John W. Colby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Sat Dec 25 10:20:51 CST 2004
Arthur, The thing here is that you are selling SPECIFIC inventory items, i.e. specific seat numbers in specific locations, not a generic telephone or laptop. Thus you have specific inventory records, and can reserve those with a date stamp field in that specific record and some field that says what "user" owns the seat. Set the date stamp, then clear it and the "owner" X minutes later. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause: http://folding.stanford.edu/ -----Original Message----- From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller Sent: Saturday, December 25, 2004 12:06 AM To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com Subject: Re: [dba-SQLServer] TicketMaster-like Timer Regardless of the particular inventory stocked, assume that it moves quickly and that there are a finite number of objects available. Looking at the TicketMaster layout, you have 5 minutes to comple an order or it's cancelled. Which means, I think, that some magic happens in the back end that subtracts the number of tickets requested from the available inventory, counts ticks, and if you don't press Submit quickly enough your order is toast. This is the part that is giving me conceptual problems. Assume 49 people are logged on and there are 100 inventory objects available. How do I set up 49 timers and roll them back after exactly N minutes? A. Mark Breen wrote: >Hello Andy, > >I hear what you are saying but.... > >1) If you delay long enough on an Airline site, do you believe that you >will retain the seat >2) If you delay long enough on a Dell site, do you really think that >the PC is being 'held' for you. > >The reality is that you either disappoint many customers by having the >stock all tied up with enquiries or people that do not have the ability >to pay for it, versus, once in a blue moon, you have to display a >message that "this product has just gone out of stock, but we would now >like to offer you this as an alternative", depending on the scenario, >you could even offer it as a free upgrade. > >I accept we are only talking in general terms here, we do not know >whether Authur is talking about Blood donations or Candy bars in a >store. But my point is just to consider the implications of tying up >stock with mere prospects rather than customers. > >I did not get as far as suggesting, but Authur could also consider more >sophisticated means of pooling the enquiries and limiting them to >10-20% of the stock, so that all enquiries are seeing the same pool. > >All this is difficult without knowing the business in detail (which is >not the intention here), but I still say that it is be be considered. > >Perhaps it is a B2B model within one company and in that case, it is OK >to hold the stock in advance. > >Cheers and have a good Christmas, > >Mark > > > > > >On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 11:26:26 +0100, Andy Lacey ><andy at minstersystems.co.uk> wrote: > > >>As a customer of these kind of sites (and I am) I'd soon stop using it >>if it told me there were tickets, I said I'll take 1, went to the >>trouble of putting in my details, then my cc details, then it told me >>my tickets had been sold to someone else. It may sound like business >>sense not to hold that stock, but the longer term good business is not >>to aggravate your customers. >> >>-- >>Andy Lacey >>http://www.minstersystems.co.uk >> >> >> >> >_______________________________________________ >dba-SQLServer mailing list >dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com >http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver >http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.4 - Release Date: 12/22/2004 _______________________________________________ dba-SQLServer mailing list dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver http://www.databaseadvisors.com