Hi there,
I'm developing a site for a client with Developer v6.
The client is a women's organisation. They hold a conference for members each year, and also sell a number of branded products. The brief was to create a secure online shop where people could book and pay for conference tickets, and buy products, using their credit cards.
I selected Actinic as the best package to fulfill this brief, and have almost completed the site. However, while I was at the head office at the other end of the country installing their copy of Order Manager and showing them how to use it, they mentioned the following things:
[list=1][*]they want conference bookings to go to one person in the office and all other purchases to go to another person[*]they would prefer the conference booking to be in the same style as the conference section of the website rather than the shop section of the website[*]they do not want the conference page to appear in the shop because they do not want people to place purchases for both things in one order (because of point 1)[*]the person who handles conference bookings charges a percentage handling fee, whereas the other purchases do not charge any handling fee[/list=1]
I have explained why my preference is to use the shop layout and system to process all online orders:
[list=1][*]you cannot have multiple download machines for one Actinic shop[*]even if you could have multiple download machines, it would not be possible to send orders for one product to one machine and all others to another[*]the handling fee can be treated as a "tax" in the set-up and just applied to the conference tickets, which would ensure it was only charged for them and not for all products[*]the checkout style cannot be changed for individual products, so even if I changed the template for the conference tickets, the checkout would still be in the style of the rest of the shop site. This switching of styles would be confusing for users and not build confidence in the online payment. It would build confidence more if all payments (whether for conference tickets or other products) went through exactly the same style and layout.[*]If I hid the conference page from the catalog homepage and the menu, it would still turn up in the search results and once someone had purchased tickets it would bounce them back to the shop homepage, not the conference page. This would also be confusing.[*]as orders can be processed in parts, and all payment details can be printed out, it is easy for two people in the same office to use one copy of Order Manager to process their own bits of an order separately[*]it is the cheapest option as it only requires one shop site, one copy of Order Manager, one domain name and one SSL certificate[/list=1]
However, they seem determined... Internal politics...
It seems to me that the only option is to set up an entirely separate shop for just the conference registration. This seems completely pointless, as they only take bookings for 3 months in each year, the identity of the conference changes each year so it will make it more expensive for the conference registration to be updated each year - instead of just altering product details the whole shop site will need re-designing to fit the conference style, etc etc.
Can anyone help me in trying to come up with a way around?
For example, is it possible to run two "shops" on the same domain name? (They would essentially be two parts of the same shop as it's the same organisation and bank details, but they would differ in style and in the person downloading the order, which I think would have to make them different Actinic "shops" with separate licences.) My guess would be no, as all Actinic shops use the same named folders and perl scripts then I don't see how two separate ones can be run on the same web space.
So, if they are determined to have the conference booking in a different style and for all the other orders to go to a different person, do I have to purchase a separate domain name and hosting package with another SSL certificate just for the conference section?
Does anyone have any other ideas?
Sorry for the length of this message - I think I must have had some spleen to vent...
Lizzy
I'm developing a site for a client with Developer v6.
The client is a women's organisation. They hold a conference for members each year, and also sell a number of branded products. The brief was to create a secure online shop where people could book and pay for conference tickets, and buy products, using their credit cards.
I selected Actinic as the best package to fulfill this brief, and have almost completed the site. However, while I was at the head office at the other end of the country installing their copy of Order Manager and showing them how to use it, they mentioned the following things:
[list=1][*]they want conference bookings to go to one person in the office and all other purchases to go to another person[*]they would prefer the conference booking to be in the same style as the conference section of the website rather than the shop section of the website[*]they do not want the conference page to appear in the shop because they do not want people to place purchases for both things in one order (because of point 1)[*]the person who handles conference bookings charges a percentage handling fee, whereas the other purchases do not charge any handling fee[/list=1]
I have explained why my preference is to use the shop layout and system to process all online orders:
[list=1][*]you cannot have multiple download machines for one Actinic shop[*]even if you could have multiple download machines, it would not be possible to send orders for one product to one machine and all others to another[*]the handling fee can be treated as a "tax" in the set-up and just applied to the conference tickets, which would ensure it was only charged for them and not for all products[*]the checkout style cannot be changed for individual products, so even if I changed the template for the conference tickets, the checkout would still be in the style of the rest of the shop site. This switching of styles would be confusing for users and not build confidence in the online payment. It would build confidence more if all payments (whether for conference tickets or other products) went through exactly the same style and layout.[*]If I hid the conference page from the catalog homepage and the menu, it would still turn up in the search results and once someone had purchased tickets it would bounce them back to the shop homepage, not the conference page. This would also be confusing.[*]as orders can be processed in parts, and all payment details can be printed out, it is easy for two people in the same office to use one copy of Order Manager to process their own bits of an order separately[*]it is the cheapest option as it only requires one shop site, one copy of Order Manager, one domain name and one SSL certificate[/list=1]
However, they seem determined... Internal politics...
It seems to me that the only option is to set up an entirely separate shop for just the conference registration. This seems completely pointless, as they only take bookings for 3 months in each year, the identity of the conference changes each year so it will make it more expensive for the conference registration to be updated each year - instead of just altering product details the whole shop site will need re-designing to fit the conference style, etc etc.
Can anyone help me in trying to come up with a way around?
For example, is it possible to run two "shops" on the same domain name? (They would essentially be two parts of the same shop as it's the same organisation and bank details, but they would differ in style and in the person downloading the order, which I think would have to make them different Actinic "shops" with separate licences.) My guess would be no, as all Actinic shops use the same named folders and perl scripts then I don't see how two separate ones can be run on the same web space.
So, if they are determined to have the conference booking in a different style and for all the other orders to go to a different person, do I have to purchase a separate domain name and hosting package with another SSL certificate just for the conference section?
Does anyone have any other ideas?
Sorry for the length of this message - I think I must have had some spleen to vent...
Lizzy
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