Ubercart

Yes, I have come up with a long-term, extensible and elegant solution.

- Created a new product class called "Coupon"
- Installed CCK Computed Field module, added a new field to my coupon content type called "Coupon ID" with the following values:

Computed Code: $node_field[0]['value'] = uniqid();
Display Format: $display = $node_field_item['value'];
Required: Yes
Number of Values: 1
Data Type: varchar(32)

You only need to give 1 role the ability to see this unique coupon ID #, so that they can give it to their vendors to compare a coupon that a customer might bring in. However you want to handle that aspect is up to you.

When someone purchases this product, they of course need to see the Coupon ID on their receipt so they can print it off. I simply modified the customer invoice template (sites/all/modules/ubercart/uc_order/templates/customer.itpl.php) by adding the following code to line 238 (just AFTER the closing bracket } for the SKU code):

I did not include a check to see if the coupon code exists; I probably should have done that but we don't sell any products other than coupons so in our case it's always relevant. Perhaps you should include something to check that $noderef->field_coupon_code[0]['value'] actually contains data -- could be something as simple as

Correct, it's all about the invoice. When I started this it seemed like there MUST be so much to it, but the coupons are just products in terms of ecommerce -- it's the tracking and usage that we need to account for.

Good point on multiple coupons. How does Groupon work -- multiple emails or something?

I suggest you make 1 coupon, regardless of how many regions it will be used in (I use the word Region instead of City because people that live around a city or in a nearby village will still want to see that coupon).

You can use taxonomy terms to make it apply to a particular region.

For example:
Coupon ABC is attached to "new york", "chicago", "los angeles"
Coupon XYZ is attached to "london", "paris"

Then you need to use a View that is passed the term id for that region. So if New York's tid = 5, the View would intercept that tid and only show coupon ABC.

The difficult thing here is setting the customer's region. If you're willing to let them set it themselves, it's quite easy. If you need it to be set automatically, may be a bit more difficult.

Not a problem at all. I would have done this via email but it appears to be benefiting multiple people and I'd rather this be public.

You're asking for 2 different things. The drop down menu of city names would just be an exposed Views filter, or if you wanted more specific placement options, try the Jump module: http://drupal.org/project/jump

If you want to let users subscribe to some kind of newsletter or site notifications, do a search on that topic @ Drupal.org and you will see countless modules to achieve what you need.

Do you create 1 product for each voucher code? OR 1 product called "Megaupload premium account 1 month" and you want to attach (for example) 100 voucher codes to this product and each time a user buys this product they receive the next voucher code in line?

A little searching has discovered this module: http://drupal.org/node/905246

You should post a new forum topic for your problem if you need further assistance. Also, hit "reply" on replies as opposed to posting a new response (reply is in the lower right corner of this box).

Groupon actually has a patent on the specific collective-buying process: http://www.mainstreet.com/print/15494

If you're looking to duplicate the ability to sell products without actually charging the customer until a threshold is met then Ubercart is not the solution. Anyone is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a fundamental change in the checkout process. To do this manually, sure, there are ways, but then your site could not scale. You want to use one of the many Groupon clones available, most of which are probably illegal.

In our case(s) selling coupons to local or regional businesses is a legitimate and successful enterprise. I don't think relying solely on this is a good model, but as an add-on to existing services (like advertising or marketing) it's a big plus.

To respond to your idea of using Flag or similar technology to track them -- yea, you'd be tracking the amount of "hits" to a product, but then you'd have to contact all of the people that "hit" a product and say "please come back to my site and purchase this item for real", at which point you're not guaranteed 100% of the users that hit the flag will actually come back, thus rendering it illegitimate. You could use a payment gateway that is set to capture payment info but not run the charge until midnight, and then cancel any orders on a product that doesn't hit the maximum quantity, but again this doesn't scale well and requires too much user intervention.

I've said this countless times in many threads throughout the Drupal community, but the only difference between Groupon and any other shopping cart is the tipping point. Whether you're selling coupon codes or t-shirts doesn't matter, those are just small problems with easy solutions. If you require a tipping point, you must use something else -- better yet, use Groupon.com!

The patent you're requesting: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=w4EIAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,269,343
(it says "MobShop, Inc" which is now owned by Groupon incorporated)

My personal opinion is that patents shouldn't be able to privatize systems like this, where the real mechanics are generic and don't depend on any specific "invented" mechanism. However my opinion does not matter in the legal realm, and there are numerous lawsuits currently going on in both directions.

People are welcome to do what they want, but I'm not willing to take the risk of infringing on a business model where lawsuits are currently running rampant. HTC was sued by Apple for infringing on dozens of patent infringements as generic as "Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image", in other words sliding an "unlock" switch on a touch screen phone. I think it's fair to say "be careful".

Hi,

I also thinking is that possible to allow group to buy a product like OG groups will creating when people wants to buy a product in a group and the order will be created for the group and the share of amount of the product will be shared between the individuals like four people in the groups and product is 100 USD and each shares is 25 each.

Just need to know this is possible using custom module if not please any one can me know why.
Any heads how this can be done will be really valuable.