New project in mind - I need different prices for different customers

[Kruna]

Hi all,
I have read through lots of threads, but didnt quite found a possible solution.

I am thinking about a new project, which would be the following scenario:

I would like to offer a online catalog to customers, but each customer gets a different price depending on what would be negotiated before, like for example

CUSTOMER A pays 10USD for PRODUCT1
CUSTOMER B pays 8USD for PRODUCT1 etc, etc...

It is not excluded that there may be customers who have same pricing.

To make it even more complicated it may be possible that some companies pay same price just on certain products.

And all this happens when login, no prices are available until login and the depending on customer the price is shown (i know this is in admin).

Hopefully I explianed somehow clear.

Actually what I would like to do is to be able to offer a custom-made pricing for each cutomer.

I understand that there are several solutions, DUAL PRICING, GROUP DISCOUT.
GROUP DISCOUNT may be a solution, but what I dont want to see the discount when checkout, simply the 'normal' price which was negotiated before.

I assume you're meaning that you want the displayed price everywhere in the shop to show based on the logged-in customer's group membership, rather than the current method of simply applying a discount upon checkout.

It "can" be achieved, but will be much easier to implement after v1.3 comes out... perhaps 1.4 even, due to some cleanup and streamlining of price-calculation methods.

This is a quote from Dr. Byte in one of the threads I read...

Is this already possible though?

On the other hand he says

...or you custom-code changes to the discount routines and the pricing routines and the customer routines and the checkout routines so that you can handle the desired results...

... or hire the Zen Cart team to write a custom module to do this...

Would I need to do that then?

Please help need some advise and solution.

Thanks a lot for any hint.

regards,
kruna

[Ajeh]

This would have to be custom coded to store the customers_id, products_id and something like a customers_discount field that can then be factored into the actual price on a per Customer per Product basis ...

While you could be more elaborate and set each component of the price for each customer and each product I would not recommend it as the method of choice ...

Most things are designed where you have a set cost ...

This means you can have a set discount ... there should not be a need for specific prices vs percentage discount ...

Granted I am but a humble coder and think in logical ease of use vs weird store owner ideas at times ... and cannot fathom saying Bob pays $12.00 and Tom pays $14.35 and not be able to say Everyone pays $15.00 but Bob gets 20% off on Product A for $12.00 and Tom gets 5% off Product A so he pays $14.25 vs the $14.35 ...

Again all this can be customized and you merely need to put on your coder hat or ... dig deep and hire someone to customize this for you ...

[HumDaddy]

**Nevermind**

[Kruna]

Hi Ajeh,

thank you very much for quick response.
I understand your point and I agree with you that the discount pricing would be a good option or THE solution, BUT I dont want that either Tom nor Bob see that they got an discount nor that the real price is 15USD.
I want that they pay either 14.25 or 14.35 right away as we negotiated before.
I may have not explained well the case or I am to understand!!!

This is the idea:

I would like to offer kind of intranet solution (which also can be internet) for companies who are buying office supplies.

Each company would have access to my website where they can buy there office supplies. But each company is going to get his own catalogue of products (which will be same for each company) but maybe with differetn prices as each company is going to negotiate their supply prices, some may pay MY prices, some may want to pay less. The price is fixed from the beginning on.


So the idea is that they just enter the website make their supply and order.
Even the payment will may not be right away but kind a collect payment every 15 days or something like that, but thats another issue.

First I would be happy to get this one done...


if this is requires custom coding i am willing to pay for it and please let me know so I can write to comercial help wanted section.


Meanwhile I will try to play around with discount pricing to understand better...

[Ajeh]

That is the point of the customization ...

Write it so that you add a set price, like you do now, for each Product ...

Then, customize the code so that behind the scenes the prices are:

Default prices for Guests

Unique prices for Tom, Bob, Harry ... etc.

Default prices for Billy and Fred if they are not otherwise defined as separately discounted ...

Now they only see their own prices and never anyone else's and never know about their own discount ...

Nifty, eh?

[Kruna]

So you are saying I can use group discount and just customize the code?

Well which code would that be and how?

I really have no idea, but when I at least would know which piece of code or file I may could try a bit other wise I would ask for help again...

Thanks a lot for your help.

regards,
kruna