Free Shipping on First Order

[esugrue]

I know you aren't the one determining "what" the shipping configuration is, however, you may want to find out the logic behind why they wouldn't offer free shipping on more than the first order.

I have suggested this as a blanket free shipping over $100 kind of thing. But they get the products drop-shipped from a warehouse and they (my clients) get the first shipment per customer free and then they are charged. The margins are that great so they aren't willing to eat the shipping on future orders.

Seems to me that if they plan on growing sales they should keep the customers that have already purchased from them (meaning they are "willing to buy!") happy so they come back. Offering free shipping on orders to them would help with that regard.

I agree with that fully!

Why not do this. INSTEAD of creating a "Discount" coupon, clone the "flat shipping", or "free shipping" module into a new one. That new one would offer free shipping (with conditions you specify). That way, you could run a query on the DB upon account creation and either show or "hide" the free shipping offer based on the results (see next paragraph for more on that).

That was almost what I had thought of in one of my `How the *** am I going to do this moments'.

Once they have ordered the first time they get a `member number' say 123456. I could manualy add a field for that number (which is created when the order is shipped) so the next time they order I could check to see if MEMBER_NUMBER is not blank -0 if it's blank then it's the first order, if not blank then (they must have ordered before) and they get charged shipping!

Maybe I could do that with the minimum order requirement too, if they have a Member # then no miniimum order, if blank then they must order $xx

Does that sound like it may work. Since I am not too good at PHP etc I'll have to butcher the ship and order methods to try and make it work!

The problem is the e-store is new, so everyone is a new customer even those who have bought from the company before. At least, that's the way I understand it.

True, so in effect someone may be a repeat customer (as in ordered by mail before etc) but new to the e-store, so they're not really entitled to free shipping.

If it was me, I'd just give them free shipping anyway but ..... it's not me

Thanks for your help.

I'll spend the weekend trying to butcher some code and get it to work (although knowing my actual PHP skills )

Ernie