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We are a printing and embroidery shop and we sell to some sports teams. We would like them to be able to purchase spirit wear through our website instead of the group taking orders a couple of times a year. The groups we have talked to are very interested in this because they have a hard time finding someone who is willing to take on this task.
My question is, is there a website where they have to have a password to access their groups ordering page and then the order info gets sent to us as well as to their treasurer, so they know what they are selling and earning.
We kind of want it to be like pikiware without the shirt designer program and to be a lot cheaper. We have no website experience so we are really looking for a plug and play kind of option. Or is this something we would have to have specially designed by a webdesigner?
If I were setting this up in my normal out of the box store software (Volusion.com), I would set the treasurers up as Automatic Dropship Vendors so when an order is placed they would also be emailed the copy of the order too when you collect the payment. Then each product for Team A would be assigned to vendor (treasurer) A. Team B products would have Vendor B etc.
I'm not sure what purpose the "group" page would serve from your description. How would you want that to work? Keeping their products private? Do you still want just one big total order? Keep the public out?
I was thinking of keeping each group separate so only that group could order because I have had several organizations concerned about keeping their items private. Mostly fire departments have raised this issue.
My current website host will give me an option like this that they usually use for wholesale but I can only have one. I was hoping to have the option of having more.
I guess my best explanation of this would be having a separate store for each group without having to pay for separate websites.
I know what your looking for is out there... the photography webhost smugmug has galleries set up this way, the links/galleries are password protected, then the the group can go in, enter the password, veiw the goods, and checkout.
Yes, with the fire and police you'd need that privacy. With Volusion you could create separate categories for each team or organization with their products and keep them hidden. Give the direct link to the category to the organization and just they know about it. I don't know if Google would eventually pick up a hidden category?
You are right, if I need to have a programmer set up the website I want, I will definately go to a professional. Just like if I was on a forums for programmers and I wanted t-shirts made I would ask if anybody knew someone who makes them and then I would go to a professional.
I am just looking to see if anyone knew if there was already a place that did things this way to save me the hassle and expense of starting from scratch.
Thank you everyone for your help. I am getting a better idea of what I need to do to get this done. I am going to check out volusion to see if it will work for me and if I have enough knowledge to do it myself.
Check sageworld.com They are like ASI - for promotional products distributors. They have something called a company store. I believe that may be what you are looking for.
You can do one of two things with oscommerce (a free shopping cart)
You can make main categories like "softball teams" "cheer squads" etc and then create sub-categories with the name of the actual group that wants to purchase from you. Then you put "THIER PRODUCTS" under their name, and password protect the subcategory.. You can make the categories as deep as you want.. meaning you can have it like this
Cheer Squads
------Bunnell High
------------- Jackets
------------- Sweatshirts
------------- POM POMS
------ Stratford High
------------- Jackets
------------- Sweatshirts
------------- POM POMS
And no matter where they click, tehy would have to put in the password for that particular school. The coaches can give out the passwords to the members
My website does this if you click on my signature you can see an example
OR
With oscommerce, there is an addon called HIDE PRODUCT GROUPS FROM CUSTOMERS
This allows you to create a product group that only certain customers can see, so you would need to know which "group" the customer belongs to when they sign up.. but it works REALLY well..
I think there is more to it, because i have never used it before, but i suggest going over to teh oscommerce forum (forums.oscommerce.com) and ask some questions.
That is what I want to do but I have a few questions. I really do not understand the basics of setting up a website, I have one now but all I had to do was load pictures and put in explanations. When you say it is a shopping cart, does that mean that I have to have a separate webhost? Right now I am going through a company that has everything in one and all I had to do was sign up and pick a layout. Is it something that I could do with little experience or do you think I would need to have someone else do it for me?
No problem.. The basics of running an OPEN SOURCE shopping cart you need the following
- A webhost that has PHP and MySql enabled. If you already have a host, you should do your research regarding how good they would be for e-commerce. I can tell you off the bat that there are a FEW that are HORRIBLE. Globat and Web.com are two that I know for a fact are bad.. If you tell me who your host is, I can do some research for you.
- A merchant account. You can get one with your bank OR something like authorize.net or paypal. You can use the free paypal OR the websites payment pro account (which is $30 a month)
- an SSL certificate. If you look in this forum, i created a nice long post explaining it.
I am somewhat of a "pro" at oscommerce. I know the shopping cart inside and out, so if you want help with it, you are welcome to ask.
Can I have this kind of website? 
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