Starting from 2.8 version ViArt Shop offers an entirely new and important feature - a merchant module. Now your customers can upload their products on your site and you will get your commissions for every order placed. In other words, you allow your customers to be your merchants.
To activate your merchant module you are to make the appropriate settings. Basic settings are to be made in the Administration > Customers > Profile Settings/Types. First, select a customer and click the Edit type link. Set the fee that your customer should pay for uploading his products. For this, find the 'Discounts, Fees, Commissions' section, select the type of a merchant fee and enter the merchant amount into the 'Amount' field.
Note: If you want to set the same fee for all your customers you can do this via Administration > Products > Products Settings.
The next step is to decide what permissions you would like to give for your customer. For this find the 'Products Settings' section below the 'Discounts, Fees, Commissions' section and tick off the appropriate checkboxes, like in the following example:
- 'Can user access to the products section'. You tick off this box if you want to give your customer a permission to access the products section on your site. Otherwise, just leave the box unchecked.
- 'Can user add new products' allows your customer to add his products on your site.
- 'Can user delete his products'. It is up to you whether to permit or to forbidden your customer to delete his products.
- Your customer may be interested in viewing how many of his products have been sold. If you find it is necessary you should tick off the 'Can user access to his products sales statistic' box.
- Sometimes, it may be useful for a user to edit one or several of his products. If you want to give him a permission to edit, please tick off 'Can user edit his products'.
- You as an administrator may decide to automatically approve submitted products. For this tick off the appropriate box.
To save these settings click the 'Update' button.
Now you can select what fields to allow for you customers. For this go to Administration > Customers > Profile settings/types > and click the 'Products Settings' link for a selected customer. Tick off the 'Show' checkboxes if you want your customers to see them and fill. If you want to make any of the fields obligatory for filling then also tick off the 'Required' checkboxes. In this case your customers won't be able to skip these fields.
You may also find it convenient to receive an e-mail or sms notification each time a user adds or edit his product. For this tick off 'Send Notification to Administrator' checkbox and fill the fields necessary for notification. You can get more information on e-mail or sms notifications from here see section 4.1.1.
To save these settings click the 'Update' button
Assign a category for adding products by customers
One more important thing to note: in order your customers be able to add products you should assign an existing category or several categories. To do this go to Administration > Products and Categories, select any available category and click the 'Edit' link. Tick off the 'Allowed Products Post' checkbox and save the change. Now your users can post their products to this category. Only you decide what and how many categories to allow for your users. Alternatively, you can create additional categories only for your users.
|
