Membership

[adb34]

For the membership fee, could it be possible to use and some modification, use the 'gift certificates' function?

[schoolboy]

For the membership fee, could it be possible to use and some modification, use the 'gift certificates' function?

The suggestions made so far are sensible. There's no "out the box" feature for what you need, so you need to adapt what's there, or (if you have funds to invest) get someone to write a module for you.

Question: Once people are "members", what does the site do for them? Is there going to be functionality within the site that is exclusive for members - or is the site there just to enable sign-up and the payment of membership fees?

By following AJEH's example of restricting access only AFTER you have authorised a login, you can then point approved "customers" to the membership fees "product" where they can then pay.

[adb34]

...Question: Once people are "members", what does the site do for them? Is there going to be functionality within the site that is exclusive for members - or is the site there just to enable sign-up and the payment of membership fees?
...

I really should have explained what I was after. I know what I wanted but sorry I did not explain;

Most of the products on the site will be accessed via a subscription. The subscription will either be by the month or by the year. When the subscription expires, they cannot get access to anything until they re-subscribe. One or two products will be for sale. discounted if a subscriber.

[adb34]

Could I add a count down to the customers account? so when they buy a membership, that sets up a clock the does a countdown. I have seen some JS that do countdowns for special events.

[mc12345678]

Could I add a count down to the customers account? so when they buy a membership, that sets up a clock the does a countdown. I have seen some JS that do countdowns for special events.

Not sure which method you went with, but the only thing that comes to mind is that the countdown would only be available while logged in.

So, with that in mind, the criteria to display the countdown would be:
If a customer is logged in, and the customer has said product in their orders, and the next action hasn't been taken (don't know what is to happen between purchase and completion of the countdown), then display the countdown.
Would suggest a "success" notification in place of the above, depending on where it is displayed/intent.
That would be basically the above, except the next action is instead complete.

As to the countdown completion date, would need somewhere a duration to be entered (as compared to only an end date for a special event as the completion date is unique to each customer rather than a specific event date), either as an admin switch, or a file define or associated with a product in the database, depending on the future use of the modification (which could be turned into a plugin).

So, yes, can do it...

[adb34]

Not sure which method you went with, but the only thing that comes to mind is that the countdown would only be available while logged in....

Yes you are right. I have been having a look at this and the basic idea is to attach a date stamp to the date the membership started and the length of the membership.

When the member logs again, the date of login is checked with the membership length and the count down clock starts again.

I will have a play with the idea but I think the biggest challenge is adding different date stamps to each customer, but I hope I will get there.

[mc12345678]

Yes you are right. I have been having a look at this and the basic idea is to attach a date stamp to the date the membership started and the length of the membership.

When the member logs again, the date of login is checked with the membership length and the count down clock starts again.

I will have a play with the idea but I think the biggest challenge is adding different date stamps to each customer, but I hope I will get there.

If I may suggest, before you start writing any code that you think about and "map" out how you want it all to work... Let the code fall from that...

Thing I have seen with even a large software company regarding "membership" is accounting for overlap of pay for services... Or for that matter a lapse in membership.

Minor things are like are you only going to offer one duration of membership? Are you going to offer multiple durations? If multiple, are you going to do so by attributes? If not by attributes then is just a series of review by individual product options.

The answers to the above issues/questions would also help with things like your membership policy and of course how to code to get what you want to work. :)