How would you set this up ?

How would you do this? my new store,
Category 1- in stock items ready for purchase.
Category 2- special order items. Each item would have 4 attributes with each attribute having between 3 and 40 options. Some of the options are different prices.
My issue is I DO NOT want them to pay for the special orders that are not in stock until it is ready for delivery??

Can you set a single category to showcase mode ? I dont think so?? can I ?? How would you set it up? Thanks

What if I was to order an in-stock item and a special order item?

Hey Kim, In a perfect world they could pay for the one thats in stock and be billed for the special order when it is finished.

And I cant think of how to do it except for 2 websites? any ideas?

What about shipping charges?

I planned to ship flat rate - per order, so the shipping charge would be added to the order right away and the rest would ship free.

shipping is a flat rate per order but I am using the zone rates option. I think thats what I needed, 6.00 to the US 12.00 to Canada, and 25.00 everywhere else

If it would make a difference I could ship all orders for free.

For Shipping you could use the Zone Rate Zones and set the 1st one to the US and the rate at 10000:6.00 then the 2nd one as CA and the rate at 10000:12.00 then the 3rd one as 00 for all other zones and the rate at 10000:25.00 ...

One the Special Category, are you just trying to block all the ability to add to cart for that Category where the Products in that Category that use it as their master_categories_id cannot add to the cart? :unsure:

Hey Linda thats the way I have shipping set up at the moment.

I am going to be selling handmade knives, I hope to keep a few in stock but also give them the option of ordering one because there is a lot of choices ,like I currently have over 40 different kinds of wood for handle material.
My issue is I just dont want them to pay until I make it. In a perfect world my store would let them order it with the options they want but when they get to checkout they would only actually pay for whats in stock and pay for the special order when finished.
How would you do it?
maybe an option would be instead of pricing as normal I could just describe the price in the product info but actually price it at 0.00 and adjust the shipping rates so orders of 0.00 ship free??

That would probably work for avoiding coding, though it would leave both you and the customer with no real record of how much the finished knife should cost. If you changed the price in the description after an order for whatever reason, I could imagine all kinds of hassles and confusion. If say the cost of a certain wood changes drastically, you need to reflect that for future orders, but you don't want to change the price for the existing order in the pipeline.

So you really need a system to sort the payment into separate modules, or maybe deduct the price of the custom one from the order total (by a coupon or something?) so that the price is recorded as well as the fact that only part of it has been paid yet.

Yea changing the prices dont sound good, dont want it to be confusing. I had thought about the coupon way but with no way to force its use somebody would go ahead and pay ,maybe even thinking that would help them get it quicker. people dont always read the info on the page anyway.
What about this , I could have a category of knives for sale and one for knives that have been sold. I could set it up so they see a sold out button , and could change the product info to say if you want one like this you can email me. hummm :lamo:

I sell "made to order" items too. Why don't you want people to pay up front? I have a policy that I get paid up front for everything. I've been left holding the bag too many times when people "change their mind".

Not really worried about getting stuck with it , I could just put in the for sale category and would have store stock.
Why I wont take deposits, I like keeping my work as stress free as possible. If I want to fish for the next 10 days I don't have to ask permission from anybody and if my customers have not paid me they shouldn't have a reason to be mad. If that does make them mad it is a lot easier to part ways if we owe each other nothing.