Multi-vendor roadmap. Let's discuss (UPDATE: done)

a.m. wrote:
It is a great proposal!!.. as always :D

2. For some business models it could be useful to disclose the identity and profile of vendors. Make it configurable, and if disclosure is selected, then as Tim2376 suggested, display it in products and have an about profile page of each vendor (name, description, contact info, selling and shipping conditions, etc.)

5. Enhance Shipping by Weight cost computation method, which is very flexible and powerful, to include filtering by vendor (country/state/zip/method/vendor/weight-range)


a.m. wrote:
Your proposal conforms with the Amazon (dropshipping) model. In the other extreme it is the Ebay model (more or less suggested here by Tim2376. This other extreme could easily  be achieved with the following (besides my previous suggestions for 2 and 5):
- Let the customer filter products by vendor.
- Dont let customer to add to cart products of different vendors, so to make orders vendor by vendor.
- For payments (6) each vendor should be affiliated with each of the payment providers of the store and the corresponding information should be included in a table (all managed by store owner).
- Have a registration page for vendors as suggested by Tim2376.

am wrote:

in my model a customer dont see the vendors when he place the order, but after he confirm there is a list of the order's products by vendors, since each vendor create a different order.

I thought a customer should see one order, however not long ago I have been requested by the credit companies to notify the customer that he is going to be charged by several vendors at checkout.

I was thinking of modifying the cart so it will show product by vendors and sub total for each vendor.

eadameg wrote:

I don't think I meant to suggest Ebay.  On the contrary, I think I was suggesting following Amazon.  Here is where I see the difference, correct me if I am wrong as I am not too familiar with Ebay. :)

Buy from amazon - get one charge from amazon. (even if its sold by a vendor)
Buy from Ebay - Get charged by each Ebay seller.

By using PayPal chained payments as suggested by nbrglobalinc, we could have a system that would allow the store to collect the money from the customer and then, using the main store's paypal account, give money to the vendors.  The whole thing could be controlled by a percent markup on the settings.

For example here is how amazon fits into what I was envisioning:

Take a look at this product on Amazon.

Ammonium Sulphate Fertilizer by Hi-Yield
http://www.amazon.com/Hi-Yield-32177-Ammonium-Sulphate-Fertilizer/dp/B000OV85BQ

Couple things to notice on this page:

1) Right under the "In Stock" it says Ships from and sold by Nature Hills Nursery

If we click on this link, it takes us to a "profile page" like I was talking about.  On this page we see other products sold by Nature Hills Nursery, an about essay in the top right hand side, and also reviews aboutNature Hills Nursery on the right.

2)  The other thing to note about the main product page is this: on the right hand side under the add to cart box we see a "More Buying Choices" box.  In this box it says, "5 new from $4.85."  If we click this it takes us to a page where we can see all the different vendors selling the same product, which in this case is Ammonium Sulphate.

I think there are a lot of products on amazon that are sold from an amazon warehouse.  In the same way it is only fair to assume that for the vast amount of companies using nopcommerce will be shipping their own products.  This is why I feel that the "multi vendor" needs to by a seamless addition to the normal online store... like Amazon!

I think it needs to have the look and feel of one main store, one charge by the main store, and also the main store having that a-z responsibility on the products sold.

Amazon also has an easy sellers signup page like I suggested:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-account/mm-summary-page.html

In conclusion, there are many different ways that the multi vendor could be implemented.  It might be best to have many options on a settings page to allow the store owner to decide how they want everything to work.  However, I think that if nopcommerce integrates something like PayPal chained payments for automatically paying the vendors it will allow the multi vendor option to be a true large sale enterprise solution.

Please add the ability to delete bulk customers like you did in products.

Tim2376 wrote:
That's not quite factoring as it pertains to merchant accounts.  Essentially, factoring is using one merchant account to process charges for multiple merchants.  Here's a quote from MerchantCouncil.org:

"Merchant account factoring occurs when someone uses their merchant account to process transactions for another individual or business. If a processor discovers that a merchant account is being used for factoring, the account will be closed and the owner may be subject to fines or even criminal charges. You should never use your merchant account to process transactions for another person or business."

And another from a payment processor:

"This term refers to the practice of allowing more than one merchant to process transactions through a single merchant account. Factoring is not permitted under Visa, MasterCard and American Express regulations."

The bottom line is that a merchant can't allow anyone to "borrow" his/her merchant account by processing charges for them.  If you do that, and it's discovered, you will lose your merchant account, and very likely won't be able to get another.  I would hate to see nopCommerce build in features that facilitate this sort of payment handling.

HoosierDaddy wrote:

HoosierDaddy,

I still don't see how the process I am promoting could be considered factoring.  

