Ecommerce webistes to create Quotes not direct sales

Hi I am interested in selling products online. I am not interested in setting up a site like shopify or squarespace where I need to pay monthly in order do directly sell products online. I want to use a free alternative where I can set up a site where customers can basically select the products that they want, build an order, and instead of paying right there the order is sent to me in the form of a quote. They will never pay for the product directly through the site. It is for building their orders. I will then contact them after I received the order on my own to discuss inventory and such and confirm certain things. What kind of site can I do this with?
Thanks

 

Hi,
Your requirement are quite specific which you cant get accomplished in shopping cart...and its difficult to get free alternative.
Its best to go with with custom based web development from scratch or else you can buy a ready made eCommerce script and customize the payment part which is more cost and time effective.

 

If you need free eCommerce Platform, I would recommend Magento. It's open source and totally free of charge (Community Edition). You can download it and install on your server. There there are payment methods which allow you to not charge your orders directly, just to save it with customer email, first name, last name, telephone... After that you can call your customers by phone.

Also there are a lot of web themes which are also free of charge, so you do not need to pay anything. There is a link: http://www.magentocommerce.com/download where you can download it (choose "Full Release"). If you have some additional questions, feel free to ask, I am willing to help

 

You simply need to add your own payment options. For example, I have a Volusion store that I created these extra choices: Purchase order, Einvoice. For B2B this is efficient because it let's them build an order, and you can adjust prices, items, etc as needed before finalizing.

Shopping carts and criteria to choose best for you:
Magento (CE)- choose this if you're committed to the store (not just an experiment) and have a lot of products or want maximum control over content look and feel.
PrestaShop- Choose the free hosted site if you're just testing the waters. Free always comes at a price- in this case lots of limitations.
PrestaShop CE (download)- It's a toss up with Magento CE. Either will work.
Wordpress with an ecommerce plugin- if you don't have a lot of products, want to add to existing web site and don't want to invest a lot of time into the project. If you have cPanel, check for Fantastico or Softoculous to install wordpress in a few clicks.

 

You can do this with wordpress + woo commerce + this http://docs.a3rev.com/user-guides/plugins-extensions/woocommerce/woocommerce-quotes-and-orders/

Or this seems it will do the trick. http://codecanyon.net/item/woocommerce-request-a-quote/6460218

hope that helps.
Nigel

 

Well, I read your post and I would like to inform you that what kind of changes you want, that can be done. Because, there are so many customized ecommerce platform available, who can works according to your needs. So, don't bother about that.

 

Yes, E-commerce is a platform for all business who want to be customize there products. You must promote your brand by using social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These all sites are beneficial for promotion of your products.

 

The requirement seems very simple. I would suggest Magento ecommerce application for this as this is open source.

Option #1: A paid magento extension is available, which allows customers to requrest for quote on products selected and store owner can quote on those items, customers can negotiate and place the order. You can enable "Cash / Cheque" payment option so that online payment can be avoided

Option #2: Some customization's on magento will make this done.

1. You need to rename "Shopping Cart" to "Enquiry List"
2. Change "Add to Cart" to "Add to Enquiry List"
3. Change "Place Order" button on shopping cart to "Place Enquiry"
4. Checkout needs to be customized such that, on clicking on "Pace Enquiry", email is triggerd with the details

Cheers
Arun

 

If you want the most flexibility in defining all of the product customization options I would recommend Drupal with either Ubercart or Commerce shopping carts. The added flexibility provided by these solutions do require additional development time and cost but you won't have to compromise on your desires. Using these systems I have been able to build custom ordering and quoting systems for clients in different industries with good results.

 

"E" stands for electronic and commerce implies the selling of products or services. It contains very low running cost as compare to brick and mortar shop. It has the ability to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.