Multi-Vendor Support

[Jwm931]

I love MVS, and dearly miss it. Anybody now the status of porting this to Zen, I ported it to Creloaded once, so maybe I will try the same for Zen. My cart is already heavily modified though, so like usual it will be fun.

[gabstero]

We wants it, Craig! BADLY!!!

any news on developments?

gabstero

[djstern]

We wants it, Craig! BADLY!!!

any news on developments?

gabstero

So many of us use multiple vendors and drop ship, I can't believe this isn't a native part of Zen Cart. Custom shipping options per product or category would be great. Different drop shippers would offer different shipping options making this a necessity.

I inventory many items from various suppliers, and also drop ship items too large, expensive or slow moving to inventory in house. A multi vendor app would almost have to allow me to define available shipping options by item or category based on each suppliers shipping options.

I would give a kings ransom for these additions to be added to Zen Cart. Now all I have to do is come up with a kings ransom. :)

[gabstero]

Any more news there (hopefully)

Gabstero

[kbrand]

Please forgive me if this has already been covered in this thread. I didn't have time to do more than a quick scan of all the posts.

Would there be some way to use the product types to deal with shipping from multiple vendors? Could each vendors products be based on a different product type, and these product types have the specific shipping info?

I am asking from complete ignorance here. I need this type of functionality in my cart also. My first step was to look for some type of drop-ship module or multiple vendor module. Since this doesn't seem to exist (yet) my first inclination was to use the product types. Unfortunately, I haven't found a good tutorial on setting up or using product types. My time is very limited for the "playing with zen" that is usually required by me for setting up new features (as well as my trepidation of experimenting on my live site!).

Thanks!

[AndyII]

dont think this is exactly what I'm looking for...
but is there any such mod that will allow multiple vendors/affiliates to have their "own" store within the cart, they would take care of there own products and prices, uploading any needed pictures, files etc.
I would put some money on this, I am a convert from cubecart and was using their vendor mod.
Andy

[russmann]

Hello,

I'm looking for this functionality as well. Has anyone accomplished multi-vendor shipping calculations in Zen Cart yet?

[Goanna]

Just want to say that I would like to see this contribution ported over to Zen Cart as well. I used it with OSC a couple years ago but now that I am in the progress of switching to zen cart I need to find another option.

[BradScott]

I too want multi-vendor shipping origins. It looks to me like this wouldn't be that hard to implement for US zip codes, but before I reinvent the wheel, I want to see if anyone else has solved this yet, and/or if my plan will work (at least for my needs).

It looks to me like SHIPPING_ORIGIN_ZIP is what determines the shipping cost. That is used to calculate shipping in three places, that I've seen -- the UPS shipping module, the USPS shipping module, and google checkout (plus there must be a fedex addon where it is used, which I haven't installed).

What I am investigating doing is setting up a zip code per manufacturer. Since each of my products is related to a manufacturer, when I need the zip code, I'll go to the product's manufacturer, and get the zip code there. If there is no manufacturer, or that zip code is blank, I'll revert back to the store zip code. Or, I could just use the vendors from ty's drop ship module to set the zipcode.

The second part, which is much more complicated, is to break the shipping from a single cost into an array or table, with each unique origin getting its own cost / line. So, shipping goes from a single entry to multiple, but that is really what is needed (that's how Amazon handles it too). I'm sure this second part is more sticky, but really doesn't seem unmanageable to me.

So, looking for feedback on whether my approach will work.

Advantages: customers pay true shipping costs, so no approximations / averaging.

Disadvantages: More code/db changes / another module to install. More importantly, customers will see that all the products do not really come from a single store, but are shipped from different locations. However, they'll figure that out when they receive multiple packages anyway.

So -- feedback on this idea please. What am I missing? Is it much more complicated than I realize? Are there other areas that get touched that I haven't factored in (like the invoices and packing slips association with the drop shipper module)?

What I'm trying to do is get the real requirements up front -- maybe I won't solve this for global shipping, but if I can do just the US, that will help enough people out.

If I know everything that is needed, I'll see how bad it is to actually implement. Doesn't look intimidating yet, but maybe I just don't know better

Will update Zen Cart v1.3.8 if I do it.

[blucollarguy]

I too want multi-vendor shipping origins. It looks to me like this wouldn't be that hard to implement for US zip codes, but before I reinvent the wheel, I want to see if anyone else has solved this yet, and/or if my plan will work (at least for my needs).

It looks to me like SHIPPING_ORIGIN_ZIP is what determines the shipping cost. That is used to calculate shipping in three places, that I've seen -- the UPS shipping module, the USPS shipping module, and google checkout (plus there must be a fedex addon where it is used, which I haven't installed).

What I am investigating doing is setting up a zip code per manufacturer. Since each of my products is related to a manufacturer, when I need the zip code, I'll go to the product's manufacturer, and get the zip code there. If there is no manufacturer, or that zip code is blank, I'll revert back to the store zip code. Or, I could just use the vendors from ty's drop ship module to set the zipcode.

The second part, which is much more complicated, is to break the shipping from a single cost into an array or table, with each unique origin getting its own cost / line. So, shipping goes from a single entry to multiple, but that is really what is needed (that's how Amazon handles it too). I'm sure this second part is more sticky, but really doesn't seem unmanageable to me.

So, looking for feedback on whether my approach will work.

Advantages: customers pay true shipping costs, so no approximations / averaging.

Disadvantages: More code/db changes / another module to install. More importantly, customers will see that all the products do not really come from a single store, but are shipped from different locations. However, they'll figure that out when they receive multiple packages anyway.

So -- feedback on this idea please. What am I missing? Is it much more complicated than I realize? Are there other areas that get touched that I haven't factored in (like the invoices and packing slips association with the drop shipper module)?

What I'm trying to do is get the real requirements up front -- maybe I won't solve this for global shipping, but if I can do just the US, that will help enough people out.

If I know everything that is needed, I'll see how bad it is to actually implement. Doesn't look intimidating yet, but maybe I just don't know better

Will update Zen Cart v1.3.8 if I do it.

Well, as one of the two people who wrote the MVS package for osCommerce, I can tell you that your on track. I can also tell you that it isn't quite as simple as it sounds. You WILL need to alter the invoices/packing slips and order views to properly reflect the additional information being collected/saved. If you want an idea of how much is involved, download a copy of osCommerce and do a quick install of MVS into it.

You will also find that the shipping modules will need to be altered individually. With the version for osC, each shipping module is installed specifically for each "vendor" or "manufacturer" and the quotes are displayed for each one as a group on it's own.

I haven't gotten to it simply because I haven't had the time to go through the whole process.

Good luck, and I'll be looking forward to seeing the project.