Buy credits

[g_force]

Is there a way to allow customers to deposit money and then allow them to use it to purchase various products as credits?? - a good option for repeat customers <

_thanks

[Ajeh]

Are you using Gift Certificates?

These are "cash" and can either be used by the customer or sent to someone else ...

[g_force]

Thanks Ajeh..not currently but just reading the tutorial (https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=64) I didn't know if it is the best way to do this - it also says that the product name must be 'Gift Certificate' and all of my products are already set up with individual names of their own. Simply I want them to deposit their nominated amount and be able to purchase any product with the funds in their account - do you still think gift certificates? And if so how do I modify it to get what I'm after?

_thanks

[Ajeh]

Maybe you could explain in more detail why would I want to give you $300.00 today ... and then later, "some day in the future", spend that money with you ...

What have I, the customer, gained by doing it this way vs just pay you when I order something?

[g_force]

let's say that you're a food outlet and want to buy drinks from me..

What have I, the customer, gained by doing it this way vs just pay you when I order something?

instead of having to put all of your payment details in for every separate purchase you can just use the credit already purchased.. as well as this there is an option to offer a reduced rate for this method. Do you see what I mean??

[Ajeh]

This would be best customized as the GVs are designed to not allow discounts ...

You could build a Product that when purchased was used to manage these cash credits, as Products can have sales and discounts and then you either manually or automate in the custom code the updates to a customer's account for these credits, much like the Gift Certificates work now ...

So say products_id 43 was your: Buy Credits product ... when that product was purchased, you either manually would apply the credits to the customer's GV account or you could customize an automated method based on payment method for this ...

You may also look into just allowing for PayPal, which is what a lot of people use as an alternative to Visa/MasterCard for that very reason ... they do not wish to share their information ...

[g_force]

Thanks for your response...

After your last post I'm thinking that I won't allow any discounts for 'buying credit' - so the Gift Voucher could be the way forward and seems the most feasible route. I will obviously customise everything but the problem I'm having is how to allow customers to input the amount that they want to purchase. Of course we need an input box but how can I fix up everything so that it charges the figure inputted rather than an automated amount (like it currently does for all products) ??

_ thanks greatly

[g_force]

... actually I have been thinking about it and the best way seems to have it as a gift certificate product as originally suggested, make it £1 and customers can change the price using the quantity. The newest problem that I face is this:

the gift certificate product is added to the shopping cart but supposing the customer wants to first purchase his GV and later buy the products saved in the shopping cart without deleting all the other items first.

So I need a buy now facility on the product_info page that bypasses the shopping cart and goes directly to pay for the gift certificate (without effecting the shopping cart contents) - any idea how I could do that??

_thanks

[Ajeh]

Currently, there isn't a method to buy "some" of a shopping cart ...

The customer can buy Gift Certificates with other Products in the order ... and then use them in a future order ...

[g_force]

Thanks.

Currently, there isn't a method to buy "some" of a shopping cart ...

There is a 'buy now' button though which is referenced in 'product_listing.php' - I presumed that would do the job. Let me know what you think - if not I'll have to modify to accomodate.

_thanks again