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free shipping issue... sigh


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If it isn't one thing....

 

I have a product that is virtual, but Prestashop won't let me treat it as virtual because it has combinations (why?  Because I'm figuring out the hard way that prestashop was a mistake... but now I'm invested)

 

Anyway, so I set up a carrier for free shipping.  I assign this product, and only this product, to it.

 

I swear I tested it one time and saw "free shipping" but since then, it seems to be totally ignored.  There is NO CHOICE to the customer.  They only see the normal shipping.

HOW do I set up a situation where free shipping applies to one product only.  If they add only that product, they see free shipping.  If they add that product and others, they see whatever shipping would have applied to those other products whether or not the free shipping item is there.

 

 

 

Side Q:  It doesn't apply to me, but what if someone wants to offer free shipping in (example) canada only?  I see "zones" but they are pretty broad.  And the free shipping is free without any option to specify zones.  

 

Is this cart really that dysfunctional?

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So let me get this right. You are using free software to sell something to people that they do not already have. But you get mad when someone offers something that the free software does not have and sells it?

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There's a lot wrong with that statement.

 

First off, I'm not mad.  I'm understandably frustrated (perhaps not as understandable if you've only read this post of mine).

 

Second, it isn't "free" software, it is open source software.  And they take a cut from all the software sold through their marketplace (whether it works or not is of no concern to them) so they're making money on this "free" software.

 

Third, there's no correlation at all between the relationship involving myself and my customers, and that of myself and my website software.  I guess your insinuation was that I'm cheap and won't pay for software (odd for someone supporting this "free" software), but I would pay for a shopping cart suite if I felt it would suit my needs.  I choose opensource because I believe it allows me to address my needs better, in general, vs proprietary software.  Sadly, I honed in on Prestashop and wasted between 100 and 200 hours before truly realizing how functionally broken it is.  That's on me.

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I took your frustration as you being mad. Sorry about that. 

 

Second it is free. Sure that and open source get tossed around a lot, but unlike platforms like Magento, there is currently no paid version of PrestaShop. It is free. 

 

Third, I don't think a software out of the box offers that functionality. If you look at it as wasted time, that is too bad. I would hate that I wasted a couple hundred hours over an issue that costs $150. 

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No no no... this was just one of soooo many issues.  And if each costs $150 (which is really a VERY high amount for this EXTREMELY simple function that I implemented myself with a single database call)... it adds up.

 

This wasn't advanced stuff.  This particular issue was really very minor.  I was frustrated that something so basic couldn't be done in the settings.  There's absolutely no reason, other than the developer's take on e-commerce, that a virtual product can't have combinations.  Same with their BS reasosn for why we "can't" delete orders.  Its just their opinions on how things should be, choosing to stifle us rather than let us decide for ourselves.   You say you can't think of another off-the-shelf cart that has this functionality?  I've never used one that can't!  What, really, is the difference between a virtual product and a physical one?  Just shipping.  That's it.  Whether or not there are combinations is irrelevant.

 

Anyway, this issue was resolved awhile ago (with no support, of course).  That's not what I spent 100 to 200 hours on.  What I meant was I spent all that time making the site work how I wanted... and only after I went live and began using real-world scenario testing did I discover how dysfunctional the order processing was.  It is horrendous.  I wanted to cry, given how much time (and money because I did buy several modules) I had invested.  But In the end I had to determine that I'm best off abandoning prestashop and moving on to something else.  I'm still not sure what that will be.  Magento is popular but V2 isn't ready (I tried the beta and it - like prestashop - is pretty but useless).  In fact, a lot of them seem to be focused on how pretty the back end is rather than considering how business people have to actually work to USE it.  

 

Anyway, I'm all but moved on from P(o)S.  My foot is out the door, but I guess I keep wishing I'll catch some glimpse that I missed something.

 

C'est la vie.

Edited by bcsteeve (see edit history)
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Well since PrestaShop is open source you should add the feature to the git and make it better.

 

I understand why orders cannot be deleted, it is a simple issue really. 

 

I don't really know what to tell you in the issues you are having. V2 of Magento is more than likely going to be delayed since the company was sold off at a huge loss this week. 

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I understand why orders cannot be deleted, it is a simple issue really. 

 

Too simple to mention?

 

The false logic on the documentations says some BS about it being "illegal in Europe".  I hate that I-never-went-to-law-school-but-I'll-interpret-it-anyway crap.  Whether or not there's any such law in Europe or any particular nation... that has no bearing on the functionality a piece of software can provide.  If they were really concerned about it, then ask during install "Are you in Europe and bound by law XYZ?" and then disable the feature if you must.  Obviously the user CAN delete the order.  They can delete the whole bloody database if they want.  It isn't Prestashop's job to enforce their take on some law that only applies (or doesn't) to a subset of their users.

 

But there sure is a reason they SHOULD provide the functionality!  Because there are times it just makes sense.  And by sending shop keepers off to do it themselves, databases get mucked up.  I saw a module (official?  not?  Who knows) that does add this functionality, but when I looked at it, it only deleted the entry from a single table, leaving traces of the order in other tables.  Does that eventually cause a problem?  Beats me.  

 

Perhaps strongly discourage people from deleting orders... but disallowing it is stupid.  There simply ARE times orders should be deleted.  First up is tests.  They are NOT real orders, and shouldn't be in the database at all.  Now perhaps an idea would be for a special "test" customer who's orders can be deleted because, well, they aren't real.  Another  perfect example is what I ran into... a bug.  I did a test order.  I refunded test order.  Prestashop screwed up and says the order wasn't refunded.  I canceled the order.  Nope, still there and still on the books showing I earned that money when I didn't.  NO way to cancel it, no way to refund it, no way to delete it.  Manually deleting it was the only way to move on.  Did I delete it correctly?  Well, yeah, I think so... the database tables aren't THAT mysterious... but they are pretty layered (unnecessarily so in several cases) and I may have missed something.

 

 

 

But I think the "simple issue" really is that they don't know what they're doing.  I've seen several people make the same sentiment:  it is obvious these guys know how to make a website... it is equally obvious they have no experience at all running an ecom shop of their own.

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Yes, the issue is simple. It is an entry that should not be deleted. If it is a test order. It is a record. I cannot think of many reasons that you would ever want to delete a record. I don't know if you have ever looked into CRM software but most of them will not allow record deletion for the same reason. 

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I gave you the reasons.  And they're valid reasons.  A test is a test is a test.  There's no reason that "record" has to ever exist in a business' documents.  And a bug that results in a record being corrupted with no resolution other than deletion... 

 

whatever, it doesn't matter.   Good luck with your module sales.

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You can clean the tests out of your shop before you launch with the free module included with PrestaShop. It will delete your orders.

 

 

If you notice I have a dozen or so free modules, I don't actually sell any modules.

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