Thread: "Reserve and Collect" Ecommerce software

Hi everyone,

Just churning out an idea at the moment at work. It's not something that we'll definetley be doing, but if I see enough potential, my boss has given me the go-ahead. Really I'm just investigating costs and potential now.

The shop I work in, is a fairly small shop, selling computer and music accessories, and our profits wouldn't be big enough to carry loads of stock at any one time. So, what I'm looking into at the moment is an ordering system for our website (eg. PCshop1.ie).

Now, when "Joe Soaps" is looking for a "HDMI cable", he won't just be travelling in from the countryside into our shop to find that we're out of stock and it'll be next week before we get our next delivery.

We want to be able to have Joe be able to go onto PCShop1.ie, check around for a suitable HDMI cable, which will cost €35. He will press the order button. A few months before this, he had came into our shop with photo ID and we verified his address. We entered his name into our system and gave him an account username & password. (sorta like Xtra-Vision or any DVD rental shops basically)

At this point, Joe has just ordered a HDMI cable from us which will cost him €35. We will be sourcing this cable for resale from one of our suppliers - CompuSupplies25. At 3pm, the next day, we will ring in our orders with all the suppliers, including Joe Soaps' order.

A few days later, the item arrives in our shop, we email Joe to tell him we have his order in stock. He will then come in, pay for his goods, and we'll have one more happy customer.

Now for the hardest bit of all:
Is there any suitable webbased ecommerce apps out there that i could use, preferably php/mysql, that I will have to do as little hand coding as possible?

I know I'm basically going to have to get a ecommerce script anyway and remove the whole shopping cart bit, and replace it with just an "order here" button, but I'm looking for the safest and easiest way of doing it.

Also, note that there will be no credit card information passing through the website, but I intend on having SSL anyway. I have a fairly decent level of knowledge of PHP/shopping cart systems and all that lingo already, so I shouldn't have too much trouble understanding what i'm being told.

Thanks in Advance.
Nev.

Just a quick question, as why you don't want to process everything online. i.e. someone searches for "HDMI cables online" and find your store. Sadly they can't order it for the safety of their home, so they will go to another shop online that google tells them.

As for your question, ecommerce isn't really my area, but I'm sure there are some people who can help ya on here.

I have to agree with Paul. If the user has gone to the better of searching online for the product there is nothing stopping him/her from purchasing the product from an ecommerce site that actually does do shipping.

As long as you ship the goods quickly you don't need to have them in stock.

If you were making me jump through hoops like that I'd simply buy the item elsewhere

Well, i haven't got statistics sitting beside me, but the idea of the website is really aimed for young people who haven't got credit cards, or indeed older people in the same situation. Our other target people are the people who have credit cards but don't want to use them online (we take responsibility for the product if anything goes wrong anywhere before it reaches the customer.

Also, if a customer does have a problem with the product, likewise, just as they bought it from us, they can return it again. We also provide support on anything we sell, or that comes through us. So whether the less tech savvy people have credit cards or not, they may just want the comfort of being able to come in with their iPod and ask us why it's not working with their PC.

The product (or should I say 'service') isn't aimed at people like you, who are comfortable on the internet, using forums, etc, who know all about using credit cards, and how to fix problems. Also, regarding price of buying products from our system, will only be marginally more expensive than large websites like komplett or play.com

please do tell me if I am raving, but I do think it seems like a good idea

thanks for your replies
Nev

I am with Paul, Blacknight and Cormac on this one. If someone is searching online they will purchase online unless you are just a few miles away from thier location. With postage cheap or sometimes even free why would they waste diesel or petrol travelling many miles to your store. Where your store will work is that if you promote it well within your local area, give new customers flyers about the website etc, it effectively then opens your store 24/7 to clients in the local area. With our ecommerce setup and most other carts you can offer options for payment, such as payment on collection or will send cheque.
In general you will find the majority of your customers will have credit cards and this is a sector of the market you really do not want to miss out on.

Originally Posted by Wild Thing

I am with Paul, Blacknight and Cormac on this one. If someone is searching online they will purchase online unless you are just a few miles away from thier location. With postage cheap or sometimes even free why would they waste diesel or petrol travelling many miles to your store. Where your store will work is that if you promote it well within your local area, give new customers flyers about the website etc, it effectively then opens your store 24/7 to clients in the local area. With our ecommerce setup and most other carts you can offer options for payment, such as payment on collection or will send cheque.
In general you will find the majority of your customers will have credit cards and this is a sector of the market you really do not want to miss out on.

Yes, I agree with you on that one. In fact, I agree with everyone on that point. Jumping through hoops for collection service on the internet does sound silly.

So, I'm just wondering, would everyone think that offering a double service, to the effect that you can pay here, and we'll ship it to you, or you can collect. Would that kind of service work or should I just quit now while I'm ahead.

A shipping and collection service would give you the best of both worlds. I have used collection vs shipping online with argos, just the once mind. I think it depends on the type of product being bought and convenience of the collection. With collection only you'll have a limited range of customers, with a shipping option you'll increase that range a lot.

My thinking

I like argos cus I can check if its in stock .. and reserve it then head in and collect it.

If its not in argos .. I'll look elsewhere.

If I've to wait a day or two ... I'm still probably going to look elsewhere.

If I'm looking for something shipped ... well brand loyalty means a lot to me and I'll tend to stick with the same online trader. (komplett / Crucial for example) If its out of stock with them I'll probably wait till its back in stock.

Having a delivery and collection point is great option because a lot of your costumers will be out at work (presumably 9-5) and wouldn't be able to meet the delivery. Providing them with the option to collect the package from your office would facilitate the working folk.

I presume it wouldn't be too difficult to do that in OScommerce either. I presume they already ask if the shipping address is the same as the billing address, should be easy to customise that page with a 'deliver to office X for pickup' option.