Group Purchase Products


Group Purchase is a similar idea to 'Groupon'. It allows you to set up an event(s) within a certain date period. The more your customers order a product within that date period, the cheaper the customers will pay for that product at the end of that event.

Optionally you can also integrate your events with Google Calendar and embed a calendar on a page of your website - the event will show up on the calendar so that your customers know when it is about to start.

Here is what a product could look like when it is part of a group purchase event...


 

Setup Group Purchase Event


1) Navigate to Products > Group Purchase Opportunities

2) Click 'add new'
 
  • Enter a name (usually the product name)
  • Enter the product code of the item this group purchase opportunity is for. If the product has variations, enter the master product code.
  • Set the 'Opening Date' - On or after this date, until the closing date, users will see and be able to use the group purchase opportunity.
  • Opened - This will be ticked automatically by the system once the opening date is reached and the 'open' emails are sent out. If you manually tick this, the emails will not be sent but the group purchase feature will still work. If you untick it and the opening date has passed, the emails will be sent out.
  • Set the 'Closing Date' - At the end of the day on this date, the group purchase opportunity will no longer be available to users. It will, however, show up in the group purchase list, marked as Closed, until the Delivery Date is reached.
  • Closed - This will be ticked automatically by the system once the closing date is reached and the 'closed' emails are sent out, and the orders are processed. If you manually tick this, the system will not perform those tasks automatically. If you then un-tick it later, and the closing date has already passed, it will do those tasks.
  • Set the 'Delivery Date' - When this date is reached the group purchase opportunity will no longer be visible on the list.
  • Starting Quantity - If you enter a quantity in here, the price will be calculated as if this amount was added to the total quantity ordered. You can adjust this value at any time. You may enter a value here so that it appears to your customers that it has been ordered already.
  • Enter email settings - the system will automatically send out emails when an event is opening, closing or closed - you can edit the emails here.

3) Navigate to Site Content > Pages and click 'add new' - Create a new page with a page filename called group-purchase.html

This is the page that you will direct your customers to to view the items on offer eg. www.yourwebsite.co.uk/group-purchase.html
 

Link your event with Google Calendar (optional)


Add your event to a Google Calendar that you can then embed in to a page on your website. this will let your customers know when a group purchase event is coming up...



1) Log in to your Google account and locate the Calendar section: https://www.google.com/calendar

2) Next to the 'My calendars' option, click the drop down arrow to either create a new calendar or edit the settings of your existing calendar...



3) Under the settings for the calendar you will see this page...


 
  • Copy the 'Calendar ID' (circled above) and paste in to the 'Google Calendar ID' field in your website Site Admin under Products > Group Purchase Opportunites
 
  • You can also copy the code to embed the calendar in to any page on your website (circled above)