Wholesale problem & availability groups

[Vivian]

So Miva allows us to offer extra products on top of the regular selection to certain customers but what if we want to narrow the selection for our customers?
I need a way to have certain products disappear when I assign customer to availablity groups rather than have certain products available. My problem is that I sell products that I both manufacture and products that I purchase from other vendors. I cannot wholesale products that I purchase from other manufacturers and when a wholesale customer logs in I need to make it so that they see only the products we manufacture.
How the heck can I do this?

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

Re: Wholesale problem & availability groups

I dont think I completely understand your question here...

Why not setup seperate availability groups - each group would have its own set of categories, products, and customers to assign.

[Biffy]

Re: Wholesale problem & availability groups

One way for small inventories might be to give the wholesale products a different SKU, say add a suffix or something simple. They could then be listed separately in an availability group.

[Vivian]

Re: Wholesale problem & availability groups

Here is the doc for the availability group:
"By creating an availability group you can offer certain products or categories of products only to select customers. Those assigned to the group will see the assigned products when they are logged in, in addition to your normal products when they visit your store. Other shoppers will not see the assigned products."

The problem for me s that when they are logged in, they see those IN ADDition to the normal products. I need them to ONLY see the products checked.

[Marc Anderson]

Re: Wholesale problem & availability groups

I don't have a solution, I'm just suffering from the same problem and looking for an answer. When a customer logs in, I only want them to see a subset of available products, not all products plus additional products. To make things more difficult, I need the price group to somehow kick in so that when a preferred customer logs in, they see a select group of products at a discounted price. I have the price group thing fairly well solved, but now need to show a subset of the price group to a select group of customers. Suggestions?

[Vivian]

Re: Wholesale problem & availability groups

I think many people have this same issue. I was thinking of paying someone the development costs of building out a module and then reselling it to recoup the costs. Would you be interested in splitting costs/profit?

[Vivian]

Re: Wholesale problem & availability groups

Figured out a solution and it may not be exactly what you are looking for but it gets the job done. It divides your products up so that the wholesale people know what is available to them.:D

Assign a category to an availability group (I created a category that is called Wholesale.) Assign products to price groups. Add those products to the category but do not assign the products to the availability group. When a wholesaler logs in they will see the category wholesale and be able to see all the products for half price. If anyone else is logged in the category wholesale disappears. You just have to make it clear to your wholesale customers that they only get the wholesale pricing in the category marked wholesale!

[Marc Anderson]

Re: Wholesale problem & availability groups

I came up with another possible solution. I added all the wholesale only products to an availability group. That way, you do not see wholesale products unless you are signed in as a part of the availability group. To solve the price issue, I created a price group which includes ALL products and displays the "cost" in place of the "price" when a user is signed in as part of the price group. To solve the problem with the "retail only" products, I made price equal cost on those products only so that the same price displays regardless of whether someone is logged in or not. Then, I assigned identical user names and passwords to both the availability group and the price group. So, it has the effect of showing only retail products at retail "price" when you are not logged in, and then shows the additional "wholesale" products with the wholesale "cost" at the same time when a customer is logged in and part of both groups.

The only problem I am facing now (unless my experiment has a loophole somewhere) is that my client does not want products which are strictly "retail" to display when a wholesale customer logs in. I wanted to flag the "retail only" products as such and leave it at that, but he does not want them to display with the wholesale products even if the price is an irrelevent issue at that point. I need to figure out a way to not display "retail only" products when a wholesale customer signs in to the store. Suggestions? Thoughts?