Can my store be used as a Buy Items store?

[dharrison]

Hi

I am working for someone who would like to set up a goods for cash site, for example someone wants to get rid of their old goods where they tell us what it is, what condition its in, they send it to us, and based on what condition it is in, we give them a price.

I think that its the same basis as an ecommerce website except the price isn't determined until we independently review the product and then pay them, but the person I'm working for doesn't think so.

My question is, can ZenCart be used for this? The only other solution is pawn shop software, all of which look about 20 years old and a bit dodgy looking to say the least.

Please any feedback will be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance.

[stevesh]

Not exactly sure what you're asking. Seems like if it's exactly as you describe, a simple HTML site with your mailing and email addresses posted would work. If you're planning to turn around and sell the items you buy, you could do that with Zencart, but eBay might be a better bet.

[gjh42]

You could set up a site with all the display, information-gathering and record-keeping tools you need, but e-commerce is designed to sell products, not buy them. There will be no built-in method for people to create a new product for you to look at and offer a price on; what you would do is have one product (maybe more, if there are distinct types of item that want different description modes) with "text" and "file" attributes which allow users to send you their item's description and images. You would make these free products so payment processing would not be needed. You would then respond by e-mail to the user with your offer, and conclude any deal that way. You could send the final agreement as a "comment" while updating the status of the "order" so that it is recorded in your database at the same time as it is sent to the user.

[dharrison]

Hi

Maybe I didn't explain myself properly, apologies:

What I am referring to is that somebody selects the item on the website to basically declares they have an item to sell us and what condition its in, and when we receive/review it we send them the value online. There are only about 30 specific items that we are referring to and these would be listed.

It would be set up like an ecommerce website but the other way around. To quote a recent example that has had quite a bit of TV coverage, musicmagpie.com or gadgetpanda.co.uk or any cash 4 gold website you like.

[gjh42]

Okay, this is doable. You would essentially list the 30 different kinds of items like regular products, with the addition of attributes for the user to enter their item's condition, select its grade (according to their opinion), send an image, etc. The rest would be as I posted above.