E-commerce orders for a gift list

November 6, 2008 11:11 AM

Question about setting up a Web shopping cart that would send a list of orders to a list of different addresses.

My client owns a winery, which currently ships out individual orders using the Nexternal e-commerce software.

He'd like to set up a system so that, for the holidays, a business could send bottles of wine to a list of dozens of clients at different addresses.
If possible, he'd like them to be able to copy a list from an Excel spreadsheet, paste it into the Web site, and have it talk to Nexternal to put in a single order for all those people.

Was wondering if anyone knows an easy way to do this. Open to switching to Zen Cart or another system. Any help much appreciated. Difficulty level: I'm pretty good with PHP and stuff, but new to shopping carts.

posted by Kirklander to computers & internet (2 comments total)

Email my ecommerce guy: peter at servelink.com. He knows what the code base I've used can do. He can tell you if he offers anything that will work, and if not, he can probably turn you on to the right solution. Tell him DeAnne at Soapy Hollow sent you. (I don't get a referral or anything...just in case he wonders how you got his email.)
posted by dejah420 at 2:40 PM on November 6, 2008

I’d first focus on clarifying the needs of the shoppers:

Need #1.) Shoppers need to manage their Accounts which may include a list of Ship-To’s.

Need #2.) Shoppers need to create Ship-To’s by uploading an Excel file.

Need #3.) Shoppers need to associate each Shopping Cart Line Item with a different Ship-To.

This seems like the starting point. We’d then need to flush-out complexities like splitting line items where the quantity is greater than 1 and the impact to Shipping Cost calculations when we have multiple Ship-To’s on an Order.

I would keep the implementation simple by separating the functions referenced above instead of trying to create a Multi-Ship-To Shopping Cart/Order in one shot.
posted by meifool at 3:03 PM on November 6, 2008