I have a need for a Suppliers and drop shipping mod and I have been quoted by CS-Cart $500 to do the mod. It is too much for me to pay especially as my shop is small and is really only a form of low margin income to help pay the costs of running a website that is for community use in the area of recreational flying and helping to save the lives of recreational pilots who build their own aircraft etc.
So with this in mind I was wondering whether anyone else may be interested in going equal shares in the cost of getting it done (I think we would be allowed to do this although I am not sure) but if say 10 people also wanted the mod it would only cost us $50 each.
What are your thoughts and here is the description of the mod that I gave to CS-Cart:
An Enhancement/Modification
The objective is to provide a feature where shops order from their suppliers once an order is placed by a customer and the products are shipped direct from the supplier to the customer - often referred to as drop shipping and is included in most other carts although not with the advanced functionality as listed here.
New Table “suppliers”:
supplier_id
supplier_name
supplier_address1
supplier_address2
supplier_city
supplier_country
supplier_postcode
supplier_phone1
supplier_phone2
supplier_contact
supplier_contact_phone
supplier_contact_mobile
supplier_email
supplier_notes
New administration form page called Suppliers
New fields in Product table (these fields to be added to the products administration page):
supplier_id (many side of 1 to many from the supplier’s table)
cost_price (the cost price paid by the shop to the supplier)
email_supplier (yes/no check box to email supplier ref Functionality below)
New field in Order Status table (field to be included in the Order Statuses page):
email_supplier (yes/no check box to email supplier on status change ref Functionality below)
New email templates:
a) an email template used to email the supplier when order is first placed by a customer inc fields same as order to customer but to have new product table field of cost_price - this advises the supplier that a new order for their product(s) has been placed but wait till payment has been received before shipping and provides the opportunity for the supplier to advise the shop administrator of any pending problems with the pending order
b) an email template used to email the supplier when the order status field is changed to one that has the new field email_supplier set as true - this advises the supplier to now ship the product(s)
Functionality:
a) Customer places an order
b) Email automatically sent to supplier that an order has been placed and is pending payment but please advise shop administrator of any known problems with the order such as “Out of Stock” or “Discontinued Line” etc
c) Email is automatically sent to supplier to ship the product(s) when order status changes to payment received (or other type of status change as indicated by new field email_supplier in Statuses table)
Possible Issues:
a) Real Time Shipping would have to use the postcode field of the Supplier and not of the Store
b) Diffent scenarios for shipping would have to be considered when:
2 or more products are shipped from the same supplier
products in the order are from 2 or more different suppliers so seperate shipping costs have to be calculated
If the cost is low enough I would be interested in this mod. This mod would make it a lot easier for me than having call up my supplier like I have to now.
I asked them to reconsider their price given that my store is a community service based site and they have come back saying they will drop the price to $300 but may include the mod in the next release.
So it means I have to either:
Pay $300 to get it in about 6 weeks which is what I will basically have to pay to get it earlier then others if it is in the next release but means I am paying for the CS-CART product development.
Don’t pay anything and take the risk that it will be in the next release.
Pay $500 to know that I am not being exploited but that will prevent you guys from ever having it in a release which isn’t fair to you and means CS-CART will never have Suppliers in their product - seems like shooting yourself in the foot, doesn’t it?
But remember, there is more to this mod then just emailing Suppliers - imagine the margin analysis you can do by having the cost price, the saving of dramas when Suppliers are out of stock, better working relationships with Suppliers etc.
They haven’t said but what they did say was it would take 6 weeks to develop the mod and:
Actually, in accordance to our license policy, all custom code we make for our clients belong to our company and we reserve right to include any of custom development feature into nearest CS-Cart package by default. I mention such possibility in my previous response because longer timeframes for this task will allow us to develop this module right for the default package to release in a newest version.
How would inventory be handled with this drop shipping/supplier mod? Would each supplier have a separate inventory? And how would this work with the default order status design?
If all the above issues are resolved, we would be willing to pitch in ~$200 for this mod.
The CSCModClub is a new club that several of us are putting together that will organize and distribute various Mod’s and code hacks to the membership.
The purpose of the club is to have a central repository where CS-Cart developers and generally smart people can send their work and updates. We will be store all of the submissions and provide a list for members to use to access whatever mod they need for their store. We’ll also have a Wiki page for each of the submissions, so people can keep up to date on the latest versions.
We will also use the membership dues to fund development of mods that will be benefical to the membership. The reason joining the club is worthwhile is because when you join, you get access to everything. Every mod or hack in our library is downloadable. You can get one, two, or all of them.
The club itself probably won’t be fully operational for a couple of weeks while we’re putting together the website, and organizing the business, and we’re still deciding what the membership price and term will be.
We have a little bit of content on the website, www.CSCModClub.com, including a forum. Check it out.
Does anyone have any information on how to setup the drop shipping? I have a need to configure different drop shippers in my system. I have 4 differen drop shipper/supplier so I want them to get emails about new orders and the shipping cost should be calculated from the drop shippers location to the customers.
Sean
[quote name=‘jobosales’]Version 1.3.5 has support for suppliers/drop Shipping included.
Make sure Suppliers is checked in Addon-ons->Main in admin area. In the suppliers tab, make sure that “Multiple shipping method selectboxes” is checked if you have more than a single shipping method for any of your suppliers. “Display product supplier company” checkbox controls whether you display the supplier name to your customers on the product list/details pages
Set up your suppliers and set the supplier field on appropriate products.
Set up appropriate shipping methods for each of your suppliers. Set the supplier(s) this shipping method applies to (click the Edit link at the far right of the Shipping Method).
CS-Cart will calculate shipping based on the the shipping methods available for each supplier specified on the various products ordered. If products from various suppliers are placed on the same order, there will be multiple Shipping costs (each identified by supplier) on the order.
[quote name=‘jobosales’]1) Make sure Suppliers is checked in Addon-ons->Main in admin area. In the suppliers tab, make sure that “Multiple shipping method selectboxes” is checked if you have more than a single shipping method for any of your suppliers. “Display product supplier company” checkbox controls whether you display the supplier name to your customers on the product list/details pages
2) Set up your suppliers and set the supplier field on appropriate products.
3) Set up appropriate shipping methods for each of your suppliers. Set the supplier(s) this shipping method applies to (click the Edit link at the far right of the Shipping Method).
4) CS-Cart will calculate shipping based on the the shipping methods available for each supplier specified on the various products ordered. If products from various suppliers are placed on the same order, there will be multiple Shipping costs (each identified by supplier) on the order.
Bob
Edited: Added the Supplier Add-on information[/QUOTE]
