James Golovich

<p><a href="http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/" rel="nofollow ugc">WooCommerce</a> doesn’t remove an item from inventory until someone actually buys<br />
that item.  This plugin can reduce the “virtual” stock quantity of an item without actually modifying the item<br />
inventory, so there should be no problems with missing data if somehow the cart data is deleted.  This plugin isn’t for<br />
everyone, but people that are selling specialty items will find it useful and hopefully eliminate some customer<br />
support nightmares.</p>
<p>The plugin can automatically expire items from the cart (disabled by default) with a configurable expiration time.<br />
Expiration times are plain english using whatever types php’s strtotime can support (Examples: 10 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours, 1 day)<br />
Per item expiration time can be configured by adding a Custom Field to each item using the configured<br />
‘Expire Custom Key’ (default name is ‘csr_expire_time’).</p>
<p>Expiration can be enabled independently of reducing the cart stock, so this plugin can also be used to expire items at<br />
other intervals than the default WooCommerce cart/session expiration.</p>
<p>An issue was opened on the <a href="https://github.com/woothemes/woocommerce/issues/5966" rel="nofollow ugc">WooCommerce issue tracker</a> regarding<br />
this problem and someone posted on Facebook about it, which caught my attention.</p>
<p>Please submit bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests via the <a href="https://github.com/jamesgol/woocommerce-cart-stock-reducer" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub repository</a></p>
<h3>TODO</h3>
<ul>
<li>Look into adding ajax and mini-cart notices</li>
<li>Take some screenshots for wordpress.org</li>
<li>Add some kind of indicator to cart so you know what items will expire</li>
</ul>
<h3>Thanks</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bob DeYoung of <a href="https://github.com/bluelotusworks" rel="nofollow ugc">BlueLotusWorks</a> for testing, feedback, and support</li>
</ul>


WooCommerce Cart Stock Reducer

I use both virtual stock reduction and cart item expiration. Both work exactly as promised.

I was also able to:
1. Add a "Quantity reserved" column to my product list in admin
2. Localize the countdown text for cart expiration
thanks to the excellent code in thus plugin.

Just fantastic - a must at sometimes busy stores

We needed a ticket-sales like cart capability where a ticket is 'blocked' once added to a cart preventing others from purchasing for a set-time, but then needed to return the item to the cart automatically after the timeout.

This plug-in worked perfectly with the latest Woo Commerce plugin, additionally displaying a count-down timer nicely in the cart. When the timer expires the item is removed from the cart automatically.  

Nice work!

Using for a cart-timer so that items return to inventory after timeout

Allow WooCommerce inventory stock to be reduced when adding items to cart and/or expire items from the cart

abmcr

<p>Enable Posts and Pages to automatically expire and change at a certain time, and provide notification of expiration.</p>
<h4>Notification Options</h4>
<p>Simple Expires  also notify you:</p>
<ul>
<li>When expiration occurs</li>
</ul>
<p>This reminder helps you keep content fresh, providing a reminder that content is out of date and needs updated or replaced.</p>


Simple Expires

Enable Posts and Pages to automatically expire and change at a certain time, and provide notification of expiration.

WooCommerce Cart Stock Reducer vs Simple Expires