I'm doing a site for a seafood market. There inventory is not computerized and things are in stock and out of stock the next day. They have their own boats/fisherman, but also buy from other wholesalers for things they don't get with their boats. Because of this, selling things online via credit card is tricky.

What do I do for payment with credit card? If I use a gateway and charge the credit card at the time of sale and later find that the product is out of stock for weeks, then the customer is probably going to be pretty upset that they bought seafood expecting to get it the next day having already paid for it. The other option is to email the cc number to a secure email and have a person check stock and then process payment. Maybe have them call the customer if things are not in stock for a while and only charge them for what is in stock to ship. The items that are not in stock can then be deleted from the order or placed on backorder based on the customer's wishes.

So, what do I do...charge with gateway, or process after stock check...are there more options that I'm not thinking of????