Recurring billing addon

Store Builder Feedback
1

This addon allows to create subscriptions to products with random period and duration.



Addon settings are available on the [url]http://labs.cs-cart.com/admin.php?dispatch=addons.manage#grouprecurring_billing[/url] page.



Recurring plans are set on the ‘Orders → Recurring plans’ page (http://labs.cs-cart.com/admin.php?dispatch=recurring_plans.manage). In the plan there are set the subscription duration, payment period, product price according to the subscription, initial price and products for which this plan will work.



Recurring plans can be added to user groups. In this case when a customer subscribes to a product, he/she will be assigned to a certain group for the whole subscription period.



The information about customers’ subscriptions is available on the ‘Orders → View subscriptions’ page (http://labs.cs-cart.com/admin.php?dispatch=subscriptions.manage).



You should perform recurring orders’ placements and notifications’ sending by e-mail manually. All information about the current events that need to be performed is displayed on the ‘Orders ->Subscription events’ page ([url]http://labs.cs-cart.com/admin.php?dispatch=subscriptions.events[/url])



Customers can view their subscriptions on the [url]http://labs.cs-cart.com/index.php?dispatch=subscriptions.search[/url] page.



A new “Subscription” tab has been added to the page of the product, to which one can subscribe, in the storefront. There you need to choose the subscription plan, if there are many of them. The ‘add product to cart’ and ‘add product to wishlist’ buttons were also moved there.

2

How to sell a subscription plan so that the members can access to a group of products which has special information for them?



For now I can see that it’s not obvious for customers to sign up a membership. Is that possible to just sell a membership and the members will have the full access to a group of products?



Thanks.

3

joe-



If I understand your question correctly, just assign the appropriate User group(s) to your products.



Then, associate recurring plans with a user group in Users->User groups. If the customer purchases a plan associated with a user group, that user group will be automatically activated for that customer. This should restrict access for only those members.



I have not yet tested to confirm that the User group is removed from the customer profile once the subscription ends.



Bob

4

Hi Bob, thanks for the explanation. I’ve tried that but it seems there is no direct way to sell membership or subscription plan. To sell one product from the membership is not quite reasonable as actually the customers are buying a service-membership.



Say we have a few products are only accessable to VIP user group. However, how to sell this VIP membership directly? The products in this case will not be seen totally by guests and other user groups. Maybe lexa can explain this to us.



Thanks in advance.

5

[quote name=‘joe’]Say we have a few products are only accessible to VIP user group. However, how to sell this VIP membership directly? The products in this case will not be seen totally by guests and other user groups. Maybe lexa can explain this to us.[/QUOTE]

It looks like you would have to create a product named VIP Member, once the customer purchases the product VIP Member they would have access to the VIP usergroup…

6

[quote name=‘snorocket’]It looks like you would have to create a product named VIP Member, once the customer purchases the product VIP Member they would have access to the VIP usergroup…[/quote]

This process will be automatically or I have to assign the membership to the customers who have purchased the VIP Member manually?



I don’t see there is a way to make a product that after a purchase the customer will be assigned to VIP member automatically.



The case is simple: Buy a membership and have access to the products (informational) assigned to this membership.



Thanks.

7

The user group can be automatically assigned if:

  1. the VIP Membership product is set up as a subscription;
  2. the recurring plan used in the product is assigned to your VIP user group.



    You can then restrict access to your informational products to just the VIP user group in the product detail.



    I have done very limited testing with this but it looks like it should work.



    Bob
8

[quote name=‘jobosales’]The user group can be automatically assigned if:

  1. the VIP Membership product is set up as a subscription;
  2. the recurring plan used in the product is assigned to your VIP user group.



    You can then restrict access to your informational products to just the VIP user group in the product detail.



    I have done very limited testing with this but it looks like it should work.



    Bob[/QUOTE]

    Thanks for the explanation.



    This is still not clear maybe we need staff from cs-cart to explain this to us before the final release.
9

Here is the step-by-step:


  1. Create a product (e.g., VIP Club Membership);
  2. Create a recurring plan(s) (e.g., 3-month VIP Club Subscription, 1-year VIP Club Subscription) with the appropriate settings and with your VIP Club Membership product assigned on the ‘Products’ tab. If multiple plans are offered, the customer will be able to choose the plan on the "Subscriptions’ tab in the product details page;
  3. Create a VIP Club user group and assign your qualifying recurring plan(s) on the ‘Recurring plans’ tab. Make sure the status is set to "Active’.



    When the Customer purchases (subscribes to) your VIP Club Membership product, the VIP Club user group should be added automatically in the ‘User groups’ tab at Users->Customer with its status set to "active’.



    Bob
10

[quote name=‘jobosales’]Here is the step-by-step:


  1. Create a product (e.g., VIP Club Membership);
  2. Create a recurring plan(s) (e.g., 3-month VIP Club Subscription, 1-year VIP Club Subscription) with the appropriate settings and with your VIP Club Membership product assigned on the ‘Products’ tab. If multiple plans are offered, the customer will be able to choose the plan on the "Subscriptions’ tab in the product details page;
  3. Create a VIP Club user group and assign your qualifying recurring plan(s) on the ‘Recurring plans’ tab. Make sure the status is set to "Active’.



    When the Customer purchases (subscribes to) your VIP Club Membership product, the VIP Club user group should be added automatically in the ‘User groups’ tab at Users->Customer with its status set to "active’.



    Bob[/QUOTE]

    Thanks for the detail explanation. It should work, however, I think this addon or subscription feature is not finished yet. There are several problems.


  1. When the customer purchases a recurring plan or subscription product, yes, he got assigned to the user group, however, the status is active even the payment is not finished. This is a serious problem as they can get information for free without paying anything.
  2. More like a bug, when the customer finishes the checkout of subscription product, the customer is signed in, ok, no problem, at this time the user group is active, however, the customer still can not see the user group products. He must log out and log in again to see the user group products.
  3. When the customer unsubscribes the plan or product, the user group is still active for him.
  4. If a customer checkouts as guest, he’ll never see the user group products as he can not log in. I doubt how can he manage his subscriptions. 囧



    My suggestion:



    Sell Membership directly. No add to cart or what so ever. Just lock up everything until the customer finish the checkout process of the subscription. No other items can be added during this process, no guest checkout during this process. I think the best way is to learn other successful membership website on the market. Their solution must be more elegant than my suggestion.
11

hey guys im with you on this one. the recurring billing is flawed… it wasn’t well taught out. i mean let say i want to rent DVD or music or books. I sell the plan to pick any book.etc and then whats happens. This would be perfect in 2 ways. the 1st is already done you can sell like Hosting or something. The 2nd would make it perfect where when u acess the domian. you see the catalog and all items say subscribe or rent then if your a guest when you press rent a small lightbox comes up for memberships and the same checkout continues. once you pay the item no longer say rent they say add-to-list of something. The customer adds the products. on the backend the item sends out keeps a inventory of which customer has which item. itll sell ALOT!!! i gaurantee itll boost cs-cart ratings! their isnt a single system our their that does this. Personally if i had the knowledge i would make it and donate it to Cs-Cart because i love them that much!