Can cache plugin cause overselling in woocommerce?

  • freddobloggs

    (@freddobloggs)


    5 years, 5 months ago

    Hi,

    I’m trying to speed up a wp/woocommerce site which is slow. I’ve implemented this cache minimally right now, I’m just using enhanced page cache and browser caching at the moment. Speed is great.

    First sale went great. Second sale had major problems. One product was set up with variants, all variants had back orders disabled and limited stock (And woocommerce is set up for no back orders and to manage stock). For some reason the site allowed overselling on most variants.

    Tbh I cannot see why this is happening. Woocommerce is set to reserve items in cart for 5 minutes. The cache does not appear to be caching cart or checkout pages. I can see that the product can appear in stock after it’s out of stock due to caching on the product page but my testing shows woocommerce correctly stops add to cart with an ‘out of stock’ message in that scenario. If I end up with a browser cached cart page including a product which was in stock but is now out of stock, Woocommerce seems to correctly stop checkout with an ‘out of stock’ message.

    I have hardly done anything apart from implementing the cache and this over selling has never happened before, so I’m fairly convinced the cache is -somehow- causing the overselling to be allowed.

    Any ideas hugely appreciated!

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Contributor Marko Vasiljevic

    (@vmarko)

    5 years, 5 months ago

    Hello,

    There is a guide on how to set up WooCommerce with W3 Total Cache on WooCommerce website which you can find here.
    If you are using Database cache option you need to add _wc_session_ to “ignored query stems” field in Performance>Database Cache, advanced sub-box

    Thread Starter freddobloggs

    (@freddobloggs)

    5 years, 5 months ago

    Many thanks for the reply, sorry with hindsight I should have mentioned, I checked that guide before contacting you. Woocommerce is a recent version so according to the guide I don’t have to manually exclude those pages, and indeed I cannot see them in the cache files at all.

    At this time I have the db cache disabled, in fact I’m only using the enhanced page cache and browser caching.

    According to woocommerce support, stock is reserved at the point the user clicks pay in checkout, just before they are forwarded to PayPal. With current settings it is reserved for 5 minutes, which should be enough to get back from PayPal.

    I’m wondering. Even with the cache, the site did collapse a bit under the load during that sale. So I’m wondering if when people returned to the site after payment, if that page load failed, perhaps the stock then returned to available (after the 5 minute timeout) before PayPal sent the Ipn back, or something along those lines.

    Thread Starter freddobloggs

    (@freddobloggs)

    5 years, 5 months ago

    I am also in conversation with woocommerce support on this. FYI I’m by no means sure the cache is causing this but apparently overselling has never been an issue before and the cache is the only major change I’ve made to the site.

    Plugin Contributor Marko Vasiljevic

    (@vmarko)

    5 years, 4 months ago

    Hello,

    If your tests don’t show any problems, I don’t think it’s something we can help with. If the issue was caused by the cache, then he should change some settings, but we don’t know the cause of this problem so I cannot tell what to change.
    Try to replicate the issue with and without W3 Total Cache activated.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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