Setup osCommerce to BUY from customer... not SELL

[carpenoctem]

I have a recycling company that i work for in which we buy and sell recyclable products.

 

1. I would like to be able to setup osCommerce so that people could sell product to me. i would of course have setup the prices that they would get for the product, product descriptions, etc. But would like everything to appear in a list and people can add what they have for sale to a cart, create and account, etc.

 

Is this possible?

 

2. Is it possible for me to setup where i can buy products from people (with prices listed), and then they can do a RFQ on items that they want to buy from me????

 

I have setup a store before where people would do a RFQ before, but would REALLLLLLLy like to be able to have both.

 

Any thoughts on this?

[MrPhil]

1. If you have a fixed menu of items you'll take in, for a fixed price, I don't see why you couldn't do this. You might need an add-on or two to handle things which are not counted 1-2-3 (e.g., 4.3 ounces of gold), and you would need to disable any payment system (customer is not paying you). You probably could adapt a check/COD/MO payment system to simply tell customers what you will pay them when they haul the stuff in. Shipping would be disabled, too. No taxes on this?

 

2. I think you should keep separate stores for buying and selling. It would probably be fairly complicated to try to combine them into a single store, while keeping everything straight as to whether it's being bought or sold. If you are listing prices for merchandise, why would people be submitting requests for quotations from you? I've heard of add-ons where you don't list a price, and customers put together a shopping cart and request a quote on it. Are the prices supposed to be "suggested" or something? I would assume that with a little coding, you could list suggested prices and then send a quote on the whole thing. If you and the customer don't reach an agreement, be sure to return the merchandise in the basket to "the shelves".