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Wholesale multiple categories, discounts and forced minimum purchase minimums

Started by nickwalks, June 07, 2012, 07:42:24 AM

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nickwalks

Hello,

Please forgive me if this has been answered before but I couldn't find an answer anywhere.

I have a client who is a wholesaler but their website is old and outdated. I have put forward VirtueMart 2.0 as the solution (aiming to use Joomla 2.5).
I have a few sites running on Joomla 1.5.26 and VM 1.1.9 but these are all for retail stores (see something you like, click add to cart, checkout, pay and you're done).

The tricky part for this potential site is next and what I am curious if VirtueMart achieve.
The store has separate categories with multiple sub-categories
eg. records > albums / singles and
     cds > albums / singles

A buyer cannot just buy 1 item as it is targeted at wholesale customers. (there are separate minimum purchase rules in place where x,y,a & b are all update-able)
In one category:
they must either buy (x) quantity to receive (a) discount price or
they must buy (y) quantity to receive (b) discount price.

Eg. for records category x=8, a=40% and y=12, b=50%
Say all records (albums and singles) are listed at a wholesale price of $100 each.
A buyer must either add 8 items to receive a 40% discount (total would be $800 - $320 = $480 total) or
add 12 items to receive a 50% discount (total would be $1200 - $600 = $600 total)

They don't need to add 8 of one item to proceed but must add at least 8 items from records category to process the order.

Then for cds category x=5, a=20% and y=8, b=30%
If cds are $20 each a buyer must add 5 items to receive 20% discount (total would be $100 - $20 = $80 total) or
add 8 items to receive 30% discount (total would be $160 - $48 = $112 total)

Again they must have at least 5 items from cds category to process the order.

So the questions are:
A) will VM allow us to force (variable) minimum quantities for different categories and
B) will VM allow us to set up (variable) multiple discount rates per quantity in multiple categories

a nice to have:
C) keep a running total of separate category orders

The client's current website does all this but it is very clunky and seems like an old system. I would really like to bring it up to date using VM.

Any advice or guidance here would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
walks

nickwalks

Ok maybe my first question was too long...

I think I have found an answer on how to apply a quantity based price calculation here:
http://extensions.virtuemart.net/extensions-virtuemart-2/quantity-related-calculation-detail

Haven't tried it but it sounds like this plugin will apply different discounts based on different quantities and in different categories - perfect.

The only question I still need answered is 'can we set up minimum purchase amounts per category?' not just a 'Minimum purchase order value for your shop'
Is this possible with VM 2.0? My client's existing system does it and it dates back to ye olde ancient times...
Please anyone - any feedback would be really appreciated..

balai

Check Product Builder its ideal for wholesale where the buyer does not buy just a single item.
http://breakdesigns.net/extensions/vm-product-builder

Also you can set the min/max quantity

jenkinhill

Kelvyn
Lowestoft, Suffolk, UK

Retired from forum life November 2023

Please mention your VirtueMart, Joomla and PHP versions when asking a question in this forum

nickwalks

Thanks balai - Product Builder looks like a good component but not exactly what I am after.

Thanks jenkinhill - Yes the link you posted leads to the same component I had mentioned previously which solves quantity based discounts in categories.

The final question that is stumping me is:

can we enable minimum purchase quantities within a category rather than the entire store?

One category may require 6 items to be purchased where another may have a 2 item minimum.
It sounds simple to me but I can't find a solution for Virtuemart anywhere...

I am happy to look at hiring someone if this requires a programmer to build in this functionality. Suggestions?

balai

Hi

I think that you can so it with some customization.
This is how i m thinking of it.
1. Create a database table where you will store the min, max quantity per category (Optionaly you can create a GUI to handle that but you can write directly to the db table too)
2. Change the add to cart script to control the quantity based on a category and either accept it or not.

nickwalks

Nearly 3 months on and I still haven't been able to solve this problem.
Solutions I have tried:
1) the nice folk at polished geek mentioned developing a component 'Purchasing Rules 2.0' estimating a release date of late July/early August. So I waited, the expected release date came and went. I was then informed that due to a heavy workload of other custom commissioned work, PR for VM2 might not be ready in a time frame that works for me. :(
2) I purchased the quantity based calculation component for 35 euro: http://extensions.virtuemart.net/extensions-virtuemart-2/quantity-related-price-calculation-detail
It works great for discounts on quantities of single items but I couldn't get it to work for sub categories or child items. I contacted the developer of the component whose response was 'this is really hard to achieve.'  :(
3) I contacted developers at NetBase who agreed to take on the custom project. After working on finding a solution for the last 7 days I have just been notified that my deposit is being refunded as the customization is too complicated.  :(

Can anyone please suggest how to achieve:
a) multiple discounts applied across categories rather than only per item
b) minimum purchase quantities by category rather than the entire store

I am happy to pay a developer but just cannot find anyone who can provide a solution. Anyone have any ideas??

thelake

The developer gives the answer:

"the quantity extension just extend the normal pricing rules. So you can make it category depended. So it works for all pencils of a category. But it wont calculate 5 different pencils together, hmmm, intersting idea of course."

http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=102379.msg343752#msg343752

Perhaps  I am wrong, but it seems the Quantity Plugin cannot add several products in ONE category...
I am able to get some quantity discount for single products or the whole cart, but NOT for several products in a category

Is there a Developer to achieve this???