- Original Poster
- #1
Hi guys,
most likely going to develop my own ecommerce site using opencart or the like, I could do with some advice from anybody who has done something similar? I'm familiar with HTML and CSS so happy to do my own design work but need some help thinking about the best way to structuring the ecommerce side of things.
I'm going to be offering outdoor courses, they'll be divided into 4 categories, for instance navigation courses, in each category there will be a number of different courses for instance bronze navigation (1 day), silver navigation (2 day), gold navigation (3 day) and for each course I will be offering a number of dates for instance bronze navigation (1 Jan, 10 Jan) silver navigation (3 Jan - 4 Jan, 12 Jan - 13 Jan) gold navigation (6 Jan - 8 Jan, 15 Jan - 17 Jan).
I'd like to have a homepage, which has links to each of the four categories, each category page will display whatever courses are in that category with a short summary of each course, each course then requires it's own page with full details with the course dates that are running, beside each date on offer details of availability for each date (for instance only 1 place left book now!) and the option to book now, upon booking I'd like for an email receipt to be sent automatically along with the course notes for the relevant course booked.
What I don't want is to have each date for each course to have it's own page, I want each course to have a single page with all the available dates displayed, and the option to book from that one page beside each date. Each course will need a bunch of extra fields containing info such as Price, Location, Max Ratio, Itinerary, Kit List, Previous Experience Needed etc.
In total there'll only be four categories, with around 3/4 courses in each, each course still needs to be displayed even if there are any dates actually available with the option to make an enquiry via a form.
The dates don't necessarily need to be linked to a calender of any sorts, as there won't be a huge number of them (I run all the courses) I could just input them manually under a date option field (similar to a size option if I were selling a product) and add stock according to the number of places available on the course.
The booking form needs to be customisable so I can have some of my own fields in addition to the usual name, address, card payment details such as previous experience climbing, need hire kit? etc. What I would also like is for each customer to have to register as a user of the website, and with that username possibly an extension would be to access a forum on the site for lift sharing, asking questions, and accessing course literature online.
Eventually as touched upon I'd like to extend the website by having a forum that can only be accessed by website users who have registered (and actually paid for a course!) and allowing them access to notes and whatever course they've paid for. I'd also like to offer certain physical products eventually that would be offered on checkout dependent on which course they book, for instance offering compasses and maps if they book on the navigation course.
Has anybody achieved a similar effect; particularly not selling products but booking dates onto courses via any of the ecommerce packages? What is particularly important to me is that it is relatively straightforward for me to do the design work myself, so a package with good documentation so I can reconfigure the store elements to sit as I wish would be good.
Any help or pointers would be kindly appreciated.
most likely going to develop my own ecommerce site using opencart or the like, I could do with some advice from anybody who has done something similar? I'm familiar with HTML and CSS so happy to do my own design work but need some help thinking about the best way to structuring the ecommerce side of things.
I'm going to be offering outdoor courses, they'll be divided into 4 categories, for instance navigation courses, in each category there will be a number of different courses for instance bronze navigation (1 day), silver navigation (2 day), gold navigation (3 day) and for each course I will be offering a number of dates for instance bronze navigation (1 Jan, 10 Jan) silver navigation (3 Jan - 4 Jan, 12 Jan - 13 Jan) gold navigation (6 Jan - 8 Jan, 15 Jan - 17 Jan).
I'd like to have a homepage, which has links to each of the four categories, each category page will display whatever courses are in that category with a short summary of each course, each course then requires it's own page with full details with the course dates that are running, beside each date on offer details of availability for each date (for instance only 1 place left book now!) and the option to book now, upon booking I'd like for an email receipt to be sent automatically along with the course notes for the relevant course booked.
What I don't want is to have each date for each course to have it's own page, I want each course to have a single page with all the available dates displayed, and the option to book from that one page beside each date. Each course will need a bunch of extra fields containing info such as Price, Location, Max Ratio, Itinerary, Kit List, Previous Experience Needed etc.
In total there'll only be four categories, with around 3/4 courses in each, each course still needs to be displayed even if there are any dates actually available with the option to make an enquiry via a form.
The dates don't necessarily need to be linked to a calender of any sorts, as there won't be a huge number of them (I run all the courses) I could just input them manually under a date option field (similar to a size option if I were selling a product) and add stock according to the number of places available on the course.
The booking form needs to be customisable so I can have some of my own fields in addition to the usual name, address, card payment details such as previous experience climbing, need hire kit? etc. What I would also like is for each customer to have to register as a user of the website, and with that username possibly an extension would be to access a forum on the site for lift sharing, asking questions, and accessing course literature online.
Eventually as touched upon I'd like to extend the website by having a forum that can only be accessed by website users who have registered (and actually paid for a course!) and allowing them access to notes and whatever course they've paid for. I'd also like to offer certain physical products eventually that would be offered on checkout dependent on which course they book, for instance offering compasses and maps if they book on the navigation course.
Has anybody achieved a similar effect; particularly not selling products but booking dates onto courses via any of the ecommerce packages? What is particularly important to me is that it is relatively straightforward for me to do the design work myself, so a package with good documentation so I can reconfigure the store elements to sit as I wish would be good.
Any help or pointers would be kindly appreciated.
Might have a chat to my mate and see what he reckons to speed of Magneto on his server and consider that, otherwise I'll be using one of the very similar packages.