Are these features possible?

[lmw1]

Hello Zen Cart Audience!

I am a website developer. I have a new client that wants an ecommerce store built. I'm looking at Opencart, Zen Cart, and Virtuemart.

These are the functions I need implemented into this site:

Unregistered Users:
1) Zen Cart should operate as a "catalog" to unregistered users. They should see no pricing. No add to cart button. Only the product description & an ask a question function (button) should show to unregistered users.

Registered Users:
1) On the product listing page there should be no add to cart button. Just the product name. When you click on the product image it should go to its product detail page (not the large version of the image - they can do that with the photos on the product detail page).

2) We will have 3 "Shopper Groups" -> Unregistered Users, Retailers, and Distributors.

Each shopper group will see different pricing

Default = No Pricing. *(See above under Unregistered Users)
Retailers = its shopper group pricing per product
Distributors = its shopper group pricing per product

***We don't want to add the same product three different times for each shopper group. Is there any way to set it up so that we can enter the product "one time" and set the pricing for each shopper group in the product set-up page in the admin?

3) On product detail pages the only pricing that should show is a "Single price each" and "Case price each" for the Retailer Shopper Group.

The Distributor shopper group will just show a "Case price each".

4) The math that the cart does for the Retailer shopper group should be set-up as follows (but must be easy for my client to change when they decide to change the amounts).

Less than $ 500.00 0% discount -> and then add 20% freight
$500.00 to $999.99 5% discount -> and then add 15% freight
$1,000.00 to $2,499.99 10% discount -> and then add 12% freight
$2,500.00 to $4,999.99 15% discount -> and then add 10% freight
$5,000.00 and above 20% discount -> and then add 5% freight

Orders of less than $150.00 to be shipped will be subject to a $15.00 per shipment delivery surcharge plus the 20% freight.

As a matter of policy, they add the 20% freight based on the dollar volume and then add the $15.00 delivery surcharge after that to avoid double dipping.

Residential delivery, inside delivery, C.O.D. and other accessorial charges are for the account of the buyer and will be added to the invoice if prepaid.

Local deliveries of $150.00 or more are delivered free of charge. Any order less than $150.00 will be charged a $15.00 delivery charge.

The percentage of freight is based on the total "after" the volume discount. *(see above)

When they have a special sale or “Hot Deal”, they always let the customer count the dollars spent on these items toward their total volume so they receive the best discount on the full priced items and the best freight percentage. They do not however; give them the applicable volume discount on the discounted items to avoid double dipping.

I would suggest we place any items to be discounted in the “Hot Deals” section during the time of the sale and set the system so it includes the hot deal totals for the dollar volume discount but does actually give a discount on those items. We could leave those items in the full price section at the same time and when the sale is over, just delete them from the “Hot Deals” section. Is this doable or do we need to think about a different way of doing this?

Is it possible to set the system so we could go in at any time and give an extra discount on certain items or on all items in a category (ie: Glass Collections) maybe for a certain period of time?

5) In the "Show Cart" module. They want to display the discount savings in the bottom portion of it. This would be a dynamic feature that changes depending on how much money they've currently spent.

Is what my client is requesting (above) easily done in Zen Cart? If so, I'm ready to get the ball rolling.

Respectfully,
Leonard Michael

[SPH]

As to the first, zencart can be set to SHOWCASE only (no Add to Cart button) with or without prices. And there is an Ask a Question mod which you can see on my page here below Add to Cart:

http://www.prommart.com/index.php?ma...oducts_id=6819

But I was just passing through before calling it a night and wanted to ask why not also look at Prestashop?

[gjh42]

You can set Zen Cart to require login and/or approval before seeing prices. You can also set whatever product elements you desire to display in the product listing, including the add to cart or link to the details page.

There are customer groups which can have price factors etc. set, but the stock version does not support different price display before checkout. That would require some customization; there may be free mods that will help with this, or possibly commercial ones available.

The pricing and shipping setup would require customizing one or more order total and shipping modules. I can't speak to how easy this will be, but there is a lot of discussion of this sort of thing in the forum and you should be able to get more detailed advice when you start to get into it.

