Trying to decide if ZC is the right choice

[adam.harvie]

Hi all,

I've got a client with a somewhat unusual e-commerce need, and I'm trying to figure out whether Zen Cart is a good choice. Allow me to outline the scenario:

The client is running what would be best described as a market shopping/courier service.

1. The customer places an order online for market items (e.g. different food items), with a quantity (variable type, could be '500g' for cheese, could be '2' for squash), and an optional preferred vendor. They can also specify some general preferences ('cheapest available', 'organic', etc.)

2. The service dispatches a courier to the market, who sources the items, and responds to the customer with a total order cost. (Market prices vary.)

3. The customer OKs this, and the courier purchases, delivers, and collects payment.

So what makes this different from a stock-based commerce site, is that there's (mostly*) no preset inventory or prices. Since most e-commerce solutions are based around that, it makes things challenging. I'm wondering if Zen Cart would work by creating a generic 'market item' product, and using text attributes to get the description, etc. What would be key is that:

1. the differing attributes would create different line items in an order. I.e. even though there's technically only one 'product', '500g' 'cheese' would be a separate line item from '2' 'squash'.

2. an admin could edit in prices to the order after it's placed. This would be in step 2 above, they'd need to be able to add in prices once they're obtained.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

*there will also be 'baskets', which are predefined combos. These would be conventional inventory type items with a set price, so the system does need to have that capability.

[ronlee67]

Zencart can easily be adapted to your needs except for the dynamic pricing.

Prices are typically set in advance of placing the order. Your need to change or add the price after shoppping would be the hangup. It can be done, but it's awkward with Zencart in it's straight vanilla form.

There are a couple of add-ons to Zencart which might help with the pricing. I'm not familiar enuff with these add-ons to advise you, but check into Super Orders and Edit Orders add-ons in the Free Software Add-ons (linked above in the top menu bar of this forum.)

[gjh42]

Would you have only or mostly defined market choices (cheese, broccoli, eggs...) or would the shopping list be wide open with the customer entering everything about each item from scratch? Attributes could handle these possibilities, with careful thought.

[ronlee67]

Would you have only or mostly defined market choices (cheese, broccoli, eggs...) or would the shopping list be wide open with the customer entering everything about each item from scratch? Attributes could handle these possibilities, with careful thought.

Defne products as normal. Eggs would be a product, cheese another product, etc. Use attributes controller to give choices such as 1 dozen, 1 case, 1 ea, 1lb, etc.

Customer selects eggs, then is given choice of buying in dozen units, or case units, etc. He/she then indicates how many units to add to cart (eg: 3 dozen).

You could leave the pricing at $0 and then price it out after the customer creates the order and you have had a chance to check prices. Unless the add-ons I mentioned make it easy to add or modify prices after the fact, you wouldn't be able to use zencart for invoicing. It can produce valid packing lists however.

[gjh42]

Yes, that would be by far the best/simplest way to handle it. Wide-open products would make it too easy for customers to give vague orders that can't be filled without guessing.

[adam.harvie]

Ok thanks for the feedback. I agree that wide-open products are a pain - the client wants the whole process to be as simple as possible when placing the order, and just wants a few simple fields to be filled out. I think the more crucial element is the dynamic pricing. I'll look in to the add-ons you mentioned.

Thanks once again!