Stock management for electronic transactions

A method of stock management of an inventory of items for sale via a computer network via electronic transactions with a processor, the method comprising:

• managing a database of the inventory of items available for sale, the items being physically located at one or more physical locations for shipping to purchasers;
• receiving an indication that an item of stock has been selected electronically to potentially be purchased by a purchaser in response to that item being placed in an electronic holding container prior to the item actually being purchased, the purchaser using a remote user interface for browsing the database of the inventory of items available for sale;
• obtaining information relating to the purchaser;
• and
• determining whether to remove the item from stock based on the obtained information, wherein based on the determination, the item is or is not listed as available to another purchaser in the database of the inventory of items so as to minimize instances of the item being unavailable to a second purchaser due to being in the electronic holding container of a first user who does not complete purchase of the item, the method thereby controlling the inventory of items available for sale.