Helpful suggestions on a big project.

[TheInThing]

We currently have an e-commerce system and are considering switching over to oscommerce and have a few questions. We understand some of these may have to be bespoked and are interested in hearing from people who feel they could help us meet our requirements. This is a pretty big list but we would appreciate any help or alternative suggestions.

 

Wholesale / Retail Side

We require the option to run multiple sites off one database, ideally this should be settings driven and therefore allow us to provide a separate identity for each site with branding etc. The sites must operate in the same way to alter stock, images etc. There should also be pricing options which means that one site can be charged higher than the other and also have different postage, payment, ordering rules and taxation. The layout and product range can also differ.

 

Internal System

We require the ability to take orders over the phone, this will allow the sales staff to offer discounts etc. These orders would need to be entered through the website to keep stock levels accurate and therefore all orders, whether via the website or by phone would need to be entered on the same integrated system / database.

 

This will need to be username and password driven with privilege settings so that some users cannot change prices, others can change to within 10% of cost price (which also will be needed to be added to the system) and a privilege for less than cost price.

 

On starting a new internal order the user should be given the following options:-

1. Start with a blank order

2. Pick a customer from an alphabetic list

3. Search for an existing customer

4. Choose using an account code which is an internal field relevant to our company ? this would need to be stored on another database table.

 

On starting the order the user will be shown the customer details, which can be amended if required.

 

The next step should then show the customers previous orders that have been made should they exist.

 

On the shopping cart side it should allow the purchase of goods from any of the shops available ? i.e. Retail / Wholesale. It should also show products which have been flagged as unavailable for general sale on the website but still in stock for selected customers.

 

When adding an item the user should have the option to amend the price to within 10% of the cost price depending on the privilege they have been granted, they can also order items which are out of stock and these place on back-order.

 

When the items are added to the cart they should take in to account the place the product originated, therefore from the retail side it already has tax added to the price, whereas wholesale does not so the final total should exclude the tax on retail items. Any items pre-ordered are not charged until dispatched along with back-ordered items. Items can also be classed as minimum spend (e.g you can only buy something when you have spent so much money). There are also exceptions which mean that if an item is purchased a minimum spend does not have to occur and postage would be free.

 

On checkout the user can choose whether to charge VAT or postage and then select the payment method. They can also choose to allow less than the minimum spend.

 

Payment methods should include rules to allow only certain methods for different countries, overseas must place a minimum of ?1000 orders.

 

Stock is downdated upon order completion ? special offers consist of multiple items and each of these must downdate the individual item stock. If it goes below zero these should be placed on backorder.

 

Stock Receipt

We would also require a method of booking in stock to the system. This would be when a delivery arrives we would need a separate password access for the stock-in department. They would need to enter an invoice ? this would then add the stock on the invoice to the system and also would double check the total of the invoice. It would also need to keep track of who supplied the goods and subsequently alter the average cost price of the goods coming in, thus changing the cost price for the internal order system.

 

Stock Transfer

We would need a method which can take an item and break it up into smaller stock items. For example a box of trading cards contains 36 packs of cards ? these can be sold individually. Also boxes of cards could be sold in cases of 12. So some sort of unit conversion from Case to Box to pack would be needed.

 

Many thanks,

The In Thing.

[TheInThing]

did we post to many questions?

[Guest]

All of the items you require are more than possible. Some of which require quite a lot of modification.

 

Running your site with 1 database offereing different prices and different images with different types of users etc is probably your biggest piece of work. I have handled this kind of thing in the past by adding a user hash to some of the tables so that the database can quickly check the relevant tables using a bitwise operator.

 

Using different layouts and look and feels for the different shops is quite straightforward once the above modifications are made as the infrastructire for allowing different shops is in place.

 

In general the work you require isn't that tricky if you are familiar with oscommerce and a proficient programmer. I would say that it probably would take a fair amount of time to acheive all of the functionality you require.

 

Best of luck with your project.