♥auctionblox Posted January 20, 2004 Author Posted January 20, 2004 Mapping all unmapped auctions to a default product. A few thoughts on this. Using this feature causes some issues. I will attempt to list the ones off hand that I can think of: 1. Shipping calculations: If you're using osc shipping modules based on weight, you have no idea what the weight is since it is not mapped to a real product. (Unless all of the items you sell are the same weight and you set that weight on the default item.) If you use the eBay shipping, then this will work fine. 2. Stock/Inventory: Inventory is decremented at order time. If the order is associated with a phantom product, your real product count is not getting decremented. (This could probably be overcome by handling inventory reconciliation in the admin IF you change the auction sale after the sale from the default product to the REAL product.) I question putting this feature into THIS version of the EAM, because it has bad side effects and because it can really screw the novice user. I KNOW we need an easier way to get up and running when you have lots of items AND don't care about inventory counts. I'll continue to work on it, and hopefully we can come up with a better workflow along the way. If you have further thoughts, it's time to chime in. Quote
CorneliusH Posted January 20, 2004 Posted January 20, 2004 Anthony You're right - but couldn't it be a choice - map or default? Cornelius Quote Who let the dog out ?!!! Newer trust a smiling dog!
CorneliusH Posted January 20, 2004 Posted January 20, 2004 Anthony The ideal time to draw an item from the stock is when listed on an auction - if you have one - you can now sell it in the osc shop and on eBay at the same time! Cornelius Quote Who let the dog out ?!!! Newer trust a smiling dog!
michimaus Posted January 20, 2004 Posted January 20, 2004 Anthony, why not to go another way? Mapping of products & auctions is basically a good thing for people selling the same items very often. For all the others ist can be hard to first create items in the catalog then create the auction & then map to the products in the catalog. This eats up much of the time s.b. can save with this great contrib. Is there no way to create items in the catalog for those that are not mapped automatically, maybe in a special [hidden] category? Should be somewhat like easy populate does it... The content of the items in the catalog could be done by default settings (Itemno. , Title...) and could be changed and moved to another category later if needed. IMHO mapping to an EVERYTHING item will make you loose control over your sales and will have bad results to other contribs... remember "bestsellers" ;-) Just ideas.... michimaus Quote
♥auctionblox Posted January 20, 2004 Author Posted January 20, 2004 The ideal time to draw an item from the stock is when listed on an auction - if you have one - you can now sell it in the osc shop and on eBay at the same time! I agree on this. I've thought about the "product reservation" feature which decrements your quantity at listing time, and returns the quantity at the end of auction for unsold items. I think that this product mapping problem will go away entirely when i finish the ebay lister feature from osc. When I do that, I'll have the title and product mapping to store in the db automatically. So, the question becomes: Is it critical in the interim? Quote
Guest Posted January 20, 2004 Posted January 20, 2004 Thanks worldwidedvds Ok going to be cheeky now! Dose anyone know what settings in config in order to make this excelent contrib link into ebay? Regards Quote
tammy507 Posted January 21, 2004 Posted January 21, 2004 CorneliusH .................I'm a oscommerce user (and an eBay seller using eBay's SAP). What is "Ebay's SAP" thanks tammy Quote
CorneliusH Posted January 21, 2004 Posted January 21, 2004 Tammy eBay has a sales tool called Sales Assistant Pro - the problem with this tool are some of the after sale processes - eBay Sales Manager can handle these processes much more elegant and integrated with osc. As it looks now I will use SAP for the listings and eBay sales manager for the after sale and integration with my accounting systems. Cornelius Quote Who let the dog out ?!!! Newer trust a smiling dog!
tammy507 Posted January 21, 2004 Posted January 21, 2004 It is not necessary to offer PayPal. You can use any payment method you like. In order for your auction sale to be changed from "Sale:Not Checked Out" to "Sale:Checked Out" (which is great for management purposes), you need to follow the instructions for the PayPal IPN piece in your specific payment implementation. what is a paypal ipn? where do i find it? what does it do? and do i need it to keep the trail from 'not checked out' to 'checked out' Im a real newbie, sorry Thanks tammy Quote
CorneliusH Posted January 21, 2004 Posted January 21, 2004 (edited) Tammy Paypal ipn is a contribution: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1753 If you sell on eBay paypal is a must. With eBay Auction Manager and the contrib. above you have a very powerfull tool to handle the after sale process. Edited January 21, 2004 by CorneliusH Quote Who let the dog out ?!!! Newer trust a smiling dog!
