Product Type Book (by moku)

[skydealer]

Thanks GSIS for the info. I don't even bother with the lower priced books. If I see other dealers having them for $1 or less then they go right into the donation bin. My stock came mainly from a family collector and most of it is limited to single copies that I'm expecting to wait quite some time to find the right buyer. A good example is a book I just found while unpacking, it's just an 1866 copy of After The Storm by J.E Skinner, which typically sells for about $200-$225. But this copy was owned by Charles Dickens and has his bookplate in it as well as another plate stating Gadshill Place, June 1870. This is a unique item and it may take years to sell.

I'm looking at multiple venues as well as the zen cart database, but I do ship out several books a day, even with just only 10% of my stock listed. US Postal regulations have recently change regarding US Media Mail so a bookseller needs to either stand in line at the local PO (a real pain) or lease a postage meter or online service such as stamps.com. UPS is simply too expensive for 1-3 pound boxes.

Amazon & Alibris can both take batch loads, half.com does also allow csv (or tab-delimited files) to be transferred, upon approval (you can always download csv files of your inventory though) and some inventory tracking programs allow automated uploading to multiple venues.... which brings us back to this thread.

What I am hoping to see is if this patch allows the same by creating the necessary indexes so that I can simplify the process of updating stock after a sale.

The bookseller theme seems to have changed to where most sales are generated through the services of Amazon/Alibris/etc., as this is where the average person is going to find a "deal". Simple search engine positions no longer seem to be the rage unless you have a hard to find edition such as what I mentioned. I asked almost everyone that I knew who I knew bought books online where they shopped at. Amazon was the winner, eBay/half.com was 2nd, and the ones who were looking for the older stuff used Alibris or Bookfinder.

Still, updating a zen-cart database at the end of every days sales could turn out to be a pain, if a bookseller has both an online presence as well as a walk-in shop. And I've seen too many other booksellers try to make it just with a website and they're gone within a year. I don't like the idea of paying the fees involved on the other search sites, but the public seems to be going in that direction for buying. EBay sales are another issue, and a complex one at that. Selling books on eBay auctions seems to mean that you will sell them cheap or use them as a tool to advertise your business website.

I've talked to other dealers and asked about what they use for inventory databases. Some independent ones use Chris Land's services and are happy. Others use homebase, FileMakerPro or Booktrakker, etc. All of these (I believe) create a file that can be exported, usually in the comma delimited or UIEE format.

If Moku's mod can be set up to accept batch files that were created on outside inventory programs then it would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get this to happen as of yet.

But as since I am a zen noob I mainly blame this on my own ignorance... or perhaps my bad habit of too many beers while trying to mod php files.

[GSIS]

If Moku's mod can be set up to accept batch files that were created on outside inventory programs then it would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get this to happen as of yet.

I'm looking at making things work the other way round.

An extended Zen Cart + Moku will be the central repository for my operational data.

I'm still on the basics as a PHP/mySQL noobie - but I am getting a bit faster now!

[skydealer]

Would drop-down selections be easier for folks to enter book information rather than having to type the whole name? I don't know if it's possible in this configuration but some inventory programs have a nice feature whereas when someone enters in the first few letters it automatically goes to the most likely name.

This saves a lot of redundant typing, especially with common publishers such as Random House, Scribner's & Sons, etc. It also saves in typing errors.

I can provide lists of approx. 6000 publishers, plus items like the standard book sizes, book types, condition ratings, etc. if this is possible. I can provide them in either txt, html or csv format... whatever you want.

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Also - which is a better mod for a fully functional product type:

The original Moku versions located at http://moku.ghosthack.net/data/dev/zencart/ (which one should be downloaded?? There's so many to choose from) or Hareslades version at http://www.hareslade.com/zc/index.php?main_page=document_general_info&cPath=51&products_id=482

Are these both the same?

And would either of these give me a selection in the Product Types area of the admin?

I'm just looking at a nice admin product page were I can have fields for:

• title (plus possibly an additional subtitle field)
• author
• illustrator
• description
• publisher name (and possibly location)
• Edition
• Printing
• Number of pages
• book type (hardback, softcover etc.)
• book size (8vo 12mo 4to etc.)
• ISBN
• price (gross and net)
• quantity
• Signed by (author, illustrator, etc.)
• key words
• Image (upload or location)
• and maybe category (fiction, nonfiction, mystery, scifi, etc.)
• plus a few undefined fields for customization

I've been fiddling with several mods and have been dumping and reloading Zen cart about 20 times now (I'm getting pretty good at it.... I can install a fresh Zen in about 3 minutes!) while I try different things. I'm learning a lot but if someone has already created something of this nature I'd be more than happy to send them a donation rather than me attempting a patch to create one of these myself.

