Seeking some eCommerce advice

[jbartus]

Hi guys,

Looking for a solution to accomplish a somewhat strange task. What I need to do is as follows:

I need to be able to create multiple apparel products that will draw from the same inventory item. Basically, I think what I'm looking to do is create "assemblies", in this case decorated apparel items, that have a common "component" that, when the "assembly" is bought will deduct inventory from the "component" and when the "component" is out of stock the "assembly" is on backorder.

For example, I could have 15 black t-shirts in stock in size medium, and want to have distinct products for different designs printed on these shirts.

If a customer were to buy, for example, a Boston College T-Shirt in medium, the inventory would need to decrease to 14, with all products that draw from that inventory item affected accordingly.

Any thoughts and ideas would be welcome, I am pretty sure I have it worked out in my head how to make it work if I need to but I need to deploy ASAP and would rather not have to extensively modify an ecommerce system if there is something already out there.

Regards,
Jon

 

[Mobius]

Hi John I am not a web designer , but t-shirts is my thing ... heres my 2 cents.

You mentioned you need the designs printed on the shirts are you looking for an all inclusive site that will handle all aspects, you just sit back and sell... or are you wanting to make or order these shirts yourself ?

I know of some good all-inclusive websites that I believe would handle all aspects from sizing etc to to shipping out shirt. INfact there are many platforns that would handle some or all of the aspects you need.

I am very in tune with the t-shirt industry so if you could be more specific I could perhaps help.

Have you heard of spreadshirt ? or looked into any word press themes , or a ready made store template like Templatic ? Or do you have a site and want to implement this ??

Many options out there for making the sizing and inventory (or user changeable fields) through templates or a ready made store. If you can give more details I can dig up some more potentially useful links .. let me know. .

I am on this forum looking for help with my shirt site also so ?? not sure if your on for web help or ? Sorry if I misread you ... and good luck to you !!

 

[jbartus]

something I would sincerily like to know myself. Thanks for posting. My question is tho, you mentioned you need the designs printed on the shirts are you looking for an all inclusive site that will handle all aspects, you just sit back and sell... or are you wanting to make or order these shirts yourself ?

I know of some good all-inclusive websites that I believe would handle all aspects from sizing etc to to shipping out shirt. INfact there are many platforns that would handle some or all of the aspects you need.

I am very in tune with the t-shirt industry so if you could be more specific I could perhaps help.

We do production in house. The "component" is actually the blank item.

T-Shirt was just an example because I figured most people would get what I meant, the actual site will be dealing with embroidery on jackets, but its pretty much the same thing. Blank stock, decorated to order.

 

[Mobius]

Hey John, check this out ! http://www.yourinspirationweb.com/tf/?theme=kassyopea

Wordpress is an extremely user friendly platform for creating a really nice website and is extremely popular and easy to customize yourself. This theme (above) would be a plug-in once you had a wordpress theme picked out.You would just go to wordpress and get the site and add this plug-in. And this would work to display all your items and would also handle the commerce. I know someone running a site under thins platform (www.myshirtrocks.com) and it's pretty nice !! I am sure a few technical things you would need to figure out , but that's what forums are for : )

I would give that a serious look.. I have been researching for a while, and now that I bring it up I may go this route myself here. I love the templates at wordpress. You can sign up there for free, browse templates and so on , just get domain and hosting and your off and running !! Lol , you may have just answered my own question to the forum. Watch my question for answers also may give you some insight. Some other info is (if not already) sign up with t-shirtforums.com , there is a wealth of information there regarding the garment industry.

btw you would only need the e-commerce version . I believe you may have killed my bird with your stone ; ) Thanks !

cheers

 

[Mobius]

My aplogies John , this is Infact a Template itself for word press (meaning kassyopea). So there would be no need to go digging on word press for a fancy template, its already set up and you can customize it !

 

[Mobius]

Webbies, please feel free to chime in on what you think about this solution for mine and Johns intentions... I think i'm almost locked on this one. Just lookin for a bit more info on the cart deal they have and how that works ....

 

[Mobius]

oops typo above (I corrected it) , the site you can preview (a person I know's site) is myshirtrocks.com , not myt-shirtrocks.com ... keep in mind he had designers working with him to implement a nice header and whatnot , but I think to start a basic template would work nicely. Perhaps your logo integrated into it.

 

[jbartus]

Mobius,

I am, in fact, one of those "webbies" you speak of. I'll check out the wordpress ecommerce system, first I've heard of it to be honest, but I am here to see if another developer here might have knowledge of a system that would have the functionality I'm looking for built in. I'm comfortable with modifying a system and have an idea of how I would go about making this happen, if I have to, but ideally someone else here might know of an ecommerce system already set up for my specific needs.

No offense, I'm not really sure how much forum experience you have on the net, and I think you were trying to be helpful, but you've kind've hijacked my thread and pushed it towards a discussion that isn't really what I was asking here which is considered poor form. I appreciate your attempts to provide help on this matter, but I don't think what you're looking for and what I'm looking for are the same thing exactly. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

Regards,
Jon

 

[DeatosLabs]

Im not sure of any ready made solutions that will do this for you, But it would not be very hard to make with php+mysql or asp+mssql, or whatever other technologies power your site.