[cfaussie] RE: thoughts on a "do you want fries with that" upselling system?

[Darren Tracey]

I'd be asking for some very firm examples of what it should do and what it shouldn't do.

 

Also, when you say 'he needs to make sure that people purchasing have...', do you mean that your system should ask them whether they already have the right stuff, offer suggestions as to what may nice to go with this this, or force things into their 'shopping cart' that the owner feels is mandatory, or some combination of all three.

Is this owner aware that he will have to enter all this specialist knowledge in at some point and keep it all up to date.

Every new product will need to bring up a list of _every_ other product and 'mandatory', 'compatible', 'not effected by', 'not compatible' and 'must never be brought within 10 feet of each other' flags set against each of those _every_ other product.

How far do you want to take it?

If item x requires item y, and item y also requires item z, do you want to offer y and z every time someone tries to buy x?

Eg, if a Mac software package is bought, do you want to offer to sell them a Mac, and then offer to sell them a bundle of Mac software, including a copy of Microsoft Office (I'm assuming this exists for Macs), then since MS Office can also be run on a PC, do you offer them a PC?

 

This sounds to me like a complex 'expert' system that the guy wanting it has no idea how complex it may be.

Let me guess, you have a 2 sentence spec (probably verbal only), not much more than what you posted below?

There's probably a fixed budget of $500 for the whole thing too?

Or worse still, this is freebie work you're doing for a relative, where the value the relative places on your time is proportional to how much it costs them?

 

Darren Tracey

-----Original Message-----
From: Barry L Beattie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, 21 January 2004 4:10 PM
To: CFAussie Mailing List
Subject: [cfaussie] thoughts on a "do you want fries with that" upselling system?

Hi all

the guy wants more than just a product-based site with cart. He needs to make sure that people purchasing electronic components have the correct and compatable accessories.

sounds like an upselling system to me, similar to Amazons "people who bought this also bought that" type of thing. Probably a rules table that stores the relationships to the products in the products table.

I have to make it run both ways, though. "This device has to use that software" or "That software only works with this device". Everything he sells is both a product and an accessory at the same time so I can't categorise them that way. And I'm tossing up between making it inclusional (look for things ordered that match) or both inclusional and exclusional (look for things that shouldn't go together and suggest the alternatives).

anyone have any opinions on something like this?

thanx
barry.b

 

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