1)If you sell products you've got to get paid. (Customer pays the money to your bank account)
2)If you are dropshiping, you have to pay the supplier or vendor for the products before they will ship it. (Since you are "ordering" the product from the supplier you should use your business bank account to pay them.)

If this is factoring, all businesses using drop shipping would cease to exist.  Please look at the post that I described how I did drop shipping on the last page because if I am incorrect I definitely want to stop!

I am suggesting following an Amazon model.  Could someone clarify, if you order items on Amazon from multiple vendors and the items are drop shipped from those vendors you only get one charge from Amazon.  Is this correct?

If we do the payments with paypal using PayPal chained payments like nbrglobalinc suggested, it would have to be valid wouldn't it?  If not, why would paypal promote this type of money transfer?

PayPal chained payments
https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/adaptive-payments/integration-guide/APIntro

HoosierDaddy could you explain a scenario in story form of factoring?  I might not be understanding you correctly.

Factoring is a difficult topic, I think.  It's best to discuss your scenario with your merchant account acquirer (not the reseller).  I don't think drop shipping plays into it, though, since that is certainly not a problem.  A typical situation is where one merchant who doesn't accept Amex asks you to run an Amex charge of theirs through your account.

I have been down this path before, since I had an ecommerce business that was a category leader and had more than 150 merchants selling through my site.  I wanted to do single point payment processing, but both Nova and First Data (2 of the top 3) said no.  They wanted to know who owned and had control of the products, and who would be ultimately responsible for chargebacks.  I think maybe the issue is the relationship between you and the vendors.  If the vendors are just shipping in your name, there wouldn't be an issue.  But if they ship in their name, and the transaction is, for all intents and purposes, a transaction between your vendor and the customer, that would be factoring.

My intent was simply to put the topic out there for discussion and the make sure that nopComemrce doesn't inadvertently design in something that could cause problems for its users.  Also, you can't always go by how large companies handle their payments since they can negotiate specific deals with the card companies.

I think the real question to ask is, if there is a chargeback, are you happy to have it go against your merchant account?  If you want your vendor to pay for it, then factoring is involved.

HoosierDaddy wrote:  

Ok.  So I'm safe. :)

I guess your saying the issue is that when a vendor uploads products and fulfills orders through your store it seems that they are the one selling it, not the main store; they should use their merchant account, not the main store's.  

However, if the multi vendor is set up right, I think we could have the main store the one "selling" or responsible for the products.

HoosierDaddy wrote:

I think the answer to this question is yes.  If the multi store has a one store look and feel, it should be responsible for refunding the customer.  If the vendor makes an error, it would be the main store's responsibly to block, fine, or whatever they wanted to do to the vendor, but they would have to be the person paying the customer back.  I think this is probably the same way Amazon works.

What if we stuck to these three things for the Multi vendor, could it be considered factoring?

1) Have a one store look and feel. (Like Amazon)
2) The main store is responsible for the products, and for paying refunds. (Like Amazon)
3) Use a PayPal merchant account using PayPal chained payments. (Since they offer it they will not consider it factoring.)

What does everyone think about this?  Does anything need to be changed or added to the list to keep it from being factoring?

I'm a nopBee / new to nop, but let me jump in and add:

A Drop-ship scenario I'm trying to resolve is...
   Manufacturer -> products from this manufacture.
   The retail price to the customer is displayed.  During checkout the additional shipping cost per drop-ship item item added to the total shipping & handling.  

I agree that the customer does not need to know that this product is coming from another warehouse, but we do need to tell them that their packages will arrive in separate shipments.

In scenarios where the customer is ordering products that ship from our warehouse and the drop-ship vendor together on one order, we need to calculate our UPS charge by weight/package size, then add the total of the drop-ship charges for the customer to pay.

To process the drop-shipment order, additional information in the Manufacturer/vendor page is needed, including the drop-ship email address. Then, the email sent to the vendor/warehouse to notify them of a new order would include our company name/account number, customer shipping details, and of course what is being ordered.  By the way our drop-shipper(s) usually does not include their name in the package, but places our return policy document in the package.

To process shipments from our warehouse, I then need to export the UPS order data to the UPS WorldShip program where the labels are applied to the boxes and UPS notified of the pickup.

I hope this helps.  I'm certainly confused.

Tim2376 wrote:
I wasn't referring to refunds, but to chargebacks through your merchant account.  My view is that if the transaction is solely between the site owner and the merchants are only drop shipping, there's no problem.  If, however, the merchants are actually selling through your site, you can't run their sales through your merchant account.  In the drop shipping scenario, a single merchant account will suffice, but in the second scenario, each vendor would need to setup their own payment options.

However, I need to say that I have only been on the pointy end of the factoring issue.  The merchant account acquirers may well look at it differently, and that should be investigated thoroughly before designing a multi-vendor payment solution.  It may seem like nit picking, but the consequences can be serious.