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  1. #1
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    Default I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    Hello,

    I sell products that take 4-5 months for delivery and I was wanting to give the customer the option of paying half up front and then the other half once the item arrives.... along with the option of simply paying for it all at once.

    Any help appreciated!


    Thanks

  2. #2
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    Zen Cart v1.x.x isn't designed to handle "partial payments". It always deals with collecting complete payment based on the product's price as offered in the store.

    To handy ANY workaround to collect a partial payment, you'll have to be SURE that you COMPLETELY understand that it'll be ENTIRELY up to YOU to manually collect the final payment from the customer, completely SEPARATE from Zen Cart, because Zen Cart will not be able to "charge" the customer for a secondary payment.

    That said, possible workarounds include:
    a) price your product at half the actual price (yes, that might create confusion, so I suspect you'll not want to do that)
    b) price your product by using attributes:
    -- i) pay full price up-front
    -- ii) pay deposit of half up-front and pay balance upon delivery (and then you'll set the attribute to subtract an amount equal to 50% of the product price)
    c) write extensive customizations to the software to handle different preferences

    With scenario B, I'd do it like this:
    - product price is $350, and be sure to set the "Priced by Attributes" to Yes in your admin
    - then add one Option Name of something like "Deposit Method"
    - and two Option Names: "Prepaid in Full" and "Two payments: half now, half at delivery"
    - then assign the attributes to the product:
    -- the "prepaid" will not require any pricing differences
    -- the "two payments" one will need you to set the attribute price to "-" and $175 ... so that it subtracts 175 from the price paid at checkout

    And then when the product is ready for delivery, you'll contact the customer to make separate payment arrangements.
    The only involvement Zen Cart would have with respect to the 2nd payment is when *you* manually go into that order in your Admin and update the order's status with a note saying you've collected the 2nd payment and that you're shipping the item. Zen Cart will NOT see/show any changes in the price on the order, so it will NOT be a complete record of the payment made on that order, so cannot be used as your accounting system (nor is it intended to be accounting software anyway). And Zen Cart will only apply taxes to whatever price Zen Cart collects payment for. So you'll need to handle taxes separately when you collect the 2nd payment, also.
    .

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  3. #3
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    Thank you very much DrByte!

    Your reply was super fast. I didn't even get a chance to browse my other websites before my phone emailed me with your reply...LOL..

    The information you provided is very well understandable to me and I know exactly what you've explained. I'll set it up as above, Like option "B", and then when they item arrives, I'll send them an invoice through PayPal. Problem Solved!!


    Thanks alot for your speedy and thorough reply.

    TesterServers

  4. #4
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    you could always use the installment plan mod and just adjust it to suit yourself and is perfect if you are able to process CC's offline http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=588

  5. #5
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    My sister's site does layaways. The way she collects the remaining payments (could be one or more) is to set up a "Product" for only that customer, and the customer makes a payment when ready, within the agreement.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    Hi SPH

    this is exactly what i need. my site is going to be selling holidays so need deposit paid now and balance six weeks before. I don't want to collect any payments manually though.

    When you say your sister has a product just for that customer, would you mind explaining how she does this please? Is it manual? Does the customer log back in later and pay online.

    would be grateful for any help.

    thanks
    michelle

  7. #7
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    Buying "another product" later for the amount of the balance due is an alternate option. Some customers find that more confusing than being invoiced directly. If your customers are the kind that are smart enough to understand it, then you can try that approach.
    But, remember, Zen Cart isn't an accounting package, and doesn't track "amounts owing". It only tracks "purchases" and assumes you're paying entirely in full or not at all. Any alteration to that behavior is a function of changes you must make to the software yourself.
    .

    Zen Cart - putting the dream of business ownership within reach of anyone!
    Donate to: DrByte directly or to the Zen Cart team as a whole

    Remember: Any code suggestions you see here are merely suggestions. You assume full responsibility for your use of any such suggestions, including any impact ANY alterations you make to your site may have on your PCI compliance.
    Furthermore, any advice you see here about PCI matters is merely an opinion, and should not be relied upon as "official". Official PCI information should be obtained from the PCI Security Council directly or from one of their authorized Assessors.

  8. #8
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    Thanks DrByte

    I have already informed my client that the software isn't set up to do this. I have already built their site and customised as they require. They have now thrown this requirement at me saying it slipped through the net. I have replied saying i think it is quite a fundamental requirement to have just been forgotten until now and that i didn't think this software was now suitable for their needs. hrrmmmppphhh ;O)

    In terms of an additional product to allow customers to pay the balance, I was just thinking of how this would be done - or some ideas. I'm relatively confident in making changes to zen cart as i have already had to do quite a lot to fit the requirements they DID tell me about lol. I have forwarded details of your post above to my client suggesting that they can take a deposit but would have to manually collect the balance. However, i think they will want some workaround where the balance can be collected online. Would they have to manually add a product to a specific customer who would then come back and pay later? Or do you have any other ideas how the "buying another product" process could be implemented.

    i'm really grateful for any advice although in reality i am hoping that they take note of your advice above and collect the balance outside of zen cart.

    thanks again
    Michelle

  9. #9
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    There's no "built in" way to "assign a product to just one customer". It doesn't work that way. There might be addons that offer that, but I've not used them.

    You could consider setting up a product whose price is $1.00 and let the customer enter a quantity to indicate how much they want to pay. So for $43 they'd by 43 of the $1 product. The product would be visible to all customers, but there's not really anything wrong with that. In fact that's the approach very often used for donations.
    .

    Zen Cart - putting the dream of business ownership within reach of anyone!
    Donate to: DrByte directly or to the Zen Cart team as a whole

    Remember: Any code suggestions you see here are merely suggestions. You assume full responsibility for your use of any such suggestions, including any impact ANY alterations you make to your site may have on your PCI compliance.
    Furthermore, any advice you see here about PCI matters is merely an opinion, and should not be relied upon as "official". Official PCI information should be obtained from the PCI Security Council directly or from one of their authorized Assessors.

  10. #10
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    Default Re: I Need Customer To Pay Half Now Half Later

    Here is my sister's site Layaway category page:

    http://www.promstobeaches.com/layaway-payments-119/

    You might be able to understand how she does it. It is a defined actual category, bottom left on categories box.

    As I recall, she uses a 50% off coupon to receive the first half-down payment on the dress. Then makes a follow-up layaway "product" for that customer and subsequent payments, as on link above.

    And here is her Layaway page explaining it to the customer, how it works:

    http://www.promstobeaches.com/pages/layaway-35.html

    Hope this helps.

    sph
    www.prommart.com
    www.fashion-mart.biz
    Last edited by SPH; 23 Mar 2012 at 03:35 AM.

 

 
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