Should the spot be held:
A. from the moment the user starts the booking process, or
B. only when the user adds the ticket to the shopping cart?
The booking process:
- User selects number of tickets to book
- (optional) User selects membership to add
- User fills up a form for each ticket booked
- Tickets are added to the shopping cart
- User can continue to shop for tickets for other events
At the moment, the argument for B is that no spots should be held for the user until they confirm that they are definitely going to buy the tickets. The argument for A is that it would be incredibly frustrating for the user to go through the process of selecting tickets and adding memberships and filling up forms only to find out at the last moment that there aren't enough tickets.
Is there any research in favour of either? Or is there somewhere else in the process that would be a better place to start the timer?