Thread: Looking for points functionality

I am looking for a shopping cart that is completely based upon points until the checkout. Please let me know how much of this is possible out of the box and how much of it needs to be done via source code customization

1. Customers are preloaded or loadded nightly with points from an outside source (That would have to done with interfacing from an outside system. Custom work)

2. Customer comes to the store and w/o signing in... can shop around the store and see all of the products in the store. All of the amounts are expressed in points only, never in dollars.

3. If a customer comes in via a link from website A they see only a certain set of products. If they come in from site B they can only see a different set of products.

4. The amount in the cart is expressed in points. When the customer goes to checkout they have to sign in so they can use their points to check out.

5. If the customer has enought points the checkout proceeds normally and the person can complete a checkout with spending any money.

6. If the point balance for the customer is less than the shopping cart total the customer needs to use some form of currency to pay the difference.

Thanks,
Patrick

Actually most of that is supported out of the box with our Micro-pay functionality. You will (I am sure) need to do a bit of customization to streamline things the way you want, but micropay works just like a currency, or credit system rather. If they didn't have enough "points" (Micropay credits) they can purchase more through the site. They equate with currency in a 1:1 ratio.

1. So can they be preloaded?

2. Can that ratio be changed - 1:1 ? Can I change it to 100:1 ?

Yes, that can be preloaded in the customer's account in the admin. Here's the manual.

That is a pretty short manual. I hope there is alot of help in the forums.

What about my other question - can the ratio be changed from something other than 1:1 ?

With customization, yes. The manual only covers the built-in functionality of the feature. Like Dan said, most of what you're after is supported but there is going to be some customization necessary. For that you should certainly be able to get some help here in the forums.

Am I going to have to buy the source code to accomplish this?

Yes, several of those items would require changes to the core code. For instance:

If a customer comes in via a link from website A they see only a certain set of products. If they come in from site B they can only see a different set of products.

- You would probably want to build this on the base customer level functionality (which lets you restrict which products are visible to whom), but it's going to take customization to base that on site referrer.

If the point balance for the customer is less than the shopping cart total the customer needs to use some form of currency to pay the difference.

- We currently support only a single form of payment. Splitting payment between options is going to take some work.