Unconventional workflow - product choices require pricing estimate

Hello Zen Cart gurus,

Here is a different way of shopping on Zen Cart that I am trying to achieve. Do you know of any store which has a Zen Cart shopping process similar to this? I would like to contact the owner and get advice and maybe the name of a developer who did the customization.

• Buyer selects apparal to be embroidered but does not pay. Products will need to be embroidered and store owner must provide cost for each design submitted.
• Zen Cart stores product selection.
• Zen Cart sends notification of buyers product selection to store and to buyer including a secure login to shopping cart with selected products
• Store owner estimates final price of order and sends email to buyer
• Buyer logs into Zen Cart and completes purchase

Thanks

Not in that way at all...
If you put a bit more effort into configuration it could be along this line

• Buyer selects apparal to be embroidered.
  - Products will need to be embroidered.
• Each type of embrodery is added as an attribute and priced.
• Shopper places ordered items with seleceted attributes into cart
• Buyer logs into Zen Cart and completes purchase

kobra:

Not in that way at all...
If you put a bit more effort into configuration it could be along this line

• Buyer selects apparal to be embroidered.
  - Products will need to be embroidered.
• Each type of embrodery is added as an attribute and priced.
• Shopper places ordered items with seleceted attributes into cart
• Buyer logs into Zen Cart and completes purchase

The cart can't post a standard charge for embroidery because each emboridered image or text may contain an unlimited number of variable colors, thread count etc. Since I have to stick with this workflow (keeping a shopping cart with product selection on the db and make it accessible to the store owner to add his embroidery charges), do you think that it might be cost prohibitive to customize Zen Cart to match the workflow I suggest?

Since I have to stick with this workflow (keeping a shopping cart with product selection on the db and make it accessible to the store owner to add his embroidery charges
I would not buy from any site where the owner does not know enough about their product that they can not price it online....

Attributes
Base fee
design size
2"
4"
6"
etc
Colors (2 included)
3rd
4th
5th
etc
Thread Count (normal is ???)
plus 10
plus 20
etc

Could just have the "Call for price" displayed but expect few takers...

I wish that the workflow could be standardardized - it would make my life easier. This is not a high volume store for the general public. Its a sports apparal store for local youth sports teams. I have tried to pin him down to what you have suggested but he feels it is not his business model. Nevertheless, he does good business doing custom estimates via email. Many thanks for the discussion and advice.

I have tried to pin him down to what you have suggested but he feels it is not his business model
Sometimes as designers, it is a respoonsibility to point out flaws in a clients "model"
As I stated, online selling assumes that the shop operator knows their product(s) well enough to be able to automate this process - at least within the normal range