# Shopping Cart Help



## alucard13mmfmj (Oct 23, 2012)

Hey hey! I havn't been here very often since May. Btw, thanks for everyone that helped me build my computer my evaluating the specs. I am quite happy with it. I still lurk around the game clubhouses part of the forum.

So I am starting a online store. The online store involves selling anime figures and merchandise that I will be importing from Japan and from local wholesalers as well. In this business, there are a lot of pre-ordering. There are 4-8 new pre-order products each day.

My friend helped me build a site using Zen Cart for 500 USD (I paid him 100USD so far). It is 85% done, besides some aesthetic changes to the store front. My problem is that Zen Cart has no pre-ordering capabilities and has no extensions or plug-ins to can do preordering as well. My friend did not have experience working with implementing preorders for front end and back end of a store. I began looking at other shopping carts and its extensions to see if there is something I can use for pretty much a pre-order based business. In many forums and communities for many shopping carts offer only jury rigged solutions that is impractical for a business I am starting. 

For Example: A Customer checks out with 1 in-stock item, 1 pre-order item that is coming out in MAR 2013 and 1 pre-order item that is coming out in JUN 2013. Currently, my shopping cart charges the customer for the order and shipping for all three items right when the customer check out. As you can see, there is a problem. Shipping rates to ship 3 items at once is different than shipping 3 items at 3 separate times.

The closest cart + extension was Magento, but it specifically said that the extension can only charge once.

--

I'd like for customers to be only be charged for in-stock items (and charged, not charged until later date, or partially charged for pre-order items) and only shipping for the in-stock items. When the pre-order item arrives and ready to ship, I can send them an invoice asking for money for shipping or paying the remaining balance on the item.

I'd like the back-end of the shopping cart to easily manage the shipping aspect for pre-orders. Like when an item is ready to ship, I can search and see all orders containing that item. Basically I want to be able to combine and split orders based on when items are released for a certain customer or order. I can mass email customers to ask for shipping money for the item that is ready to be shipped.

--


I'm trying to build a site that is like
http://www.hobbyfan.com/
or
http://www.otacute.com/

My site is a little bit plain, but the aesthetics are being worked on
http://marginofero.com/

I am looking for suggestion, help or even hire someone who can add pre-order related functionality to the shopping cart system. Should I build from scratch with someone more knowledgeable? Are there any suggestions for a shopping cart that can do what I need?


----------



## alucard13mmfmj (Oct 27, 2012)

No ideas? XD

There are two extensions that can split an order once to create a parent and child order, create new order for customer, and add/remove items from an order. I'd have to manage every order that comes in manually. I'd probably have to create and edit orders all the time.

There is also an issue of processing shipping and invoices.

Since I am printing shipping labels through paypal, it might be an issue.

From what little help I get from other forums, I might have to use a 3rd party order management system.


----------

