Trademe Technical Question

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lxsw20

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#1289547 22-Apr-2015 16:34

No I don't. And the difference is those are services, you're just some seller on TM as far as the buyer is concerned.

Forget the email bit, as IIRC these come from trademe. In which case, it's not really your issue to solve is it?

gnfb

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#1289564 22-Apr-2015 16:45

lxsw20: No I don't. And the difference is those are services, you're just some seller on TM as far as the buyer is concerned.

Forget the email bit, as IIRC these come from trademe. In which case, it's not really your issue to solve is it?

I still have no idea what you are talking about with the email dont worry. I dont know about Pass the parcel but Bidbud is a really cool dude called ...I suppose i better give his name and thousands trust him. I'm guessing you may not be my target customer. :)

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sleemanj

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#1289599 22-Apr-2015 17:20

If email deliver-ability is the problem, may I suggest Mandrill, which is the "transactional" offshoot of MailChimp. Very simple setup (provided you have your own domain name and access to it's DNS records so you can add the supplied DKIM record), just use it as SMTP, you will get better deliverability, and also optional reporting (opens, click tracking etc, you can turn this off, if you have it on Mandrill will just inject code into the emails as they pass through to accomplish it). Free account is 12 thousand emails per month, all the features, no CC required. For other reasons I have been using Mandrill a bit recently for outgoing mails, and am very impressed at it's featureset, especially in the free account.

Also there is SendGrid which I havn't tried, and Amazon SES but that's a bit... iffy.

So anyway...

I'm the fellow who wrote the ('unofficial', but only) PHP Bindings for the Trade Me API (no I'm not available to write this thing for you, I don't touch Wordpress with a 50ft barge pole for starters).

I also eat my own dogfood by way of my management systems for my TM sales (and listings), which I process through my own ecom system.

I do not provide any syndicated login for the end users, and do not request nor need access to their accounts, the only account I have authorised to my API "app" is my own so it can get the order data etc.

Simply every X minutes, I have my system via the API grab the new TM sales, get the buyer details, create a customer account in my database for the buyer, work out which products are purchased, ring up the order, adjust the stock levels, etc and feed it into my process as paid, or pending as appropriate.

I send emails to the customer when the item is shipped, and place the feedback usually shortly thereafter with the date it was shipped etc (again, FB placed through the API).

The emails I send include a unique instant login link for the customer to access all their invoice history, and a link to the specific invoice where appropriate (for combined orders I will often just send one email to save noise).

I set statuses on each sale through the API so that they are reflected in "My Trade Me" should the need arise, and also these are used to filter out the new orders when the processing run happens.

I also use the API to automatically add necessary comments to all my trademe listings, and to periodically check the stock level that Trademe thinks is available is actually correct and if not fix it.

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gnfb

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#1289836 22-Apr-2015 23:03

sleemanj: If email deliver-ability is the problem, may I suggest Mandrill, which is the "transactional" offshoot of MailChimp. Very simple setup (provided you have your own domain name and access to it's DNS records so you can add the supplied DKIM record), just use it as SMTP, you will get better deliverability, and also optional reporting (opens, click tracking etc, you can turn this off, if you have it on Mandrill will just inject code into the emails as they pass through to accomplish it). Free account is 12 thousand emails per month, all the features, no CC required. For other reasons I have been using Mandrill a bit recently for outgoing mails, and am very impressed at it's featureset, especially in the free account.

Also there is SendGrid which I havn't tried, and Amazon SES but that's a bit... iffy.

So anyway...

I'm the fellow who wrote the ('unofficial', but only) PHP Bindings for the Trade Me API (no I'm not available to write this thing for you, I don't touch Wordpress with a 50ft barge pole for starters).

I also eat my own dogfood by way of my management systems for my TM sales (and listings), which I process through my own ecom system.

I do not provide any syndicated login for the end users, and do not request nor need access to their accounts, the only account I have authorised to my API "app" is my own so it can get the order data etc.

Simply every X minutes, I have my system via the API grab the new TM sales, get the buyer details, create a customer account in my database for the buyer, work out which products are purchased, ring up the order, adjust the stock levels, etc and feed it into my process as paid, or pending as appropriate.

I send emails to the customer when the item is shipped, and place the feedback usually shortly thereafter with the date it was shipped etc (again, FB placed through the API).

