Making an item free to members of a group.

[ArtsygalDotNet]

I am trying to set up a club membership where the purchased membership entitles the customer to one free item each month. Basically they're paying in advance and each month can log in and select their item, which I will then ship to them.

All the items will be within one category - which I plan on hiding using the hidecatagories module so that regular customers can't see the items. What is the best way to allow them to select one (and ONLY one) item that will turn out to be free? I guess I am asking a number of interrelated questions here:

Is it possible to give a coupon code ONLY to members of a certain group?
Is it possible to make that coupon code a 100% discount?
is it possible to restrict the maximum value of the coupon?

I do know that it is possible to allow a coupon to be used in only certain categories. My fear is that non-club members may somehow get ahold of the coupon code and the URL to the hidden category and attempt to make a purchase. While I expect the risk of this to be minimal enough that I could do a manual check each time to make sure someone didn't try to sneak by me, I would be much happier if there were checks already in place to prevent this from even happening. As the club membership grows, I'd rather be spending my time preparing the product for sale, rather than double checking adminstrative stuff.

Jas

http://shop.artsygal.net - Handpainted Luxury Yarns.

[ArtsygalDotNet]

No responses? I'd really love some help! Pretty please with chocolate chip cookies?

[Ajeh]

Are these Free gifts each month ...

1 Same gift per month?

2 A regular Product?

3 Available for purchase?

Could you have when a membership is purchased have 12 Discount Coupons go out for these Products?

Kind of a tricky way to do it ... but this could be customized to generate the codes etc. for each customer ...

Or, there would need to be another more elaborate method to manage this where a product is added automatically to a auto-generating order each month ...

In either case, this code could be customized to work for you ...

Got your coder's hat on?

[ArtsygalDotNet]

Coders hat? Uh... I should mention I switched my major a compsci/math to Art in college...

Basically the way the club works.. I sell 10 club memberships for 3 months each. On the first of each month I upload 10 - 15 products (some may have only 1 piece, others may have 2 - 3)- and email the club members saying 'come and get it!' .. first come first serve - they select their item they want, with a total cost of $0 (the club membership includes shipping price too)

The items that they choose from are not available for purchase to any customer who stumbles across the site on their own. To prevent them from finding it, I was planning on using the HideCatagories mod and send the link to that specific category in an email to the members.

Which is what brings me to the questions I posted above...

1) Is it possible to give a coupon code ONLY to members of a certain group?

This would mean that even if a member DID pass their coupon code to someone else, they couldn't use it - since they wouldn't be part of the group that I create that is made up of those with paid memberships.

2) Is it possible to make that coupon code a 100% discount?

This of course.. makes the product free for them.

3) Is it possible to restrict the maximum value of the coupon?

Each item has a value of $20 - $25. Since I want to make sure that nobody tries to come in and 'claim' 5 pieces out of the inventory when they've only paid for 1 membership, if I can restrict the coupon to be a maximum value of $25.. they wouldn't be able to claim more than 1 anyways. This is of course taking into consideration that I would be making each coupon code a 1 time use per customer.

My other option was to take this to my blog - and post pictures.. and first person to comment on an item gets that item. But.. well.. that can get messy too. I'd much rather the item is taken out of inventory and vanishes from my cart so nobody can even see it.

Jas (who's promising cookies galore once this works. really!)

[Ajeh]

You are looking at quite a bit of custom coding ...

This is not something that I would imagine you will just find running around as an add-on now nor in the future ...

You may wish to post in the Commercial Help Wanted forum to really achieve the best methods for managing this kind of customization ...