Four questions about extensions to OSCommerce / recommendation for alternative

Jason <[email protected]> Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:08:01 -0700
Newsgroups gmane.comp.cms.cms-forum.general
Message-ID <p06230922bf04a566db56@[10.0.1.253]>
We have performed a basic OS Commerce install. We are looking for 
some advice about whether or not OS Commerce is capable of being 
extended to accommodate these additional needs. If it is not capable, 
we are open to considering an alternative (better-suited) shopping 
cart or writing a shopping cart of our own in PHP/MySQL, but we want 
to explore all of our pre-packaged (CMS) options first, so mainly we 
are seeking advice on how to do this with OSCommerce or a 
recommendation for a better pre-packaged cart to use.

These are the things which OS Commerce does not appear to do 'out of 
box'. Which of these are easily configurable/customizable?

1. need to be able to put "unlimited" quantity for all of our 
products (since we aren't selling physical goods) -- leaving this 
field blank makes the cart behave as if there is 0 quantity for a 
particular product. Is there a way to do this with OSCommerce?

2. we need a shopping cart that will allow us to sell one product at 
multiple levels which we can determine per-product. For example, 
software which is sold as single-user license for $100, 5-user 
license for $200, and a 10-user license for $300, etc. The shopping 
cart should present you with the level options when or during adding 
the item to your cart. The cart should not allow someone to add more 
than one of the same product (even at a different level).

3. We need a way to make relationships between two or more products 
to create a "main" product and "add-on" products. Essentially, the 
user can't purchase the add-ons unless they also purchase the main 
product.

Specifically: If product A is added to the cart, products D and E are 
presented as "add-ons" or "upsell" immediately following adding 
product A to the cart. Using the same relationship logic, we need a 
user to be prevented from purchasing product D or E without also 
purchasing product A. This can be done either by stopping the user 
from adding products D or E to their cart if product A is not already 
there, or automatically adding product A if they add product D (or 
E). (Finally, we would want them to be able to purchase A, D, and E 
together). All of this should be (relatively) easy to setup for new 
products and new add-on products.

4. We want to be able to offer discounts at least two levels of 
discount  on a per-product basis. That is, we want to specify that 
certain products have certain discounts. What qualifies a person for 
discount can be global to the system (not per-product), but the 
discounts must be able to be set on a product-by-product basis (for 
example, 5% for product A for members of club ABC, 10% for product A 
for members of club XYZ; 7% for product B for club ABC, 15% for 
product B for club XYZ, etc). Since these discounts must be 
product-by-product, the discount should not get applied to the 
invoice (cart) total, but must get applied on a lineitem basis.


We welcome any help or advice.

-- 



___________________________
Jason Boldt
beezwax datatools, inc.