Minimum Buys in Category/Products

[fabienne]

I have the 1.3.7 version of Zen Cart which is working well. I have a store where I sell several different categories of product. Each category has a lot of different individual products associated with it. I sell perfume, so I have a lot of different blends.

I want to have a special sale in August. I want to bring back the perfumes which I retired in former years and let my customers buy what they want. However, I need to make it so that there is a 3 bottle minimum purchase. Bringing back the perfumes involves a bit more work than just dispensing the ones I have active now so I have to have a min. buy to make it worthwhile.

I cannot figure out how to make there be a min purchase in the category. The category name is Retour. For sure there will be people who will buy less than 3 in the Retour category (human nature) and I would like to have a way that my cart prevents people from buying less than 3 items in a category.

To make it even trickier, I want my customers to be able to buy any combination of fragrances from the category Retour, but the quantity has to add up to 3. I want them to be able to buy any quantity from any other area on my cart. So I would want a customer to be able to check out with the following items in their cart:

Perfume A (Retour)
Perfume A (Retour)
Perfume B (Retour)
Perfume C (Non-Retour)
Sample Pack (Non-Retour)

But not be able to check out with:
Perfume A (Retour)
Perfume A (Retour)
(Less than 3 of the Retour category)

or

Perfume A (Retour)
Perfume A (Retour)
Perfume B (NonRetour)
Perfume C (Non-Retour)
Sample Pack (Non-Retour)

I would want to be able to display an message like,"We are sorry but there is a minimum buy of 3 bottles of the Retour Fragrances. Please go back and choose one more Retour Blend. Thank you."

Is this possible? I sure hope it is.

I hope I have explained myself clearly enough. I also need to be able to have the model number present in the information generated by each sale, like it usually does. This is so I can interact with the QBI software.

Thanks in advance.

[stevesh]

It's been a while since I've used it, but I'm pretty sure you'll be able to do that using the 4 options just above the Product Description box in the Product setup page.

I'll see if I can find a thread explaining it better.

[fabienne]

Oooo, neat.

BTW, love your icon. Makes me pine for Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.

[stevesh]

Turns out I'm wrong. Sorry. It looks like you can't mix and match products to get the total of 3.

[fabienne]

Oh,I thought I had the a cure but it didn't work. I went to Product Pricing and found a place for the Category to have a min quantity. I thought that would do some good. Alas, it had no effect. The idea was that you had to buy a min of 3 items from that category but that is not what happened. It just acted as if there was no min. Rats. Does anyone else have an idea, or is this just one of the shortcomings of Zen Cart? Thanks for any help and BTW when I get on this fourm my computer really acts up and I have to shut down. The screen hops around and all sorts of stuff gets selected. Odd. Maybe it's sunspots.

[fabienne]

How about I add one product to a category and call that one Retour. I list the blends' names under the product and put min=3 in the product. They are told they have to write the names of what they want in the notes. How about that for a jury rig. Not too smooth but it should work. Any better ideas? I would love to hear them.

[stevesh]

That would work. Might be better, though, to set the fragrances as attributes. As long as it's one product, you should be able to set a minimum quantity overall.

[fabienne]

OK, now I am really curious, what would the advantage of setting the fragrances as attributes be? Just curious because someone else mentioned it but didn't elaborate and I would really love to know what the benefits are. Thanks.

[stevesh]

It would mean your customers wouldn't have to remember to write the names of the fragrances they wanted in the notes (a major consideration if your customers are anything like mine).

[fabienne]

Yes, I hate that but I don't think that if I use attributes that people could buy things like this:

Fragrance A-1
Fragrance B-2
Fragrance C-1
Fragrance D-4

I think that attributes makes you buy one and one only, there is not quantity for attributes you can put in, right?

I know this is a labyrinth of exceptions and "what if's" but, as annoying as it is, it is the nature of the beast. Thanks for your thoughts on the matter. I appreciate your advice on it.