The emails I send include a unique instant login link for the customer to access all their invoice history, and a link to the specific invoice where appropriate (for combined orders I will often just send one email to save noise).

I set statuses on each sale through the API so that they are reflected in "My Trade Me" should the need arise, and also these are used to filter out the new orders when the processing run happens.

I also use the API to automatically add necessary comments to all my trademe listings, and to periodically check the stock level that Trademe thinks is available is actually correct and if not fix it.

Gezz I miss the days when people would get together physically and discuss this sort of stuff

Where to begin???

My existence was pretty much all marketing and customer service not technology, all though I have owned several tech business's

I do not touch type, I use wordpress because it s the limit of what my brain can handle. Whenever I talk to programmers I find myself aplogising for using wordpress and accept the sneers of derision. (yet 60 million websites use it?)

I state this so you know where I am coming from

I appreciate your comments re the email and I think I understand what you suggest

You say "The emails I send include a unique instant login link for the customer to access all their invoice history"

This may be a thought for me to follow.

I presume the "login" is to some sort of database program ?

Anyway this is all going off at tangents sorry

At present my sales are far off what I use to do with TM when I lived in Welly and people bought DVDs and I sold hundreds of dollars worth a week. I used and still do use a database made out of Filemaker (almost as horrible as wordpress I can hear you say) . But it worked for me.

There may be a course of action to take where I use a online shop framework to process sales. Give customers access to their account without allowing them to shop through the site (Trademe hates that)

The problem for us mortals is I would suggest that the software you have written would cost thousands to buy, My sales now don't warrant the outlay plus the ongoing service of the software.

I 'd like to thank you for taking the time to reply its been helpful

I will now go off and do some more pondering

G

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richms

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#1289855 22-Apr-2015 23:33

The code we had working before my business partner bailed to aussie would make an account on our oscommerce based cart on successful purchase. It would create a cart with the item in it that they won. Populate address from what the supplied trademe or we manually added if they emailed it.

We never got to having it automatically handle payments or combined invoicing. Seemed to work well enough. Got customer details into our database and made a tax invoice when we processed the payment etc.

Richard rich.ms

gnfb

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#1289939 23-Apr-2015 08:50

richms: The code we had working before my business partner bailed to aussie would make an account on our oscommerce based cart on successful purchase. It would create a cart with the item in it that they won. Populate address from what the supplied trademe or we manually added if they emailed it.

We never got to having it automatically handle payments or combined invoicing. Seemed to work well enough. Got customer details into our database and made a tax invoice when we processed the payment etc.

Thanks I am definitely leaning towards the sending of a link for customer to be able to access there details

I did realize that woocommerce has the ability to import a csv etc file. So the sale details that I at present feed into my filemaker database could in fact go to a woommerce online database still thinking this one through though

Is an English Man living in New Zealand. Not a writer, an Observer he says. Graham is a seasoned 'traveler" with his sometimes arrogant, but honest opinion on life. He loves the Internet!.

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dpw

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#1289960 23-Apr-2015 09:27

I don't know the great details of the seller side of things, especially for those who are "In Trade", but have you had a look at TradeVine? I was under the impression they may have a more sophisticated solution for sellers, but I'm not sure if they have anything for buyers to track/monitor progress of the transaction.

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gnfb

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#1290813 24-Apr-2015 13:33

dpw: I don't know the great details of the seller side of things, especially for those who are "In Trade", but have you had a look at TradeVine? I was under the impression they may have a more sophisticated solution for sellers, but I'm not sure if they have anything for buyers to track/monitor progress of the transaction.

Thanks i am asking them the question

can the buyer go online at anytime and see the progress of the transaction with the seller?
ie order received, order processed, order dispatched consignment number

Is an English Man living in New Zealand. Not a writer, an Observer he says. Graham is a seasoned 'traveler" with his sometimes arrogant, but honest opinion on life. He loves the Internet!.

I have two shops online allshop.nz patchpinflag.nz
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richms

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#1290842 24-Apr-2015 14:21

From a buyers perspective none of that matters. All that is needed is an email when it is shipped.

Why should the buyer care about order received or processing? Just let me know when it's on its way and how I can track it. If the "processing" takes more than a day then sort that out before worrying about fancy order status software.

Richard rich.ms

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