Group Pricing - how can I restrict against certain categories?

[STFlats]

I think the only way this is going to happen is either the zc team adds this function to the next upgrade or we are basically going to have to hire someone to write it because I need the same thing. If anyone happens to have it written please post back and let us know if it works... Oh, and how much it cost to have it written...

thanks

[dhvrm]

Hey everyone --

I have a client who wanted this feature and so I've put together a hack that has this net effect.

Basically, my hack excludes individual products from group discounts. It does so by adding a read-only attribute to the item.

Because you can globally apply a given attribute to all items in a category via the attributes manager, this has the same effect as excluding all items in a category from group pricing. As an added bonus, each product's catalog page will display the fact that the item is not eligible for group discounts, which prevents your customers from complaining when they see the discount they are getting is not for the entire cart.

Because I have just finished this hack and I need to be awake and on the road in six hours, I am not going to describe the hack now. However, I plan to discuss this hack in depth in a follow-up post, which I will probably put together on Saturday.

It's not a really complicated hack, but it is multiple steps and it does involve messing with an important core ZenCart PHP file. I don't want to give it up to the public without describing it in full, so you'll have to hang on a couple of days.

Also, again, this is a hack, not a mod. The difference is that you can't simply plug this item in, you need to do it manually; and if you update ZenCart, there's a good chance you'll wind up replacing the hack.

All that said, a final bit of good news: I'll be releasing this hack under the Creative Commons Attribution / Share-Alike license, which means you'll be getting it for free. (It also means you'll be using it at your own risk.)

Look for my post over the weekend.

[dhvrm]

Hi everyone --

Sorry for the delay in getting this out. Bear with me, it's coming and coming soon!

After working on this, running into the usual issues and thinking about it for a while, I decided to do this correctly and make a new group pricing module that will replace the standard group pricing module that ships with Zen Cart.

This will make maintaining the module much easier. It also allows me to make improvements to the current group discount module that should increase performance and reliability.

Again, I will update this topic when I am done.

[pensive612]

thanks dhvrm,

I'm sure we'll all be here...

look forward to it.

[FuzzyBunny]

So Mr Doug,
Did we finally get this working?
Would be great to get this module if you have.
Thanks in advance.
Max

[Ralyn]

Has anybody succeded at doing this yet?

Right now I'm having my Consultants use the invoice me option if their order contains catalogs or consultant supplies - this is making order processing take longer due to having to edit their order to correct the supplies price, then invoice them. Being able to exclude the Consultant Supplies category would so much easier, faster & cause less confusion for my consultants.

[LoriW.]

I too would be interested to know if there is a fix for this. I have one category I would like to restrict from group pricing but am not sure how to do that. Anyone else know a fix?

[dhvrm]

Hey all --

Apologies for delay in getting back to you all on this, but the short answer is, I'm not going to distribute my fix for this problem.

The hack I put together for my client is very complex due to the way Zen Cart computes and stores order totals.

Basically, to properly do group pricing by category requires a significant rewrite of how Zen Cart stores order totals. This is especially true if you charge sales tax, and really pronounced if you have multiple tax rates.

I'm not willing to pass along my solution for a number of reasons.

1. My solution is more code fork than hack. (In development, "forking" code means to start with one thing and create something different.) It's a bad idea and bad form to release code forks.
2. Because I have made radical changes to the way Zen Cart processes order information, I'd lay the odds at "pretty good" my changes might interfere with a plug in / mod someone else made, and might therefore break your cart.
3. The changes I made span many core Zen Cart classes and pages. As a result, you can't automatically update Zen Cart if you use these changes, and that possibly includes security updates.
4. Because I have only used this code in one environment, I cannot be completely certain of its overall security (in other words, server settings / installations others may use might make my changes, which are secure in my environment, insecure).

Again, apologies for not replying sooner and not producing what I promised, but it would be very irresponsible of me to distribute what I have done.

[wallya]

Let's keep this thread fresh, as I need this add on too!

[littlehawk]

This is what I am finding as well