Help! Simple site as an affiliate for a wholesaler

[iamalive]

Hi

I’m looking for a solution for a school site I’m building a replacement for. The site was a Dreamweaver site but is now being built as a Joomla site.

The problem:

The site also sells books, which come from a book wholesalers catalogue, on which sales the school gets a discount. They want to keep this particular source of income and that means that I can’t build a fully fledged shop. The process is as follows:

• Buyers brows the school site where one page contains a search form to the wholesalers catalogue. This is in an iframe on the site and is actually a link to the wholesaler.
• When a buyer selects an item to order the “add to cart” button sends a signal to the wholesaler, containing the selected item(s) and the schools ID
• There is also a rudimentary list of “recommended books”, which also contain the “add to cart” buttons
• The wholesaler sends back the information to the cart on the school’s site (a separate page), where the information and charges are shown in a simple table
• When the buyer decides to actually buy, he/she adds their personal details to a form on the site, which is sent together with cart information via email to the school
• The school orders the chosen items manually from the wholesalers.

The question:

How do I do this? As a newbie, I have no idea how to switch off all the payment options or how to activate a cart with the external link.

An example link that the wholesaler provides for the first button is:

“

querystring des oberen buttons Warenkorb:
http://www.yoursite.ch/formul/warenkorb2.asp?
Button_Such.x=124&Button_Such.y=11&
Buch2=3-552-05219-
4%7C1179295%7CVor+dem+Frost%7CMankell%2C+Henning%7CZsolnay%7CGebunden%7C42.80CHF “

For some reason there are two buttons with this system of the wholesalers:
„

querystring des unteren buttons Warenkorb:
http://www.yoursite.ch/formul/warenkorb2.asp?
Buch2=3-552-05219-
4%7C1179295%7CVor+dem+Frost%7CMankell%2C+Henning%7CZsolnay%7CGebunden%7C42.80CHF &
Button_Such.x=108&Button_Such.y=4”

I’d be grateful if anyone can point me in the direction of what I need to do.

Thanks in advance

[pensive612]

iamalive,

I would never want to steer anyone away from ZenCart. But as with all things, the solution has to match the problem. If you can't build a full-fledge shop for them...

You might want to consider VirtueMart. A plugin for Joomla. Its nowhere near the level of ZenCart. But it might be just what you need.

One day, hopefully someone will port Zen Cart for Joomla!

Anyway, just a thought. Hope it helps.

[iamalive]

Thanks for the input.

I'm building a shop with VirtueMart for another customer and it's also overkill for this particular need.

What I really need to understand, is how the shopping cart can get it's information delivered by an external site, i.e. what is the link I supply the wholesaler to feed my client's shopping cart?

[schoolboy]

What I really need to understand, is how the shopping cart can get it's information delivered by an external site, i.e. what is the link I supply the wholesaler to feed my client's shopping cart?

This will be technically very challenging - even with joomla.

[pensive612]

I agree with schoolboy.

It sounds like maybe you're looking for more of a "cart" program that generates links to their site,

whereas Zen-Cart really is an "e-commerce solution".

[schoolboy]

This is in an iframe on the site and is actually a link to the wholesaler.

Iframe has some severe limitations, but the fact that it was used here suggests that the existing set-up faced the same challenge and tries to overcome them by "embedding" one website into another using an inline frame.

So, what's happening is that your wholesaler's website (or the bulk of the procurement processes) are being rendered in an inline frame and that all the workings of this process are 100% dependent on the wholesaler's technology.

I have had limited success by doing something similar (which is still not working effectively, by the way!). I used an iframe to embed a joomla hotel room reservation module into a zencart ezpage. My client is a health spa, selling body lotions etc, but ALSO taking bookings for leg waxing, massage, etc. So they need a webshop to sell the lotions, and a booking system for leg waxing!

It kind-of works for the customers, but is an administrative hassle for the client!

I'm thinking of abandoning my attempts to join up zencart and joomla, and am now looking at using joomla for the webshop AND the booking system (keep everything on the same platform.

[iamalive]

Well, thanks for all the comments.

The interesting thing is that my predecessor built an awful site, but this bit worked. I think he used a really primitive version of commerce.cgi

I would like to pursuade the wholesaler to start offering an integrated solution, but I still have to solve my client's problems first.....

Any other ideas, folks?

[schoolboy]

I would like to pursuade the wholesaler to start offering an integrated solution, but I still have to solve my client's problems first.....

Any other ideas, folks?

Maybe you should get them into the same room and discuss the idea of a completely new approach that uses zencart across the board. In this way, you'll have everyone "singing from the same hymnsheet" from the word go.

[iamalive]

That's Plan 'A' for my first fortune!

But.... They supply almost all of the country with books and that's a seperate battle. Musn't confuse things yet

[schoolboy]

They supply almost all of the country with books ...

Wow... zencart's PERFECT for them! I've done sites for three national suppliers of educational materials in the UK - all do good business via their websites!