[lmw1]

I appreciate the replies so far! Still waiting for a full answer to my complete post. Better to ask ahead of time, and count the cost first right?

Thanks guys!

Respectfully,
Len

[stevesh]

Could be mistaken, but I doubt very much if anyone here is going to provide a 'full answer to your complete post'. You asked some general questions which were answered generally by SPH and Glenn. (There is a mod which will display group-specific pricing.)

The rest of your post concerns very situation specific pricing and shipping configuration that would, I think, best be answered by your own investigations here in the forums and by installing Zencart and cruising through the admin side, trying stuff.

[SPH]

I appreciate the replies so far! Still waiting for a full answer to my complete post. Better to ask ahead of time, and count the cost first right?

Thanks guys!

Respectfully,
Len

Out of curiosity, have you yet determined if the other carts can do everything? I've looked at Opencart and some time ago installed an older Prestashop on one of my sister's secondary sites. While both are impressive out of the box at first look, I don't think that either are the Second Coming. But definitely valid contenders.

As a second cart I'd lean toward Prestashop and just wondered if you looked at it and already rejected it and, if so, why. That's all.

[DivaVocals]

Could be mistaken, but I doubt very much if anyone here is going to provide a 'full answer to your complete post'. You asked some general questions which were answered generally by SPH and Glenn. (There is a mod which will display group-specific pricing.)

The rest of your post concerns very situation specific pricing and shipping configuration that would, I think, best be answered by your own investigations here in the forums and by installing Zencart and cruising through the admin side, trying stuff.

To piggyback on this answer.. If the answer the OP seeks is "does Zen Cart do all of this out the box" then the answer for that is NO.. but that same no applies to Opencart, and Virtuemart and any other "contenders" out there...

Now a BETTER question is can you do this with Zen Cart using a combination of free mods and customizations?? then the answer is yes to that as well, but that same answer also applies to the other "contenders" as well..

What you should be looking at is a combination of factors, including your own skillset and strength of the support forums for the solutions you are considering.. I chose Zen Cart because of the community support among other factors..

Personally based on my own experience I would stay FAR FAR away from Virtuemart. It's both poorly written and poorly supported.. The community forums are AWFUL. Questions routinely go unanswered.. Unlike this forum where both the community and the developers are an active part of the forum knowledgebase.. The Virtuemart developers by contrast are snarky, and their supporters are just as snarky of their support of the snarkiness of the developers.. If you are on the Joomla forums, find my detailed posts there of my Virtuemart experience..

But like Steve said the BEST way to decide which solution is right is to install and TRY them..

[schoolboy]

You are requiring significant customisation of price-related components:

1. On the product side
2. On the shipping side

Steer well clear of Virtuemart... it is a basic plugin for Joomla - and Joomla is principally NOT an eCommerce platform. You will really struggle to get Joomla/Virtuemart to do everything you want it to do.

Customised PRICING will take substantial coding because you are going to have to add more tables or fields to the database, then have code written which checks up on the customer's status, and then applies the respective price(s). Can be done, but will not be cheap to code properly.

Customised SHIPPING may be possible with CEON's Advanced Shipper plugin. It is a commercially-available module and can handle a massive range of complex shipping issues. You may want to ask Connor Kerr (CEON) some questions about what that mod can handle (dev.ceon.net).

But let me advise you on SHIPPING and PRICING - not the TECHNOLOGICAL side of how you want to do it - but the BUSINESS LOGIC of WHY you want to do it.

Webshoppers appreciate that shipping needs to be applied when they order stuff on the WWW, but they HATE it if the prices charged are unreasonable, or difficult to understand. One of the BIGGEST causes of abandoned carts are issues with shipping prices.

People also like SIMPLICITY when it comes to pricing. I don't want to have to first go do a university masters degree in applied Astro-Nuclear-Calculus before I can understand how your pricing works. When I cannot work out QUICKLY if I am getting a good deal / value for money, then hey... I just leave your site and go shop where things are easy to understand.

So... YES... everything you want can be done in Zencart (some with custom code and development work)... but does it make GOOD BUSINESS SENSE?

I don't think so...