Product with Pre-requisite, No New Customers?

[jacdesigner]

My client has a particular special product offering for "repeat customers only". At this time, I just have this setup as a separate product with a description that states it is a deal for returning customers, however there are always a few new customers who order it anyway.

Is there a better way to prevent new customers who have never ordered any product before from purchasing a particular item? Do I need to create a new product type? Perhaps this is where customer groups come in, but in all my Zen projects I have never yet worked with groups so I am not certain.

I have searched far and wide and can't seem to find any suggestions on this particular need. Any advice appreciated.

Site details: www.rockbodyfit.com
Version: 1.3.9
Pre-req is only that they have purchased a product before and are not a brand new registrant with no prior orders.

[Ajeh]

You could write a function to validate the product and the customer to check if they have ordered before and if not then prevent checkout ...

If you look in the header_php.php of the checkout pages, you will see where the validation of the cart is done ... you can add in your validation there as well ...

The checkout_shipping for example:
/includes/modules/pages/checkout_shipping/header_php.php

shows the validation as:

// Validate Cart for checkout
  $_SESSION['valid_to_checkout'] = true;
  $_SESSION['cart']->get_products(true);
  if ($_SESSION['valid_to_checkout'] == false) {
    $messageStack->add('header', ERROR_CART_UPDATE, 'error');
    zen_redirect(zen_href_link(FILENAME_SHOPPING_CART));
  }

You can add your own validation beneath that to check if the customer has had a previous order and if the product is in the cart ... if not, set a message and return them to the cart to remove it or, you can remove it for them ...

You might also add a validation to the shopping_cart page on the product for when a customer is not logged in or not allowed to checkout with the product ... this could also be done on the product_info page as well ...

Easy smeazy, eh?

[jacdesigner]

Thanks, Linda, Much appreciated reply.

Where in this code do I specify the product this applies for? I just want to make sure I don't apply this pre-req to ALL orders in checkout, since that would mean no one could ever place a first-time order for the other products.

Thanks.

[gjh42]

You would test all orders, and only if they have the product in their cart *and* have not bought before would the filter happen.

It might be fastest to first test for the presence of the product (I think there is a function for it, something like zen_product_in_cart() ); only if this is true do you need to check on the customer's prior orders.