Few questions about e-cart capability

Have used e-cart a few times but just building a site with slightly more flexible cart requirements, and just want to confirm that i can achieve the following relatively straightforwardly...?

1. My products all have lots of versions. when user goes to a product page i need to show the version options (size/colour) in a drop down box that they select and "add to cart". presume the add to cart function can be easily made to work with drop-down lists?

2. some products will be "plus vat" and some "vat free" - presume i can write a simple-ish rule/calculation to add/not add on the basis of a value in the product table?

3. i will need to be able to offer a discount/voucher code - again, presumably i can wrie a rule that will do a discount if certain voucher put in? can that be set to run up until a certain date?

4. is there any way that, when a user adds a certain product to the basket and then goes to checkout, that the cart process can be made to include stopping at a "did you also want.....?" page which would offer other products/accessories related by means of the product table?

could anyone from WA advise on the above - or anyone else out there using WA e-cart.

thanks

These things are all possible. I don't want to claim they will be easy for you because it really depends on your knowledge of mySQL, php, and the webassist products in general.

But it appears you have at least described accurately what you would need to do, and some could certainly exectute on that plan using eCart were they familiar with the tools and functionality and were able to design an adequate database structure to support it.

thanks ray.

the two key things will be the drop-down menu for versions so users can select which version they add to cart, and the vat/non-vat requirement.

could you give me an idea of what would be involved in the drop-down menu/add to cart button as that's a fundamental requirement, and presumably many other users would need the same thing? the product table and version tables are all in place and working on the page, but i need to add the "add to cart" behaviour to the drop-down list - how would i go about it?

so far as the vat/non vat calculation is concerned, my intention would be to add a field to product table with values 1=vat, or 0=non-vat. i presume e-cart would then allow some kind of rule/calculation along the lines of "if value = 1 add vat amount of 15%, if value =0, add no vat amount.....or something along those lines..?

thanks

My first suggestion would be to do one thing at a time. I'll give you the steps doing two things at a time, but it might confuse you.

The first thing is to update your database structure... add the necessary information to your database to populate the version menu most likely in another related table. Also make sure there is a field in the products table that identifies 1=vat or 0=non-vat.

Then update your cart structure... go to your cart and add two columns: "Version" and "Taxable"

Then go to the calculations tab and add a calculation: AmountTaxed = [Taxable] * [TotalPrice]

Then you are able to work on the add to cart page... you write a query to return the version values the product displayed based on the database structure used to hold that data.

Then you drag and drop a list into your add to cart form and populate it from the recordset using the Dynamic button in the properties inspector.

Then you update the add to cart server behavior specifying the version from the list and the Taxable value from the field you added to your products table.

thanks very much.

i think some of this is already in place. my current dBase structure has a product table and a linked versions table, so when the product is selected a drop-down box shows the relevant versions from the associated versions table (with a value set to Version ID).

so am i right in understanding that if i added an "add to cart" button/form and dropped the drop-down list into this form, that will send the version to the cart?

so from there i would update the "add to cart" server behaviour to specify that it sends the version id info plus the vat value from the product recordset?

and from there i could then address the calculations etc. do i understand right?

"so am i right in understanding that if i added an "add to cart" button/form and dropped the drop-down list into this form, that will send the version to the cart?"

It will submit the information with the form... you could update the add to cart to set that information to a cart column you have created to hold it.

"so from there i would update the "add to cart" server behaviour to specify that it sends the version id info plus the vat value from the product recordset?"

The versionID would come from the list they selected in the submitted add to cart form... the vat value would come from the recordset. Once you add the columns to the cart object they will appear and you can set them in the add to cart server behavior.

You need to add the columns to the cart before updating the add to cart server behavior.

Once you have added the columns and calculations you can base your VAT tax on the total of the calculated AmountTaxed column using a tax rule on the tax tab.

thanks ray. i'll try this next week