dimports Posted January 21, 2004 Posted January 21, 2004 Mapping all unmapped auctions to a default product. A few thoughts on this. Using this feature causes some issues. I will attempt to list the ones off hand that I can think of: 1. Shipping calculations: If you're using osc shipping modules based on weight, you have no idea what the weight is since it is not mapped to a real product. (Unless all of the items you sell are the same weight and you set that weight on the default item.) If you use the eBay shipping, then this will work fine. 2. Stock/Inventory: Inventory is decremented at order time. If the order is associated with a phantom product, your real product count is not getting decremented. (This could probably be overcome by handling inventory reconciliation in the admin IF you change the auction sale after the sale from the default product to the REAL product.) I question putting this feature into THIS version of the EAM, because it has bad side effects and because it can really screw the novice user. I KNOW we need an easier way to get up and running when you have lots of items AND don't care about inventory counts. I'll continue to work on it, and hopefully we can come up with a better workflow along the way. If you have further thoughts, it's time to chime in. hmmm this is a problem. it would be nice to product map by using ebay title and product title in oscommerce, but of course they will probably never be exact. So heres a thought, maybe if the majority of the words in the title match and price range match AND picture source are all matched. Definately there are many gaps in this idea, but it should be pretty accurate if all conditions are met. im not sure how the ebay lister will work, but im assuming that i will have to create auctions with the ebay lister for it to be product mapped from that point on. but what about auctions in the past or if i want to relist past auctions? Quote
tammy507 Posted January 21, 2004 Posted January 21, 2004 My site is already set up to accept paypal, is there something in that IPN contribution that I need to use with ebay auction sales manager? Thanks for your patients and help. Tammy Quote
CorneliusH Posted January 21, 2004 Posted January 21, 2004 (edited) Tammy Yes - if you want your after sale administration easy and give your paypal costumers the best service. In my opinion is the installation of paypal ipn cart 1.5 more difficult than many other contribs. Please read read the forum for ipn carefully before installation. http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=72942&st=0 Sincerely Cornelius Edited January 21, 2004 by CorneliusH Quote Who let the dog out ?!!! Newer trust a smiling dog!
♥auctionblox Posted January 21, 2004 Author Posted January 21, 2004 My site is already set up to accept paypal, is there something in that IPN contribution that I need to use with ebay auction sales manager? The problem with the default paypal in your oscommerce store is that almost NO ONE clicks the continue button on the paypal site to return to your store. That's when the order gets created. So, more often than not, you get a paypal payment, but no order associated with it. You use paypal ipn to fix this problem. (This has nothing to do with the auction manager. All regular store order have this problem.) There is a support forum specifically for PayPal IPN...you should check it out. Quote
♥auctionblox Posted January 21, 2004 Author Posted January 21, 2004 hmmm this is a problem. it would be nice to product map by using ebay title and product title in oscommerce, but of course they will probably never be exact. So heres a thought, maybe if the majority of the words in the title match and price range match AND picture source are all matched. Definately there are many gaps in this idea, but it should be pretty accurate if all conditions are met. Here's what I'm thinking: As auction listings are entered in the system, have it try to determine with product ID based on the title of the auction and the title of the product, and auto-create a product mapping. I'll use some algorithm to do this. Hopefully, it will work most of the time. We can have 2 screens. One which displays *approved* product mappings which are ones that you have verified to be correct. The other shows *pending* mappings which you need to verify are correct. We can do it "Just In Time", as they say. It will always pick a product. Since we no longer display the product or product description (but rather the auction title and description), we can go ahead and let the user check out. It doesn't matter if the mapping is correct or not, until we try to do inventory reconciliation. So, at some point, you go thru and approve all of your pending mappings and it fixes all your inventory counts. BTW, I think it will require mySQL 3.23.23 or greater. Please VERIFY that your host meets this requirement. Sound like a good solution? Quote
♥auctionblox Posted January 21, 2004 Author Posted January 21, 2004 BTW, I contacted eBay regarding the use of the eBay logo in the shopping cart, and they refused to grant permission to use it for this purpose. Therefore, if someone would be so kind as to create a nice looking image for the auction product, that would be great. This is ONLY used when there is no product mapping during checkout. It needs to be the same size as other product images. I would appreciate someone volunteering, and sending it to me. Quote
CorneliusH Posted January 21, 2004 Posted January 21, 2004 Hello Anthony This is a very small contribution (Auction logo) 120*120 http://www.cornelius-hansen.com/auctionlogo1.gif 60*60 http://www.cornelius-hansen.com/auctionlogo2.gif I hope you can use it - I might find a brilliant idea later. Sincerely Cornelius Quote Who let the dog out ?!!! Newer trust a smiling dog!
