Ability to Test Funky Pre-Paid Subscription Setup?

[woobrew]

Hi,
I work for a wine club and I am trying to setup pre-paid subscription plans that include 3 different delivery frequency options. I came up with a solution but I have no idea if will work. I am wondering if there is an ability to test the subscription functionality. I specifically need to test the auto-generation of new pre-paid orders and to make sure they stop when the subscription is over.

I need to ability to sell pre-paid wine subscriptions where the customer chooses the amount of shipments and the delivery frequency.
http://216.139.226.206/washington-wine-gift-club.aspx

I am trying to use Kits. I have set up the main wine club product with 2 sets of Kits.


The first set is Number of Shipments. I am using these to control the price which is dependent on the number of shipments ordered. I set each on with a separate subscription plan in an attempt to control the number of orders the system will auto generate. I am trying to use the Total Number of Payments field to control the final number generated. Though I can let the customer choose the frequency on the backend, I am not sure how to get that to the product page since it is a kit item. To get around this I am using a second type of kit item – Shipping Frequency.


I am hoping to use the Shipping Frequency kits to control the frequency. I set each up with a subscription plan using 0.00 cost and recurring payments of 0.00. The total number of payments is hopefully being controlled by the other kit.


When I do a test order, it looks like the frequency piece will work as the Next Payment Date (of 0.00) seems to show up in the order data. However, there is no expiration date and it is unclear if the system will use the Total Payments data from the Number of Shipments kit subscription.


Is there a way to test the subscription to see if it stops generating shipment orders based on the total number of payments and not on an expiration date?

Did you think this set up will work?

I am also thinking I may be able to just set up Number of Shipments as an option of the main product and pass that data into the subscription? I’m not sure how to do this as I am Ablecommerce / ASP.Net newbie. I know html and css pretty good and can be pretty scrappy getting things to work though.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Katie]

First, I think you have the right idea to use Kit products to determine the price of the subscription. That makes sense to me. I think what you need to do is remove shipping frequency and let the subscription auto-create based on what you have entered for the Payment Frequency. I realize that you are collecting the initial payment up-front, but the settings you have entered for Payment Frequency (by way of subscription) will determine when those orders are created.

The only other problem you need to fix is the Total Payments field needs to include a value or no expiration will be created for the subscription which means it will go on forever, or until it's cancelled manually. To fix this, simply enter the number of shipments into the "Total payments" field.

Testing subscriptions can be a little frustrating because of the time sensitive issues. You can create a test product and use days instead of months. This might help your tests go quicker. Also, in order to use the Auto-Ship feature, you must be using Authorize.net CIM payment gateway. It should still work even though the subsequent orders will have no payment.

I hope this helps.
Katie

[woobrew]

Thank you Katie,
The problem I have is I need the customer to choose both the total number of payments and the shipping frequency. I am not sure how to get both inputs into the same subscription. I think I could accomplish this by having each variation be one line item... but that makes the drop-down too long and not customer friendly. I will set one up to go daily and test that!

Thank you again!

[Katie]

It might be a good idea to see how the shipping frequency option works by creating the subscription with the "Allow Customer to Choose a delivery schedule" enabled with some choices. Using Kit products/subscriptions to get your price how you want it seems like the correct thing to do, but for shipping frequency, it is better to use the built-in option for subscriptions.

[woobrew]

I tried that but it doesn't show-up on the product page. I think it has something to do with the subscription being a kit item. Maybe I could try it if I add that to main product and remove the frequency kit. Thanks again Kate!

[woobrew]

Hi again,
I can't get it to work like I need to. I set one up for daily billing. I'll have to see if it stops after a couple days.

Another idea I had was to set up an options field for shipping frequency then pass that data into the proper field for the Number of Shipments billing frequency. Does that make sense? Is it possible and/or difficult?

[Katie]

Hi,

Ok, I finally had a few spare minutes to do some testing with Kits and Subscriptions, and now it's all coming back to me.

We have two types of subscriptions - Classic and Auto-Ship. The Classic subscriptions are what we had before introducing the new Autoship feature. I know that Kits will work with classic subscriptions, but that means the feature of creating new orders and allowing the customer to pick a delivery schedule is not possible with Classic type.

The trouble with Auto-ship subscriptions is that it has additional features like being able to make it optional, letting the customer select the delivery schedule, etc. Because these subscription features require the customer to select from a drop-down list, or pick a checkbox, they were not designed to work as Kitted Components. Namely because the Kitted components themselves could be setup as options in a drop-down list or checkboxes.

Another problem with what you are wanting to do is have the customer pay up-front and then allow them to choose the delivery schedule as well as total number of shipments. Unfortunately, with the subscription plan, you can only enter a single value for total number of payments(shipments), so that means you would need to create a subscription plan for each (3, 4, 6, and 12 shipments)

As you can see, this can start to get really complicated. It sounds like you wanted the orders to be created on the days for shipment, however, by using Classic subscriptions you can manage this via the payment gateway. This is one option that doesn't require customization. The down-side is that subsequent orders will not be created in AC.

Another option is to create separate products for each subscription variant. That means you would have 12 subscription products, each with their own frequency and number total number of shipments (payments) set. I know that may not be a desirable solution, but if you chose a category display page like "Category List", you might find that it would work just fine and display all of your subscription options in a nice list format.

I can't think of any other way to accommodate your request unless you start customizing the subscription code.