How can I create a points-based purchasing system for my e-commerce platform?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot06/Jan/20141 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 06/Jan/2014
The feature you are requesting is simply known as a "Credits based Shopping Cart". Such a system mimics what Facebook, or eNom or iStockPhoto would have.
Your customers would register themselves and apply a payment method (credit card, Paypal, debit card, etc.) to buy credits. Only these credits can be used in your ecosystem.
Most companies that do implement such a solution have opted for a bespoke solution. This is not very difficult to do. Its essentially a bit of mapping and account management on each registered customer. Your payment pages simply enables members to buy credits. Nothing more.
You may have legal or other issues (depending on the geographic area you operate in) with respect to the credits that you have on hand (this is digital money, you are responsible for).
If you're good in coding, you can hack your way into some open-source shopping cart software and modify it.
Some shopping carts also implement this, examples:
Your luck on finding a system that really fits hand-in-glove to your needs may/may not be out there. As I cited earlier, your best bet is to get custom coding done for this. It may be tedious (and expensive) effort, but it is worth the results in the long run. You will have much more control and flexibility over it. For the "payments" page, simple use the script / API that your payment processor provides and let them handle that portion of it.
Your customers would register themselves and apply a payment method (credit card, Paypal, debit card, etc.) to buy credits. Only these credits can be used in your ecosystem.
Most companies that do implement such a solution have opted for a bespoke solution. This is not very difficult to do. Its essentially a bit of mapping and account management on each registered customer. Your payment pages simply enables members to buy credits. Nothing more.
You may have legal or other issues (depending on the geographic area you operate in) with respect to the credits that you have on hand (this is digital money, you are responsible for).
If you're good in coding, you can hack your way into some open-source shopping cart software and modify it.
Some shopping carts also implement this, examples:
- Asp Dot Net Storefront: http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/ has this feature (See: http://manual.aspdotnetstorefron...)
- Aceshop - Joomla Shopping Cart: http://www.joomace.net/joomla-ex... and also see http://www.joomlashoppingcart.net/
- Some crude scripts: http://www.joomlashoppingcart.net/
- WordPress related scripts: http://shopperpress.com/shopperp...
Your luck on finding a system that really fits hand-in-glove to your needs may/may not be out there. As I cited earlier, your best bet is to get custom coding done for this. It may be tedious (and expensive) effort, but it is worth the results in the long run. You will have much more control and flexibility over it. For the "payments" page, simple use the script / API that your payment processor provides and let them handle that portion of it.