Help please - with additional details taken for specialist orders

Can you set zencart on selected products, to not add the item to the shopping cart when 'order'/'Add to cart' is pressed ---- But instead, chuck the customer out to a form to email page, in order to take down all the extra info required for speciallist orders (credit applications etc)...??? (internal or external page - allthough internal would be best)

and still have all the name and login details saved for returning custom?

I have read some more posts and am getting a bit confused.

Please reply in plain language.

Thank you

Paul

Paul81:

Can you set zencart on selected products, to not add the item to the shopping cart when 'order'/'Add to cart' is pressed ---- But instead, chuck the customer out to a form to email page, in order to take down all the extra info required for speciallist orders (credit applications etc)...??? (internal or external page - allthough internal would be best)

and still have all the name and login details saved for returning custom?

I have read some more posts and am getting a bit confused.

Please reply in plain language.

Thank you

Paul

I'll try my best to do this in "plain" language.

Your best option is to NOT turn this into any sort of customization. Instead do this via product attributes. So all those extra info... make those into attributes. There are methods to make them required or you can opt to purchase a validation module which will do the same thing, maybe a little prettier. I know of one offered by thatsoftwareguy.com.

What this will achieve is that the customer can put in all the information during the order, you will receive the information in the order, the customer can pay right away, and its all good :)

How do you add attributes you ask ? Well... try going through the FAQ's at https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?category=13

Cheers.

Thank you for your help,

I think you have answered most of the bits I didn't know.

Can you please expand a little bit, with reference to the following situatons:

1. • It sounds like the method will definitly work for this one--A customer applies for a company formation - I use your method to collect the data - take payment - use order data from attibutes etc...to register company - order complete etc...

but in this situation --- will it work or is there anything else i can do?

2. • Customer wishes to apply for a loan - we need to take client details - + agreement to credit check (this I understand will work with attributes -just a tick box under a paragraph)- will have to customise button to say apply instead of add to checkout etc....
     We then offer the customer a service were customer can opt to pay 1% of loan amount for the advise, or we can offer free advise and we take a commission from the lender (customer choice) ----- yet no money is due until we can assess that the cutomer passess the application process etc.. - possibly a lead that will need calling back etc.... possibly no money ever due from the client etc... but still need to get there details and allow them to log-in as a returning cutomer etc.... --- for this part I was thinking form to email, but haven't got a clue about this in relation to Zencart.

If you can go into any further details about getting round this, it would be brilliant..

Thank you for your support

Paul

so if i understand correctly, your 2nd product, is (from a customer point of view), free to "buy", then pending YOUR assessment, I may be required to pay and if i am, then i have a choice of how I want to pay.

if this is correct, then I would suggest making the product free, with a disclaimer that once the form is processed, they will have a choice to pay either A or B.

Once you process the free product, they are now a customer, you used attributes to get your information, you were able to advertise the product as FREE (dont forget to add the "*" and disclaimer)...

Now once you have assessed and ready for payment, i'm assuming you are charging them offline, and if you want to do it online, create another product maybe which is $1.00 and tell them to purchase x units of it where it will equal the total due (so bill is $349, then buy 349 units).

Not pretty but effective. Also, for the last product i mentioned, I believe I saw a mod which allows you to HIDE products... that would work nicely here. btw, if you find it, please send me the link... i might need it one day :)

Thank you for your help- I'll have to start planning attributes for each service.

sounds like that would work well, and the best I think I will be able to achieve with Zencart.

I'll have a look to see if I can find the add - on

• What I had in my head originally was a site that I saw
  in the same industry which is www.cscompanyservices.co.uk
  I don't like the layout- but they sell alot of services/products as a shopping cart, and also have forms to fill out with all the necessary details for loan applications (which don't appear to go through the shopping cart at all)- although the username and password are still tied into both shopping cart and loan app/enquiries) --- unfortunatly, I don't know what the adminstration side of their site is like, or which cart it is based on - I have a feeling they may have had the whole thing custom built (way beyond my budget) -
  -- but what they have set up with loan applications as form to filll in only and then shopping cart for company formations etc.... is what I was hoping for.

Thank you very much

Paul