Is osCommerce Right for Us

[ElectricBlue26]

Hi All - I'm trying to decide on an Ecommerce + CRM solution that also integrates with MailChimp + ZenDesk. The Ecommerce and CRM can either be all in one or separate, but sync with each other. This is the message I was going to write to osCommerce, and then realized they don't have a live support e-mail for those who haven't purchased yet. Could anyone please advise?

 

----------

 

Hi there,

 

I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me understand if osCommerce is right for me. We have a vast amount of needs, so I've spent a considerable amount of time listing down to the T what we need, which should save us both time in the long run of any back and forth communications.

 

First off, I came across you via the MailChimp integrations pages. We're starting a new division of our business and would like to revolve it around MailChimp… but we require Ecommerce, CRM and a Helpdesk too.

 

Would you be able to read the list of requirements below, and let me know a. which items you handle already (by responding directly beneath each point), b. what you don't handle but might recommend as an add-on / extra service if you know of one?

 

We're really looking forward to getting started ASAP so I'm hoping to see a response by tomorrow.

 

Here we go:

 

1. Does your software integrate with any CRM platforms that also integrate with Mailchimp? If so, please share which ones. If not, you can skip the rest of the questions as this is a breaker (however, we'd appreciate a response even if the answer is no - also, I listed at the bottom of this our CRM needs so maybe if you know of integrations, you could review really quick to see if you know if they fit or not).

 

Ecommerce Needs

 

2. Australian Merchant Gateway Integration (such as Eway; granted, we are considering Paypal too if you don't do this)

 

3. Automatic syncing of data between Mailchimp and CRM solution.

 

3. Recurring Payments option: eg. 2x $X, 30 days apart <-- can define price + days apart + have long term recurring payments too.

 

4. Tax options: enable tax in Australia (GST), but not in other locations

 

5. Fully White-Labeled: Any client / customer interaction only sees our company information or website links.

 

6. Shopping Cart: be able to add products and raise the quantity for each item too

 

7. Customizable Order forms (and order form themes)

 

8. Discounts, Coupons, Dynamic Discounts: off of total price, only when a price is at a certain point, based on percentage, etc.

 

9. Multicurrency support: we can collect money in USD or AUD and display it during checkout.

 

10. Anything used by the customer needs to be Mobile responsive (iPad, iPhone)

 

11. Process Refunds

 

12. Need to be able to start all this with 1 user and scale-up if needed.

 

13. Trigger Mailchimp E-mail Marketing: upon purchase, a specific e-mail campaign could be triggered

 

14. During checkout, customer could choose to 'subscribe to newsletter' too

 

15. Upon successful purchase, a receipt is sent to the customer (brandable).

 

16. Upon successful purchase, WE are notified too.

 

17. Affiliate functionality: customers/clients can sign-up as affiliates, login to get affiliate links to products and see their earnings; we could pay them out every X days, generate reports, etc.

 

18. Workflow: Notify Vendors and Fulfillment centers: notify specific vendors and/or specific fulfillment centers when an order is made (example a: someone purchases a book in the states, it e-mails our U.S. fulfillment center; or if they purchased in Australia, it notifies our Australian Fulfillment center; example b: if a product required a certain vendor to do something to create a product, we could set their e-mail address to be notified with instructions too.

 

19. Auto-Calculate Shipping

 

20. The ability to easily and effortlessly (for a non-technical person) integrate the Ecommerce order forms or shopping carts into our website (which will most likely be a wordpress template)

 

21. The ability to make the Ecommerce order forms / shopping carts design be in harmony with our site template.

 

22: An awesome extra: the ability for someone to get a last minute discount on the items in their cart, if they share the site with X amount of people…

 

Next…

 

As for the CRM - as mentioned we're looking to get something integrated between the CRM (preferably one that connects to Zendesk too) and the Ecommerce software… In a nut shell what we're looking for there is…

 

CRM

 

* Sales opportunities/stages : move people from being a lead, to an opportunity… close the sale, etc.

* Pull the customers social media information from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ so we can see it right away.

* E-mail Integration

* Opportunities and Quotes

* Ability to turn a quote into an order automatically through your ecommerce system

* Analytics

* Forecasting

* Vendor integrations - create workflow to notify specific vendors based on certain criteria that order has been made and paid for (eg. order made in Australia, notify vendor 1 and provide details; order made in U.S., notify vendor 2 and provide details)

 

Finally, if you could let me know what the pricing of your solution would be as well as how easy it is to set everything up, that'd be fantastic!

 

Thank you so much!

 

Sean Patrick Simpson

Co-Founder Älska Publishing

[♥toyicebear]

Oscommerce is free software so there is no pre-purchasing support. You can simply download install and use it as you see fit.

 

You will find a large selection of add-ons at: http://addons.oscommerce.com/

 

That said what you have listed will require extensive customization, so you will probably need to hire someone to customize the cart to your needs.

[♥bruyndoncx]

I've never seen anyone done a decent gap analysis in 24hrs turnaround time, good luck !