Variable Product Display - Depending on Order Date

[Fishman]

Hi there,

Here's a question from way out in left field.....and perhaps something beyond MM5's capability.

We run an online food store. At the moment customers order for one specific delivery date specified by us. They do not get to choose which day they get delivery due to the extreme perishability of our fresh seafood products.

Not all our products are perishable ... or certainly not as perishable as live shellfish or fresh fish. Not all our customers order these perishable products.

We have maxed out the number of deliveries we can do on our fixed delivery days (2 days per week). We want to expand the number of deliveries we do a week and the only feasible way of doing this is to expand the number of delivery days and allow the customer flexibility on which day they want delivery. The problem is this. If the customer is shopping on Sunday and sees fresh flounder in the shop they may choose this fish and request it to be delivered on Friday. The fish will be rotten by Friday and as a wild catch product may not be restocked before Friday.

In theory I know how we can achieve this but I don't know if MM5 is capable of working in the manner we need. The store would have to work like this:

1. Customers would be forced to Login before shopping
2. At Login they would have to choose their desired delivery day
3. Depending on which day they choose, products will appear, disappear or appear as unavailable. For instance a person ordering on Sunday for Tuesday delivery will be able to see and choose from a selection of fresh fish, live shellfish and all other perishable products. A person shopping on Sunday for delivery on Wed, Thurs, Fri or later would not be able to choose from the fresh fish selections but would be able to all other categories.

So - are there any developers out there with possible solutions or do we need to dump Miva in favour of another shopping cart system?

[Kent Multer]

Re: Variable Product Display - Depending on Order Date

Hi Fishman --

This is not a trivial project, but the Miva cart is very flexible. I've done custom shipping modules for stores whose requirements were even stranger than yours :^) . Rather than make products disappear, I would recommend just hiding the add-to-basket buttons, so customers can always view all your products. It's even possible to have each product display a small list of the available dates. That way, customers can alter their delivery date during the shopping session, if they find that their favorite item is available on some other date.

If you want to discuss the project in detail, please contact me by email.

Thanks --

[wcw]

Re: Variable Product Display - Depending on Order Date

Use a custom product field to maintain which days of the week the product can be ordered. Then test which day of the week it is. Then as Kent said, just hide the add to basket button if the product is not eligible for that day of the week. The time consuming thing would be for you to decide which days of the week a product could be ordered and put that info in the custom field. The easy part is using a module like the Emporium Plus Tool Kit to determine the day of the week and compare against the data in that custom field; then hide the button as applicable.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Variable Product Display - Depending on Order Date

This is not about how, but more, what.

If possible, given your companies abilities, I would recommend two changes to your basic approach:

1) Do not require customers to log in...they wont.
2) Show WHEN the product is available, and by that, if I'm looking at Scallops, let me know that today I can order it for Monday or Tuesday delivery (for example).
And, you will want a very streamlined method for updating this information, as apparently, you will be doing it EVERY day.

[tk2k]

Re: Variable Product Display - Depending on Order Date

Am I understanding this correctly? If you do the "add-to-basket" method, they can't order until the day that product is actually available? But you can't use that method if you want to order on Monday for the Thursday product?

[jsisk]

Re: Variable Product Display - Depending on Order Date

This is based on the assumption that the item is available today and needs to be delivered as soon as possible. (next available delivery day)

Create a custom product field for Fresh items and populate it with YES for your fresh items that must be delivered on the next possible delivery day. (people that want scallops will accept delivery on whatever day is required to get the scallops) Add script to product template (and category page if desired) to test whether fresh EQ yes. Once you do this, you can do just about anything with Miva and Toolkit.

You can...

Display a message on the product page for the item the states "This is a fresh item and requires delivery on TUESDAY" by testing the current day (as suggested by Bill) and inserting the next available delivery day. Example: if today equals Saturday, or Sunday delivery day equals Monday; if today equals Wednesday delivery day equals Thursday. You will have to write conditionals for each of the seven days and map them to the appropriate delivery days. (we did this with our specials to test the percentage off and display a different message for each percentage on our category and product pages)

On the basket screen, test whether or not an item is flagged as fresh and if so display a message such as "Your basket contains Fresh fish. In order to assure that your fresh fish arrives fresh your delivery day has been set for TUESDAY"

I would suggest using Bill's addendum to allow customers to select their delivery day during checkout and have it print on your invoice and packing list. You may be able to use a conditional to check for the assigned delivery day and replace the delivery choices with a fix delivery day and message referring to the fresh items. (check with Bill to be sure) We do a simialr function with gift card/message - we test whether the first names of the bill to and ship to are different and display the gift card/message addendum option if they are different. If they are the same, the option does not appear.

Once everything is in place, all you need to do is update and upload a simple data file each day that contains fields for:
Item Number, Stock Level (if you hide out of stock items this will allow you to only display the fresh items you have each day), and Price (assuming your market price may change since your last delivery) Should only take a few minutes each morning when you get your deliveries in. Just need to make sure that the Fresh field is populated with yes for any new fresh products added to the store.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Variable Product Display - Depending on Order Date

Ditto what Bruce said. Making customers login BEFORE adding an item to their cart is a great way to turn customers away...