I'd be a fun challenge but time consuming.... and with 2 full time jobs time is a commodity that I don't have too much of!


Are these features that other booksellers are looking for as well?

I've been combing the forum for weeks now as I'm new to the whole ecommerece/database/template thing... so there's quite a learning cuve on my part.

[quailbooks]

My comments are interspersed:

Would drop-down selections be easier for folks to enter book information rather than having to type the whole name?

I believe that what you're looking for is what Microsoft call a 'ComboBox' in .Net and yes it would be a time saver.

I can provide lists of approx. 6000 publishers, plus items like the standard book sizes, book types, condition ratings, etc. if this is possible. I can provide them in either txt, html or csv format... whatever you want.

This is something that I might be interested in as I've also been developing lists of these items.

Also - which is a better mod for a fully functional product type:

The original Moku versions located at http://moku.ghosthack.net/data/dev/zencart/ (which one should be downloaded?? There's so many to choose from) or Hareslades version at http://www.hareslade.com/zc/index.php?main_page=document_general_info&cPath=51&products_id=482

Are these both the same?

No they aren't the same. The Hareslade product is superior, but stick with version 2 unless you need the multi-anguage support of version 3.

And would either of these give me a selection in the Product Types area of the admin?

Yes for a short answer. I've already tried the book product as a restriction to categories and it works just fine.

I'm just looking at a nice admin product page were I can have fields for:

• title (plus possibly an additional subtitle field)
• author
• illustrator
• description
• publisher name (and possibly location)
• Edition
• Printing
• Number of pages
• book type (hardback, softcover etc.)
• book size (8vo 12mo 4to etc.)
• ISBN
• price (gross and net)
• quantity
• Signed by (author, illustrator, etc.)
• key words
• Image (upload or location)
• and maybe category (fiction, nonfiction, mystery, scifi, etc.)
• plus a few undefined fields for customization

I can think of a couple of others that I've been trying to add with only moderate success so far.

• multi-volume boolean flag
• books Volume number
• Total volumes
• Illustrator - as you mentioned
• For those books without ISBN the LCCN or Dewey call number as options with appropriate flags in the US. Other countries, I don't know about.
• A real SKU field as a five digit field is unacceptable.

The multi-volume idea is important as I have several sets with individual ISBN's for each volume and a collective ISBN for the entire set.

I've been fiddling with several mods and have been dumping and reloading Zen cart about 20 times now (I'm getting pretty good at it.... I can install a fresh Zen in about 3 minutes!) while I try different things. I'm learning a lot but if someone has already created something of this nature I'd be more than happy to send them a donation rather than me attempting a patch to create one of these myself.

I'd be a fun challenge but time consuming.... and with 2 full time jobs time is a commodity that I don't have too much of!

I know the feeling well. By the time I'm done, I'll be an expert at Zen Cart. I'm also developing both Music and Movie products based on this version of the book product. Many of the criteria for all three are the same, so I expect to be consolidating a lot of the database tables and resultant code in the future. I'm also looking at writing a bulk uploader as hand entering over 3000 books, nearly 2000 movies and over a 1000 music items is more than I can bear to think about right now.

Are these features that other booksellers are looking for as well?

Yes for my answer. I've been fiddling with this for about two months off and on.

I've been combing the forum for weeks now as I'm new to the whole ecommerece/database/template thing... so there's quite a learning cuve on my part.

I'm afraid that there is not much beyond this thread on the forum for book products.

Take care,

-phil

[skydealer]

Phil, I am in the same boat. By the time we get this figured out we'll both be able to quote any line of code from memory from any Zen php file.


I saw a few features while exploring a couple of other ecommerce and bookseller features. I liked the quick listing features offered in theartofbooks.com's online services (drop down selections, key phrases etc.) I also saw a nice feature in an ecommerce platform called litecommerce.com. If you fiddle with their admin area you'll see where the database fields can be easily assigned from any csv file. I think that this can be utilized for both csv as well as UIEE.

IF a bookseller is utilizing several platforms for selling... i.e Amazon, Half.com, whatever, plus the option of their own website (which is also my goal) then the task at hand is to be able to minimize the steps needed to maintain all of the listings when a book is sold.

A central inventory database that can up-link to all of these (with the exception of Zen) already exists. Several actually. Booktrakker, Prager, Bookwriter, etc. The missing link is a simple merge of the inventory databases into the Zen product fields. Litecommerce shows it can be done and the code just needs to be massaged a bit to merge with Zen.

