Copyright © 2000, William Weiland
The purpose of external.mv is to allow a customer to purchase items which are not in your Merchant database. This is particularly suited for auction winnings, printed catalog items, and classified ad items. It could also be used for sale of services or negotiated price items.
1) In admin, click Add Modules
2) Click the file upload button
3) Browse to find the external.mv file on your hard drive and upload
4) Click Add to add it to the domain
5) Click the image to the left of your store name
6) Click on the Utilities link
7) Check the box to the left of External Product Purchase and select Update
8) Click on Add Modules again
9) Click the file upload button
10) Browse to find the cim_log.mv file on your hard drive and upload
11) Click Add to add it to the domain
12) Click the image to the left of your store name
13) Click on the Logging Configuration link
14) Check the box to the left of CIM Activity Log and select Update
15) Click on Add Modules again
16) Click the file upload button
17) Browse to find the cim_ext.mv file on your hard drive and upload
18) Click Add to add it to the domain
19) Click the image to the left of your store name
20) Click on the System Extension Configuration link
21) Check the box to the left of CIM System External Product Purchase and select Update
If you want to hide the starting price of an external product, which is zero, you can add the following code around the lines which display the price in the mmui.mv function MMUI_ProductDisplay:
<MvIF EXPR = "{Products.d.code NE 'EXTERNAL'}">
..... standard display of price code
</MvIF>
This will check to make sure the product code is NOT EXTERNAL before it displays the price. If you are using the oui look and feel, you won't need to edit the mmui.mv. However, if you are using other oui extension modules which change the display of price, they might override the action of this module.
Additionally, you can remove the weight display the same way. It is directly after the price display. If you are using the oui look and feel, this hiding is already done automatically.
When installed to the store, the module will add a wildcard product to your products database. Search for keyword EXTERNAL to find it and modify characteristics. The product code for this wildcard product is EXTERNAL. You MUST not change that. The default name of the product is Catalog Item. You can edit the product name, like any other product in your store. For example, you could change it to Auction Item or Classifed Ad, etc. You can also change the code for the attributes, NAME and CODE. But you MUST not change the codes for PRICE or WEIGHT. You can change the prompt that is used in all four attributes. The price of the item will be zero ($0.00). You should also verify the taxable status for items or services that will be sold through this external product. You can even add text to the narrative field which would be displayed if they displayed the record in individual product view.
When the user selects the EXTERNAL item, they enter the item name, code, price, and optionally weight. When Merchant process the transaction, if it sees a product code with the name EXTERNAL and an attribute code of PRICE, it uses the customer entered price to override the zero.
The following applies ONLY if you are using CIM Inventory Management in Merchant 2.x or 3.x. If you are using the CIM Inventory Management (IM) module, you will need to establish an "in stock" level with the EXTERNAL product so that it will be available for purchase, ie Add and Buy buttons will be visible. When you install this module to your store, a level of 9 will be established if you have a field called quantity in your products database. You will need to increase that level if using CIM IM, since it decrements by the quantity of the product purchased. Use Customer and Product Management or the prodquan.mv applet to update the quantity or your item will quickly be out-of-stock. If you are using Inventory Management in Merchant 4.x, you can turn off the inventory tracking for the EXTERNAL product.
Most likely you are going to use this External Product Purchase from a link on a static web page, an email, in a classified ad, or in your auction ad. The href link would have the form of:
http://www.emporiumplus.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Action=ADPR&Attributes=Yes&Product_Code=EXTERNAL&Quantity=1&Screen=BASK&Store_Code=wcw
or, if compiled Merchant:
http://www.emporiumplus.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Action=ADPR&Attributes=Yes&Product_Code=EXTERNAL&Quantity=1&Screen=BASK&Store_Code=wcw
If you are using the eBay seller manager you can create email templates that will automatically go to the winning bidder. An example of the url that you would use in the template is:
http://www.emporiumplus.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=BASK&Action=ADPR&Store_Code=wcw&Product_Code=EXTERNAL&AttributeCode1=ITEM&AttributeValue1={TITLE}&AttributeCode2=CODE&AttributeValue2={ITEM#}&AttributeCode3=PRICE&AttributeValue3={CLOSING$}&AttributeCount=3&Quantity=1&Attributes=&Order=
For your site, change the name of the domain at the beginning and the store code at the end of this link. Also, you may spell your directory as merchant instead of Merchant2 or even Merchant3. If you are using a cgi-bin URL, you will need to reformat the link accordingly. Note: There may be a problem using ebay.com's TITLE token as it could leave spaces in the URL. If ebay.com has not developed a token for a URL friendly product name, you might want to use the ITEM# for the name also.
You can use the .htaccess re-write (if you have that capability on your domain) to shorten the url. Check with your host about the capability, how to do it, and how to upload the file. We do not provide support for these particular tips as they are specific to your web host.
Example shortened url:
http://www.emporiumplus.com/winner/wcw/Fantasia/2340238423/510.75
Try the link above in your browser and you will see what it does at my store.
Example of an .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/winner/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/(.*) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=BASK&Store_Code=%1&Action=ADPR&Product_Code=EXTERNAL&AttributeCode1=ITEM&AttributeValue1=%2&AttributeCode2=CODE&AttributeValue2=%3&AttributeCode3=PRICE&AttributeValue3=%4&AttributeCount=3&Quantity=1&Attributes=&Order= [R,L]
If you are sending html formatted notification emails, you can use a button to hide the link and it won't matter how long it is.
You can automate the notification of the winning bidder and use the .htaccess re-write to provide your winners an easy way to add the item to their basket. eBay has an winning bidder notification (Autotext) template in the Seller Manager that you can modify to contain the shortened url as above. Within the template you can include a link like:
http://www.emporiumplus.com/winner/wcw/{TITLE}/{ITEM#}/{CLOSING$}
In this url, you can see: domain url, directory to match the one you are using in the .htaccess to identify the condition, your store code, the name of the item, the eBay item ID, and the winning bid.
For more info on Autotext, you can go to http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/autotext.html
Q: The customer can add the product to the basket but the customer inputted price does not show up in the basket. The price remains as 0.00.
A: There are three modules which must be installed for the customer modified price to occur. Make sure that the modules in the Logging Configuration and System Extension Configuration screens have also been "Assigned" to the store. If either of those is not "assigned", the basket price will remain as 0.00.
A: Some 3rd party modules may override the action of this module. If you have a module installed which effects attribute prices or the product price that is computed for the basket, it may override this module. So if the External Product Purchase module worked in your store and now it does not, consider new module additions. If you add a new module which overrides the basket price, you should check the functioning of the External Product Purchase module right before and after adding that type of module.
Still have a question?