Hi EE-team!

I’ve already done soms test with EE for personal use and have been really happy with the capabilities of expression engine.

Now, I might do some work for a client, but I need to know if all this is possible before letting the client buy the software:

Ok here it goes: the client sells windows, doors and floor tiles.
He wants to be able to post new products, adjust the products in different categories. This is no problemin EE or any other CMS, since I’ve done that already.

Then, he wants clients to be able to register an account and select whether or not they want a newsletter on signup. Clients must be able to retrieve a lost password. I guess this is possible with the membership module, but I didnt’t try that yet. Anyway, this is also possible in any other CMS I’ve used so I guess this won’t be a biggie in EE.

But then the more difficult part:

1 - visitors should be able to select products (shopping cart IF possible) and place an order of the products

2 - visitors should be able to login and look at their orders (check status of order)

3 - admin must be able to search a client number and change the status of the order (ready for pickup, not ready yet, ...)

4 - orders must be linked to a client of course

Is this possible using EE? If EE is not able to meet these requirements I’m able to code it myself, but this will take up a lot of time compared to using EE of course.

Please, let me know if this is possible.

Thanks a lot for your help and I’m looking forward to your answer.

Hi, goodbytes -

ExpressionEngine ships only with the Simple Commerce module, which is just a simple way to interface with PayPal Website Payments Standard.  If you need more full-featured e-commerce, check out aMember with the shopping cart of our choice, or even perhaps CoolCommerce, which is linked at the wiki/Extensions page.

Of course, you could always build your own module and use ExpressionEngine to deliver the other features you’ll need, such as membership itself. =)

Hi Lisa, thanks for your help, but the client doesn’t really require a full e-commerce solution since he doesn’t even want to accept payments on the website.

He just wants clients to be able to select products in a shopping cart, and save the selection as “ordered”.

This I can do with EE:
- build a list of products with prices and such… I guess I’ll be able to find a shopping cart somewhere to integrate

What I can’t do right now is: let visitors click a link and have the order submitted to the EE-backend. Is that possible?

Certainly it’s possible. Do you want the orders stored in the database, or just emailed? I’m thinking some sort of FreeForm solution may be your best bet.

Want me to move this to How To to explore, or do you just want to know if there may be a way to handle this?

The SignWave site (site introductions) had a nifty little diddy where as a visitor perused the site and the various products, there were datasheets, product literature, etc. offered. The visitor could select the items they wanted and they would be put into something like a shopping cart or maybe added to a custom form. When done, they’d submit and the company would get the request and send out the literature. Same technigue could be used to send in an order I would think… SignWave

Lisa, the orders must be stored in the EE-database. There, my client must be able to select an order and view the client ID, and be able to change the order status/category to “AVAILABLE FOR PICKUP” or “DELIVERED”. Something like that.

I was thinking about using a standalone entry form? (http://expressionengine.com/docs/modules/weblog/entry_form.html)

Problem is, that the items have to be stored in some kind of a shopping cart, and when “checking out” without paying, the orders have to be put in the database?

PXLated, looks like a nice implementation, but I’m missing some practical examples in that thread. Have you got any more information about how to accomplish this?

So Lisa, I guess this could be moved to the howto guide and I’ll look into it first.

thanks a lot all for helping already

If I had to do this, I’d probably start with Freeform and some PHP code around it. There is no out-of-the-box solution that will do this for you, I am afraid.