THE 2nd IF:
Now - if a plug-in can be made that can provide all of the basic needs of inventory management as well as quick selection of fields (such as we mentioned earlier) then Zen's core could actually be used for inventory management. That part is beyond me at this point though as I don't know how the other matrix layouts work. Plus the book inventory programs all use the ISBN look-up systems, that automatically fill in the fields, which is a nice feature. Only about 20-25% of my books fall into the ISBN age-group though.

Chris Lands is already doing something along this line, but he charges a monthly fee for his services and his database merging is limited.

I see a great gameplan here. It's complex but I see what needs to be done. I already have all the common phrases in place as well as extensive lists showing publishers, book info, bla bla bla. That part is all done. Dropdown menus would be a nightmare with 6000 selections, plus the option would be needed to be able to update the list if a new publisher would need to be added in (which would be often for a used book dealer). I'm not sure this could be easily done if the data was stored in a SQL format. At least, not without possible consequences.

[hareslade]

Hi Skydealer and all

My father passed away in August, so I have been a bit pre-occupied
... and this 'auto-advise' of new posts by email has decided not to work, yet again!...

Some of you guys seem to be in the know slightly regarding book handling methods...

The book add on here is fairly simplistic, but does have plenty of fields. And a gap exists between our (amateur) book type and the complex ones used for pro users, the main area of 'weakness' is perhaps in the ability to upload extra books quickly etc.

The problem is that zencart only creates a new (book) record manually, that is, in a 'collect info' page online.. so uploading/adding data for multiple new books 'remotely' is not an easy thing to achieve, unless the database itself is directly updated without going through zencart.

And contribs that do this 'remote upload' elsewhere for zencart won't work on book type, because there are extra tables and so on.

As of the end of October (- providing I do actually get broadband again after I move house!) I'll maybe have some time to address realising any useful ideas.

if anyone wants to private message me regarding discussion of possible features feel free to do so, ........click on the (hareslade) name in corner, it'll give option to 'p.m' me.

Otherwise if its a straightforward issue, do it in this thread.. the version 3 book type is still officially in beta, although it seems that it mostly works ok.

[quailbooks]

Hareslade,

I agree that the book product upload problem is complex, to say the least, but I think it could be done directly into the database. A complex and multifaceted approach is required, but with the use of stored procedures in MySQL it shouldn't be unsolvable. I've done some similiar work in large networked databases (27 servers running 49 interconnected databases) and got it to work after months of documentation and development.

The keyword here is documentation and that's what I've been trying to do. As you said there are many tables both for Books and for Zen Cart that need to be queried before the new data can even be inserted.

The extra field that you provided are a great place to start, but I don't think there are enough for a professional bookseller site. This package is why I chose Zen Cart over Virtuemart anyway.

[quailbooks]

skydealer,

I looked at the sites you suggested and yes they have some of the features required. For the uploader, I'm thinking of something along the lines of the AOB site, but with some complex behinds the scene software that's required to deal with the complexity of the Book Product and Zen Cart tables.

Think of it this way. You upload a CVS file and in the file is a field called publisher. After getting the data, you have to check the value against the manufacturers table and see if it is already present. If it is then you return the manufacturers id otherwise you insert the new data and get the new id. Only then can you proceed to the next step.

Actually, now that I think about it that isn't the first field that would have to be processed. I think the first field would be to check the product type. You can see how complex this all becomes. Product Type table, Manufacturers table, Categories--with subcategory searching--table, all before you get to the actual book data. Not to mention possible searches of the Product and Book tables to see if the data already exists. In that case, with an exact match, you'd simply want to increment the inventory count.

There is much work ahead just for this not so little project.

[meeven]

My father passed away in August, so I have been a bit pre-occupied
... and this 'auto-advise' of new posts by email has decided not to work, yet again!...

Hareslade, sorry to hear that.

And, yes, the auto-notification feature doesn't seem to work. I never received these latest updates.

By the way, thanks to you for taking up Moku's work and extending it. It's such a badly needed module for ZenCart.

[quailbooks]

Just some thoughts on the uploader for suggestions and comments by those interested.

Booksellers store their inventory in so many formats that the only feasible method for providing a bulk upload to the Books -- or movies or music -- product type is a CVS file. A CVS file output is common to almost any of the packages used be it Excel, Homebase, Access or other database program.

I'm thinking that the user goes to a php page, selects a CVS file for upload and then is presented with the field headers of the CVS file. The user selects a table and field from the Zen Cart database to associate with that header. An option to save the format for later use should be included. The advantage here is that the user can generate the file without having to massage the data.

I'm not sure about how to specify the difference between rows in the CVS file that would indicate a DELETE product, CREATE a new product or UPDATE a product. My first inclination is a field with those keywords, but that means the user would have to massage the data.

Comments or suggestions anyone? I'm sure that I haven't thought of everything.