Donation Store

[bLaNG]

Hey there!

 

Did not really know where to post this, so I thought this place will disturb no one.

 

ATM I am looking for a solution to implement a "donation store". Like in a real store, I would list different items with a price tag attached. But instead of buying these items for themselves visitors can choose to donate the specific amount of money a item costs. So what I need are several components of a shop system like description of an item, the possibility to choose the amount of items to "purchase", categories of items to order them (healthcare, food...), possibility to donate several things at once (e.g. shopping card).

But clearly there are some elements in a shopping systems I do not need, like shipping information and user registration (the latter would be an extra hurdle to donate which I would rather not have).

 

My plan is to rely solely on Paypal regarding to payments because of its ease of use as well as its broad acceptance.It would be great to have the option of a single click payment on the product page as well, so people can donate directly and do not have to collect stuff in a shopping card and going through a check out page (but still can do it if they want multiple things).

 

My main worry with using osCommerce atm is how hard it would be to get rid of the need to create an account in order to "buy" things and disable any shipment part.

 

Now here is the question: Do you guys think that it is possible to pull this of with osCommerce for someone like me with very litte php knowledge and only a limited amount of time at his hand? Can I set osCommerce to only accept Paypal-payments?

 

Any help and advice would be really appreciated.

 

PS: Sorry for bad English, I am not a native speaker.

[MrPhil]

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/357642-what-if-customers-dont-want-to-set-up-an-account/

 

I'm sure you can disable all shipping in some way. If I understand what you're doing, customers "buy" an item but you don't actually ship anything to them -- it's just a monetary donation? Are "customers" looking at a specific "product", or more of a "category" to donate in?

 

I think there are some add-ons around for "bid" or "auction" or "name your own price" type listings, rather than a fixed price sale -- is that what you're looking for? I haven't used them and can't help with them, but I think they exist. Search the forum and add-ons for those terms.

 

I don't know about "Buy it now" without a shopping cart. You might look in the add-ons to see if there's anything like that.

 

Does your "inventory" change quickly enough that you need a product management (inventory) system like osC? Is searching for a "product" an important feature? Frankly, I'm wondering if you wouldn't be better off just writing up some static HTML pages for your donation categories, and using PayPal's "Buy it Now" or "Donation" button codes. A real shopping cart like osC sounds like an awful lot of overhead for what you're doing (just accepting donations, basically?). Also, I would be concerned that (with a real store setup) someone might get confused and think they're actually ordering an item for delivery, rather than making a donation.

[bLaNG]

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/357642-what-if-customers-dont-want-to-set-up-an-account/

 

I'm sure you can disable all shipping in some way. If I understand what you're doing, customers "buy" an item but you don't actually ship anything to them -- it's just a monetary donation? Are "customers" looking at a specific "product", or more of a "category" to donate in?

 

 

Thanks for the link.

The idea behind this is that visitors can specifically choose for what "product" they can donate money. So yes, it is product based and not category based donation.

 

I think there are some add-ons around for "bid" or "auction" or "name your own price" type listings, rather than a fixed price sale -- is that what you're looking for? I haven't used them and can't help with them, but I think they exist. Search the forum and add-ons for those terms.

 

No, I am talking about fixed prices. Say, a blanket is 5.99, than that is the "price" of the product, so your donation should cover exactly that.

 

I don't know about "Buy it now" without a shopping cart. You might look in the add-ons to see if there's anything like that.

 

I will

 

Does your "inventory" change quickly enough that you need a product management (inventory) system like osC? Is searching for a "product" an important feature? Frankly, I'm wondering if you wouldn't be better off just writing up some static HTML pages for your donation categories, and using PayPal's "Buy it Now" or "Donation" button codes. A real shopping cart like osC sounds like an awful lot of overhead for what you're doing (just accepting donations, basically?).

 

Yes, there are quite a lot of products (couple of hundred), and the inventory changes/expands quite frequently. I already gave it a shot with a wiki and a sort template for each product but found that rather inflexible - for example I missed the shopping card function and a product database where it is easy to apply changes for example in price. Very handy as well is an "in stock" function to dynamically display how much of a certain product is still needed. Think of it as inverted "in stock" information. ;)

 

Also, I would be concerned that (with a real store setup) someone might get confused and think they're actually ordering an item for delivery, rather than making a donation.

 

I would make sure that there cannot be a misunderstanding, starting on the front page and adding that information in the checkout process as well as in the product description. And of course I would use Paypal Donate buttons instead of normal Paypal buttons.