. I set the stock for each time to 1 ticket. I logged in today to find that the 5 PM event stock is at -3 because Square sold four tickets for that session, even though I told it I only had stock for one. 

What's going on? Did I do something wrong? I'm including some photos of my item page so you can see what I mean.

[Honeybeard]

Did they buy the tickets online?

[rustynailwinery]

Yes

[Honeybeard]

I have a bunch of items online myself.
I know that sometimes when a customer buys a product it takes a little bit for it to go through.
Then someone else buys it before inventory adjusts and boom, the second person won't get the product regardless of what the site says. Square does go into negative because sometimes items haven't been received or adjusted.
Ultimately, none of this is your fault.

I'm wondering, instead of using variants, could you just have separate items/tickets for the different time slots?

If you had separate items/tickets and dedicated specific amounts to each time slot, then when it sells out, it would show on the site.
I'm thinking since you are using variants, it might be somewhat confusing for the system.

God I hope that makes sense. I'm horribly hung over.

[rustynailwinery]

Okay, I need help again. 😂 I'm having a hard time understanding the difference between the following:

+ Item Options
+ Item Variations
+ Custom Attributes
+ Item Modifiers

I am reading the articles about it, but I can't quite wrap my head around how they work in context for this business. If it helps, let me explain my current situation and challenge, and see if you know how I can use these various features to accomplish it...

The winery is hosting this Spirits & Boos wine tasting and ghost tour event. There are two time options: at 6 PM or at 8 PM. We have 30 spaces available per time. Additionally, we want to sell "VIP" tickets that ALSO include a personalized tarot card reading. The tarot card reading can occur in 20 minute increments between 12 and 6 PM, but we only have space for one person per 20-minute time block. When I originally set this up, we were only planning to do three total tarot card readings between 5 and 6 PM, so I set this up as follows:

• ITEM: Spirits & Boos general admission for $35
  • VARIATION: 6 PM (stock of 27)
  • VARIATION: 8 PM (stock of 30)
• ITEM: Spirits & Boos VIP ticket for $60
  • VARIATION: Tarot Card Reading at 5 PM; Spirits & Boos at 6 PM (stock of 1)
  • VARIATION: Tarot Card Reading at 5:20 PM; Spirits & Boos at 6 PM (stock of 1)
  • VARIATION: Tarot Card Reading at 5:40 PM; Spirits & Boos at 6 PM (stock of 1)

But now, the tarot card readings have proven immensely popular and we want to sell more during the day. But when you have a tarot card reading at 5 PM, it makes sense to stay for the Spirits & Boos session at 6 PM. When you're buying a tarot card reading at, let's say, 1 PM, though, you won't likely stay at the winery for five hours until the 6 PM Spirits & Boos session, so you may prefer to select the 8 PM session instead and have a larger gap between where you can go and have dinner, etc. 

What I would like to do is sell, essentially:

• Spirits & Boos General Admission for $35
• Spirits & Boos VIP Ticket for $60, and have people select which 20 minute time block they want for their tarot card reading, with a stock of only one available per 20 minutes, AND have them also select which Spirits & Boos session they want to attend, the 6 PM or the 8 PM session. Ideally this could integrate with the General Admission ticket in terms of stock, but I am prepared to monitor that manually and shut it off when the two combined equal around 30 people, which is what we have capacity for. 

Does this make any sense at all? I've been trying to work through it in my mind and just can't quite untangle it. The easiest solution would probably be to separate the tickets and just sell the Tarot Card Readings as a separate item. But, the winery doesn't make money from the tarot card readings, they make money from the Spirits & Boos session, so I would LIKE for anyone who purchases a tarot card reading to be required to also purchase a Spirits & Boos session, if that helps to contextualize. 

[Honeybeard]

Okay, let me break these down to the best of my knowledge.

For these items

+ Item Options
+ Item Variations
+ Custom Attributes
+ Item Modifiers

I think these are mostly for restaurants.

[Honeybeard]

Okay, so the main focus is to push the Spirits and boos tickets.

Items issue: 

But first, I am curious.
Would it be easier just to have these items instead of variations?

- "ITEM: Spirits & Boos general admission (6 PM) for $35"
- "ITEM: Spirits & Boos general admission (8 PM) for $35"

This might be easier and faster for your books when you overlook what was sold.

Spirits and Boos:

So I was thinking. 
What if you had discounts for specific time periods? Something you can control.

Example.
If I bought a tarot reading at 1 PM, and there was a Spirits Tickets available to me at 8 PM, but for $50 instead of $60. That might make me want to buy that ticket for that time slot over another time.

Does that make sense?

[rustynailwinery]

Hm, how would I do that? Could I tell Square that if you add this item to your cart, then this one is discounted, but if you don't then it's full price? 

[Honeybeard]

Items -> Discounts.

You're going to have to mess around with this section a little bit.
And these are all just suggestions.

So you can add an automatic discount
If customer buys "1pm tarot reading" then "8pm Spirits shot will be xyz off"

Does that make sense?

[rustynailwinery]

So, theoretically this would work, and I believe I set it up correctly, BUT the discounts for some reason do not apply to the online store? I have to set up a coupon instead for the online store, and the coupon does not offer the same functionality -- i.e. I can't seem to lock it so that it only provides the discount if someone adds both items to their cart. 😩Does anyone have an update on when Square will offer the same functionality to their online store? This is a major money maker for our client and we really need the ability to better customize the online store coupons and how/when they apply.

In lieu of that, I think I'll just have to set up each VIP session as its own event – one for each tarot card reading time block (i.e. Spirits & Boos VIP - Tarot Card Reading at 1:20 PM; Spirits & Boos VIP - Tarot Card Reading at 1:40 PM, etc). I hate this option from a UX perspective because I think customers will be easily confused and it is just generally clunky, but then I can set the Spirits & Boos at 6 PM / Spirits & Boos at 8 PM as a VARIATION so I can track who wants to attend which session and manually cut off the session when it is full between the VIP and General Admission tickets combined. 

Anything I'm overlooking?

[rustynailwinery]

Nope I'm sorry, you're right. I just double checked and the overstock was sold in store. Should have known! Thanks!

[Honeybeard]

As long as it's figured out!
Have a great one 

Also, if you ever distribute to California, please let me know.