dimports Posted January 22, 2004 Posted January 22, 2004 (edited) Wow i didn't realize how complicated this point was. my SQL is running MySQL 4.0.15. But your idea of approved and pending product mappings may be the solution. very ingenius. Regarding the Alorithm, I have many items with the same title such as 20 Moroccan Lanterns, etc. In this case the Alogorithm may not be neccessary, just a default product to map to should be sufficient (in my case). Although the Alogorithm would help of course in any case. Just a side note that you may want to consider regarding shipping. It would be a nice feature to have the shipping to default to the oscommerce shipping module unless a value is specified in the eBay shipping field in Admin. What you can do is have the ebay shipping field to have a default value of blank or -99. If this value is changed to >0, then this is the shipping cost that is used. Otherwise the oscommerce shipping module is used. By the way, this would help in the default product mapping. PS - cute logo Cornelious :D Edited January 22, 2004 by dimports Quote
♥auctionblox Posted January 22, 2004 Author Posted January 22, 2004 dimports, I have a general solution that will help everyone on the product mapping. I should have it tested and packaged up tomorrow with instructions on use. put simply, you never have to create the product mapping. EAM will create one for you with it's best guess as to what the product should be based on the listing title. It does this when the listing is downloaded. If EAM can't figure it out, it still creates a mapping, but sets the product to nothing. EITHER WAY, the consumer can check out after the sale downloads As a bonus, if EAM does map a product and it's the wrong one, you can edit the mapping and set it to the correct one AND it only displays the items in your catalog which "best match" the title. That way you don't have to look through 1000 items. Once you approve the mapping, you don't need to look at it again. All in all, I think it works well, and should alleviate a ton of pain. Cornelius, Thank you for the images Quote
Guest Posted January 22, 2004 Posted January 22, 2004 Couple other suggestions: Automatically send the invoice/reminder/warning emails. Automatically submit NBP and FVF Invoice emails are sent at the time of purchase. In the Auction Config allow us to set the days from purchase date to send the reminder/warning. Day of Purchase - Invoice Sent 3 Days After Purchase - Reminder Email Sent 7 Days After Purchase - Warning Email Sent 10 Day After Purcahse - File NPB (Change Next Step to 10 day countdown) After countdown expires - File FVF, Leave Neg Feedback (Option to leave feedback automatically in config), (Change Next Step to FVF Credit Complete), (Change Status to Complete or create new status for non-bidders) ------------------ What about leaving positive feedback automatically when shipped? Again, configurable with a "Leave Feedback Automatically". Automatic along with a "Use Random Positive Feedback" option could be handy. I'd suggest seperate "Use Random xxxxx Feedback" for the diff types. Anytime I leave Neutral I always do it manually, but that's me. ------------------ Lastly, a way to configure our emails without needing to edit the php files. Have a email manager or something in the config to set up our Invoice/Reminder/Warning emails. In there we could set our return email address (default: store address), subject, and body. Allow certain tags for customer name, item name, item number, store name, etc. I envision something like the following Invoice Email From: [sTORE_EMAIL] (Text Box) Subject: Thank you for your purchase of [iTEM_NUMBER] [iTEM_NAME] (Text Box) Body (Multiline text box) Thank you for your purchase of [iTEM_NUMBER] [iTEM_NAME] from [sTORE_NAME]. Please complete your order by going through our secure checkout: [CHECKOUT_URL] Our secure checkout allows us to complete your order as quickly as possible, and allows you to obtain status of your order at any time. Thank you [sTORE_OWNER] [sTORE_EMAIL] [sTORE_URL] Quote
tammy507 Posted January 23, 2004 Posted January 23, 2004 AuctionBlox and Cornilius ... Thank You for clearing up the paypal IPN thing. I will read the support board and see if I can install it. Again, I appreciate your patients with a newbie. Tammy Quote
tammy507 Posted January 23, 2004 Posted January 23, 2004 Another question, trivial and cosmetic really, but......... Is there a way to show more than "9" items in a row when viewing active auctions, etc. Thanks Tammy Quote
♥auctionblox Posted January 23, 2004 Author Posted January 23, 2004 Version 1.2 has been released. The contribution link is: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1772 This version ADDS support for osCommerce MS1 and MS2. Quote
Guest Posted January 24, 2004 Posted January 24, 2004 hELLO All I am trying to get this to work and I am just not understanding.. I know it is just me. I have this stupid pressure headache and I just can't think 1. Thank you Anthony for the new mapping I just love it and it wil work.. the problem I am having is I add an order that was already paid so I can test everything before I send out email to my customers I am added their email got to create account.. and created the account.. account was created and hit continued and I get this error.. now i know it is something I am not getting about shipping,, I am just hoping someone can help me Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/virtual/site98/fst/var/www/html/catalog/checkout_shipping.php on line 196 this whole shipping thing as got me baffled.. and I go to line 196 and it is this line $quotes = $shipping_modules->quote(); please what do I need to to to fix this.. step by step would be wonderful.. as I said my head hurts and it is hard to think. Thank you Naomi Quote
Guest Posted January 25, 2004 Posted January 25, 2004 I wanted to add to the last reply I have ***Use eBay shipping cost for domestic shipping*** set to true. Quote
New 
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.