New Shop Concept - Guidance Needed

[uk_martin]

I am a bit of a newcomer to e-commerce. I've installed osCommerce on a trial location to get a rough feel for how it works, but as with lots of new things, sometimes what you hope to find isn't that obvious, or it's called something that you don't recognise. Maybe if I explain what I want to do, someone can let me know how to get osCommerce configured to suit my needs.

 

I want to set up a social club which will use the sales of CD's/DVD's and Clothing as a fund-raising venture. What I would like is for osCommerce to be able to handle three things:

 

1) on-line club membership payment handling

2) sales of CD's / DVD's from Supplier A

3) sales of branded club clothing from Supplier B

 

Being a voluntary organisation, I would rather that the orders go straight to the suppliers, so that they can collect the payments and process the orders. I would need to know what the value of confirmed orders are though in order to keep a track of commissions due from the suppliers.

 

The payment of annual club membership subscriptions, I would like to see going straight to our PayPal account.

 

My intention would be to use the osCommerce Registration form as a de-facto Club Membership Application form, however one of the club membership questions that we want to ask is what a person's occupation is. Can this question be added to the information gathered when registering?

 

Also does osCommerce interface with a calendar or diary facility to generate membership renewal reminders?

 

Thank you in anticipation for assistance.

 

Martin

[kgt]

Take a look through the contributions section:

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions

[radders]

Maybe a community site like Mambo is more what you need. It sounds as if you could get away with a Paypal buy now link and a few affiliate links.

[ace21gabriel]

As far as I know there is no modification to send requests directly to the wholesalers. Only way to do it is for you to accept payment and then forward it to the other sites.

 

And as for monthly dues, im not sure if that exists yet but mostlikely it will soon because I saw another member ask about it.

 

Sorry I couldnt help, but good luck!

[uk_martin]

And as for monthly dues, im not sure if that exists yet but mostlikely it will soon because I saw another member ask about it.

One of the Paypal modules seems to allow for recurring charges. If membership became a "Product" to sell, (i.e. we send them a membership card etc for their money) and Paypal collects on a regular basis, would that not work?

 

Talking of Paypal, there are several Paypal modules on offer...which comes best recommended?

[uk_martin]

As far as I know there is no modification to send requests directly to the wholesalers. Only way to do it is for you to accept payment and then forward it to the other sites.

As for collecting money, that will be fine by us. At least we get the interest while we hold it. HOWEVER, what we definately don't want is to hold stocks. If the order can't go directly to the supplier, then at least can the shipping instructions automatically go to them and they then send us a statement in their own time of what we owe them for goods sent to customers?

 

I take it if there is a module that can do this, it will be smart enough to order the right supplier to send the right goods, as there is more than one supplier. Several of the modules that I've browsed by so far seem to be very specific to one certain thing, e.g. payment handler, carrier, currency etc etc.