Wholesale products |
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john123
Newbie Joined: 09-January-2008 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 2 |
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Posted: 22-July-2008 at 1:16am |
Hi,
I am currently adding all my products in the ProductCart database ver 3.12.
I do retail as well as wholesale but some of my products are not applicable to wholesale pricing. Can I hide or filter these non-wholesale products in the store when wholesale customers are logged in?
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Hamish
Admin Group Joined: 12-October-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 56 |
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Hi John,
By default ProductCart allows you to hide wholesale products from retail customers if you wish, but not the other way around. Part of the reason for this is that customers who are not logged in can see all the products which are not "Wholesale only". Is there any reason you don't want your wholesale customers buying your retail products at retail prices? If not, then let them do so if they wish :-) In summary :- Not logged in = Retail Logged in + Retail = Retail Logged in + Wholsale = Wholesale I have in the past modified a store so that wholesale and retail customers saw completely different products as the company involved sold medical supplies and the retail side was very different indeed from the products they sold to the trade. It didn't mean the wholesale customers could never see the other products though, as until they logged in they would see the retail version of the store. It is possible to prevent customers seeing any products AT ALL until they are logged in but generally this is "a bad idea" as it discourages new customers. As you are placing product links in your existing HTML code it won't be possible AFAIK to hide those links. |
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john123
Newbie Joined: 09-January-2008 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 2 |
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Hi Hamish,
The reason I wanted to hide the products is because the retail customers (stores) would never buy at retail prices. I don't think it looks proper to show them the products that are not available for wholesale. Also, I am trying to make my wholesale business stronger and showing products that are not applicable for wholesale does not make me look like a true supplier.
I could live with this for now but could this fall under a customization if I needed it?
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katharina
Senior Member Joined: 25-October-2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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I've played around this issue too. We do wholesale, but not all items qualify for wholesale either. For now we are telling wholesale customers what categories are retail priced only. A way around it would be creating a new category called "Wholesale Items Only" and make this only visible to logged in wholesale customers. They still see the other categories, so it does not address it completely. I guess giving another option for categories to show to either retail, wholesale or both would be a solution. I hope EI picks up on it, since this seems to be not to far fetched from what is in place.
Katharina |
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Hamish
Admin Group Joined: 12-October-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 56 |
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Hi Katharina,
The big issue here is - What is someone who is not logged in? I can't really see any alternative than treating them as a retail customer at that point. It's certainly possible, with a fairly small amount of customisation, to hide retail products from wholesale customers AFTER they have logged in, but until that point there is no way of distinguishing them from the rest of the customers, they are just an anonymous surfer like everyone else. One option is to run a separate site, or a sub-site, which requires login and is dedicated to your wholesale customers only. I believe you can run off the same DB, but I've never done this myself. If you set up the website navigation in a suitable manner it's possible to guide your wholesale customers to sign-in at the very beginning to visit the wholesale side of the store, but I very much doubt it's possible to prevent them seeing your retail store. An analogy is a physical store. Any store open to the public is, by it's very nature, open to everyone, wholesale clients, rivals, anyone. Some physical stores are "Trade Only" and you need membership to access them. Some companies operate both types, but often do so under different brand names. On PC as it stands, what wholesale customers DO SEE is the difference in price that they are getting from retail customers (if the product has a retail price), for example :- Price: £99.99 List Price: £109.99 Wholesale Price: £55.55 It would be possible to hide the retail and/or list price with a small amount of customisation for LOGGED IN wholesale customers. As always, it comes down to the particular circumstances of each company :-) |
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Hamish
Admin Group Joined: 12-October-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 56 |
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Of course, if your savings for wholesale customers is significant - then having them see what a great deal they are getting is a good thing! :-)
Hi John, I just re-read your original question & yes - It's possible to hide items from LOGGED IN wholesale customers (on ProductCart pages). The way I would achieve this is add products which are available to Wholesale customers to a set of categories which are Wholesale ONLY and then show different menus of products depending on whether the customer is a Wholesale customer or not. Products can belong to more than one category. It would take some customisation to achieve, but from memory, not a huge amount. |
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katharina
Senior Member Joined: 25-October-2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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Hi, Harmish. It would be foulish to hide the retail pricing form the wholesale customer. They will find your prices anyway. The point is for example you have 10,000 products, but only 500 have wholesale pricing. (I think that was what the original poster was after.) It would be hard for the wholesale customer to weed through them to find wholesale products. Creating a category that is only visible to wholesalers after loggin, as I've said before, is the best solution. That is currently in place. I simply had the suggestion to perhaps enhance this a step further to give more options to the category, by offering to show categories to wholesale, retail, or both. You are right with the question what to show to those not logged in. My answer would be retail. Perhaps something to be set in the store settings.
Katharina |
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john123
Newbie Joined: 09-January-2008 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 2 |
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Hi Katharina,
Just to clarify...
If I create 2 categories (Retail and Wholesale) the wholesale customer will still see the Retail category, correct?
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katharina
Senior Member Joined: 25-October-2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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By default you will see the retail category before login. After login the retail customer will still only see the retail category. The wholesale customer will see both after login. Below in a table format.
No login: retail customer - retail categories wholesale customer - retail categories After login: retail customer - retail categories wholesale customer - retail and wholesale categories So there is no way of hiding the retail categories to the wholesale customer. But that is not the point I think. I think the idea is to have a clean look to the wholesale customer without having to weed through products. For that it will work well. Katharina |
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john123
Newbie Joined: 09-January-2008 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 2 |
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So does this mean I need to create another set of product ID's for a wholesale category?In other words, duplicate products? |
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