About custom-product feasibility

[Giampaolo]

Hi all,

I'm evaluating KonaKart for a site I have to do and I have some question to spare.

I did not yet install KonaKart, so please pardon me if my questions are not well-formed.

My intention is to put together OpenCms and KonaKart into a JBoss under Linux, and backed by PostgreSQL. KonaKart would of course be used as an e-commerce engine and most of the features it offers seem to fit the ones I need. However, I have some requirements which may need some kind of customization. So, my questions:

• I would need to create a special class of products, which are basically "crafted work" in which the user sends a unique file which is to be "tied" to that product. At backoffice, a physical product (basically, a print) is made using that file. Do you believe this is a complex customization?


• At least for this very same class of products, I would need to introduce something like a price-per-quantity, which may be tied to a group of customers. Again, do you believe this is complex to do?

Do you have any suggestion to spare in the JBoss+OpenCms+KonaKart mixup?

Thank you,

Giampaolo

[kate]

Hi Giampaolo,

Your platform choice JBoss+OpenCms+KonaKart sounds fine.

I don't fully understand what you're trying to achieve with your implementation but with the rich supply of APIs and custom fields to program KonaKart you should have no problem.   

BTW. Different customer groups can have different prices defined.

Kate

[trevor]

I would need to create a special class of products, which are basically "crafted work" in which the user sends a unique file which is to be "tied" to that product. At backoffice, a physical product (basically, a print) is made using that file. Do you believe this is a complex customization?

You can save the file name in a custom field of the line item of the order when the order is made.

At least for this very same class of products, I would need to introduce something like a price-per-quantity, which may be tied to a group of customers. Again, do you believe this is complex to do?

You can set up promotions to give quantity discounts and these promotions can be given rules so that they become active only for customers belonging to a particular customer group.

[Giampaolo]

Kate and Trevor, thank you for your prompt reply.

You can save the file name in a custom field of the line item of the order when the order is made.

Since there may be many different prints in the same order, I would prefer not to save a reference to the image file in the line item of the order, but instead to have a separate, custom table defining it. Can the quantity field in the line item be a computed field instead of a fixed one? In my case, it would basically be the number of rows in the custom table referencing the given line item in order.

You can set up promotions to give quantity discounts and these promotions can be given rules so that they become active only for customers belonging to a particular customer group.

Can KonaKart handle more quantity discounts per product? I mean, something more like the prices in this:

http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=2660007

See? Different prices per different quantities.


Thank you again.

[julie]

Since there may be many different prints in the same order, I would prefer not to save a reference to the image file in the line item of the order, but instead to have a separate, custom table defining it. Can the quantity field in the line item be a computed field instead of a fixed one? In my case, it would basically be the number of rows in the custom table referencing the given line item in order

.

The quantity isn't fixed. It is normally selected by a customer but could also be computed using whatever algorithm you want.

Can KonaKart handle more quantity discounts per product? I mean, something more like the prices in this:
http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=2660007
See? Different prices per different quantities.

You can achieve this using product attributes. Each attribute is a quantity range and provides a delta on the original price. Based on the quantity chosen by the customer you add the product to the cart selecting the appropriate attribute behind the scenes so that a different price is selected.

[Giampaolo]

Thank you everybody for your usefull hints and suggestions!

I appreciate.

Giampaolo