First, the suggested solutions above are valid.
- You can either hide price name and set everything to 0. However you need to create/change
the checkout process considerably. And how orders are processed in the backend.
Plus hundreds of little bits and pieces in VM.
- You can decide to use VM as a catalogue only. (Settings already there in backend).
This gives product listings with no price and makes it possible for the customer to ask
for price via a separate function from within the product details page.
Personally I would go with the second solution, if you are set to use VM for this purpose.
Why? Simply because a couple of reasons:
- When is the deal really considered to be closed?
The legal perspective is important and according to most countries the deal you suggests
with payment with invoice, before customer has had a possibility to contemplate a price
is very much in the grey zone, if you catch my drift.
- This type of deal is commonly known as RFI/RFO (Request for Information / Offering).
And is mostly used in the area of services or complicated deals (read big business).
The appropriate steps in your case should then be:
1. Customer asks for Info/Offer.
2. You send the customer Info/Offer with prices, Terms & Conditions
3. If, but only if, customer agrees to the offer, you both sign off.
- Meaning he/she sends you a confirmation
- Meaning you send the invoice or invoice and merchandise.
(Here you can wait for payment before sending merchandise.
Be sure to mention how you do this in Terms & Conditions)
4. Confirm payment to customer via receipt or acceptance of payment.
Weak business deal for both you and customer.
Sending an invoice before any agreement on pricing, even if customer choose to click
some nice images on the Internet, all falls into the category of not so normal business.
Because that clicking and reading of Terms & Conditions on the last checkout page falls flat to the ground if the customer decides to back out of the deal. Because he can give a very valid reasons not to complete the transaction.
(You notice I refrain from saying illegal? Well, I'm close...)...but please understand this correctly from a business perspective:
- What rules and regulations governs your business and your presumptive buyers?
- What does tax authorities need to see? An how is your accounting going to look like? These are the first questions that has to be answered, before performing any practical work.
I really hope you go with the catalogue function in VM. I think both you and your customers would be satisfied with that arrangement.
Best regards & whises
Akerman