You have to turn off stock control. The purpose of stock control in the cart is specifically to disable purchasing.
If the store owner wants to sell continuously, but keep a count of the number of items sold, then one would need to count sales outside the store, or one could write an SQL report for the dashboard to report on item sales.
Another method, which I use with a client, is to import stock levels from their warehousing system, which has a record of items arriving soon. These are counted as stock after the existing stock is sold. The SQL export from that system is written to calculate stock based on current, backordered, and arriving within a certain period. The store either gets positive or a zero value based on the rules in the export. If stock is not current then we also set a flag via an unused field and display a message in the product view that the item is not in stock but arriving soon.
The new store will have the ability to place products into different stock statuses, including ones such as on backorder or special order etc. But that's not a solution for you here.
Regards
ROb
If the store owner wants to sell continuously, but keep a count of the number of items sold, then one would need to count sales outside the store, or one could write an SQL report for the dashboard to report on item sales.
Another method, which I use with a client, is to import stock levels from their warehousing system, which has a record of items arriving soon. These are counted as stock after the existing stock is sold. The SQL export from that system is written to calculate stock based on current, backordered, and arriving within a certain period. The store either gets positive or a zero value based on the rules in the export. If stock is not current then we also set a flag via an unused field and display a message in the product view that the item is not in stock but arriving soon.
The new store will have the ability to place products into different stock statuses, including ones such as on backorder or special order etc. But that's not a solution for you here.
Regards
ROb