Help me think through this problem
Printed From: ProductCart E-Commerce Solutions
Category: ProductCart
Forum Name: Using ProductCart
Forum Description: Running your store with ProductCart
URL: https://forum.productcart.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=3846
Printed Date: 03-March-2025 at 5:18pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Help me think through this problem
Posted By: cs
Subject: Help me think through this problem
Date Posted: 12-July-2010 at 10:29pm
I build lab supply kits for a popular text book. I also sell the books on my website. I sell them at a 20% discount off retail. That discount is pretty much the standard that all the other retailers use.
The author of the text book sells the books on her website at full retail. (I believe that she has to because of an agreement with the publisher.) She wants to send her customers to my website so they will buy my supply kits and she keeps a commission. A typical affiliate relationship.
EXCEPT
She, of course, does not want her customers to see that I sell my books for less than she sells hers.
Is there any way to set up the cart so that I can sell kits to her customers at retail, my customers at a discount, and her customers not be able to see the discounted products on my website?
Please help me think through the possibilities.
Thanks!
|
Replies:
Posted By: whizzinpc
Date Posted: 13-July-2010 at 2:52pm
Maybe create a seperate static page for your supply kits and give it a seperate header and footer so her customers cant link to other pages of your site. You can prob create a sub domain also to hide your real URL from them too.
|
Posted By: Hamish
Date Posted: 13-July-2010 at 6:10pm
Hi,
If your store uses an SSL I suspect you would run into problems using a sub-domain as the session is likely to change when switching to the SSL pages, so anything placed in the cart would be "lost".
Personally I suspect you would be on a hiding to nothing as, although it's almost certainly possible to achieve something along these lines - HOWEVER (in very big letters) - Customers WILL work it out (almost certainly) - perhaps returning to your store for a subsequent order or whatever & unhappy customers can be very vocal on the web! Offering them a better deal is one thing, but offering them a worse one is rarely tolerated.
That said,having re-read your post it seems you want to hide her books on the store front from customers visiting via her affiliate link.
One fairly simple option is to add code to the menu to check for her affiliate ID and NOT show the category with her books in. The variable is idAffiliate .
The caveats are :
- It would hide the whole category, so if possible put her book(s) in their own category or sub-category so that hiding it has minimal impact.
- Regenerating the menu would mean you would need to re-add the code to hide that category (unless you mod the code that build the menus).
- It wouldn't hide her books from searches etc, just from the normal menu.
- The supply kits could not include her book (or links to it such as cross-selling).
HTH
-------------
Editing ProductCart Code?
See http://wiki.earlyimpact.com/developers/editcode" rel="nofollow - WIKI Guidelines for Editing ProductCart's ASP Source Code
|
|