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View Full Version : Creating a website with 'credits' to buy products



KarenB
01-01-2010, 04:43 PM
Hello all and Happy New Year!

One of my clients was wondering if there was a way to create a website where the members would purchase credits up front and then later be able to apply them to any products they wanted to purchase on that same website.

Is there such a software that anyone knows of?

Thanks!

Karen

Harold Mansfield
01-01-2010, 05:51 PM
Hello all and Happy New Year!

One of my clients was wondering if there was a way to create a website where the members would purchase credits up front and then later be able to apply them to any products they wanted to purchase on that same website.

Is there such a software that anyone knows of?

Thanks!

Karen

I would think that any shopping cart system that is set up to sell gift certificates that could be redeemed at a later date, can be configured to issue shopping credits just by changing a few parameters.
Other than that, I don't know of any specific software that does this.

billbenson
01-01-2010, 08:08 PM
do a search for 'cart name gift certificate' using the shopping cart software you want to use. I checked a couple and they have plugins or procedures for gift certificates. I have no idea how well they work?

painperdu
01-02-2010, 08:28 AM
The gift certificate shopping cart system may be the best way to go. Another route is to search the plugin section of popular forum software (phpBB, vBulletin, etc) for reward/forum-bucks or store/bank type of mods.

KarenB
01-02-2010, 09:52 AM
Excellent advice.

Thanks all!

Karen

Patrysha
01-02-2010, 12:23 PM
Another thing I would look into is seeing how the stock photography sites have things set up. Things like Dreamstime or istock have a system like that.

krmwebdesign
01-21-2010, 10:40 AM
Another thing I would look into is seeing how the stock photography sites have things set up. Things like Dreamstime or istock have a system like that.

Good point. I was trying to think of sites with a credit system lol. Truth is anything can be done with a database and a bit of programming. ASP, PHP or .NET can be used for this.

You could get a system built that will allow users to buy credits by credit card and then use the credits to buy products or services. The thing about this is you may even be able to re-sell copies of the software afterwards.

Only problem is you may need a web developer for this. I'm not sure of any free to download versions of this idea but you could search on Google.

KristineS
01-21-2010, 12:40 PM
I was just going to recommend looking at Istockphoto because they allow people to do that very thing. We buy credits and then use the credits to purchase photos.

I'm not sure how they do it, but it is possible.

Paper Shredder Clay
01-26-2010, 04:51 PM
You could check out OScommerce, they might offer it, they are an open source platform (Free).

billbenson
01-27-2010, 03:59 PM
If you are thinking in the oscommerce direction, use zen cart instead. Oscommerce uses tables for layout and is a really old patched up system. Zen Cart uses a similar table structure but is CSS based.

Paper Shredder Clay
02-03-2010, 11:15 AM
Oh wow, I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing that. I agree with Bill it's best to go with CSS than using tables, for web standards.


If you are thinking in the oscommerce direction, use zen cart instead. Oscommerce uses tables for layout and is a really old patched up system. Zen Cart uses a similar table structure but is CSS based.