What is MarketPlace?
In general terms a MarketPlace is ‘an open space where a market is/ was formerly held.’ It means that a space with relation between sellers and customers. There are several sellers selling goods to several customers.
An online MarketPlace (or online e-commerce marketplace) is a type of e-commerce site where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are processed by the MarketPlace operator. Online marketplaces are the primary type of multi channel e-commerce.
In an online marketplace, consumer transactions are processed by the MarketPlace operator and then delivered and fulfilled by the participating retailers or wholesalers (often called drop shipping). Other capabilities might include auctioning (forward or reverse), catalogs, ordering, wanted advertisement, trading exchange functionality and capabilities like RFQ, RFI or RFP.
In general, because marketplaces aggregate products from a wide array of providers, selection is usually more wide, availability is higher, and prices are more competitive than in vendor-specific online retail stores.
Examples of online marketplaces are Amazon.com, etsy, eBay, Snapdeal, Flipkart, Kaymu, Rakuten, and NASDAQ.
MarketPlace Extension
MarketPlace extension for Magento is developed for simply converting a simple Magento store to a MarketPlace with lots of features to customers, sellers and store owner. Any customer can register as a seller and can enjoy the features of a seller as well as customer of the store.
The seller sells products on the store and in return the store owner gets a commission by percentage from the total sale made by the seller. The commission percentage that the store owner gets can be modified and the store owner can set percentage to any desired value.
Prerequisite
The Knowband MarketPlace Extension is necessary to be installed on the system for using this MarketPlace Addon.
Magento MarketPlace Seller Vacation Mode Addon
Introduction
This Addon is basically developed for the sellers to let them inform their customers and the MarketPlace admin that they will not be available to sell for a particular time duration. In this module, the seller can set a specific time interval during which he will be unavailable on the MarketPlace. An alert is sent to the customers when a seller goes to vacation and a similar alert is sent once he/she is back from vacation. All these automation is done using the cron instructions.
The admin can also set a cron which will activate and deactivated the vacation mode and also sends an email to the sellers as soon as the vacation mode is activated or deactivated.
Installation Manual
Follow the following steps for installing MarketPlace – Magento MarketPlace Seller Vacation Mode Addon
1. Download the Addon package.
2. Unzip the package on your root folder of Magento setup via FTP manager (like Filezilla or WinSCP – download here: https://filezilla-project.org/).
3. In Admin Panel under the Menu “Market Place” next to System menu, you will see a new menu option “Vacation Mode”. In case you are not able to see the link under System, please clear Magento Cache first then check again.
4. With this the extension gets installed on your system.
Module Interfaces
This module will be accessible through Admin as well as seller’s account.
Seller Account Interfaces
These interfaces will be accessible only by a seller in his account section.
Admin Account Interfaces
These interfaces will be accessible only by the MarketPlace Admin in his account section.
User Manual
This User Manual will guide you through the Admin Module/Store Front settings and features of the MarketPlace – Seller Vacation Mode Addon.
Admin Module
In the admin panel of Magento the MarketPlace Extension adds a separate menu (named “Vacation Mode”) under the MarketPlace Menu tab
MarketPlace Menu
The MarketPlace Menu consists of total 12 sub-menu options by default. With the addition of the MarketPlace – Contact Admin Addon, a new menu option “Seller Ticket System” is listed which redirects to several pages for the MarketPlace Seller Vacation management.
Admin Interface
The Location of Admin Interface is under “MarketPlace>> Vacation Mode”.
Vacation Mode
How to allow/enable vacation mode for the sellers?
1. Navigate to “MarketPlace>> Vacation Mode” as shown in the screen print above. An interface similar to the below screen print will open:
2. Enable the module by enabling the setting number 2 “Enable/Disable Vacation Mode”.
3 . Click : “Save and Continue” to save the settings.
4. On the above interface in label 3, you can also view the list of sellers who have already activated the Seller vacation mode.
5. Click on “View” to open the details about the vacation mode activated by the seller.
Vacation Interval: The date set by the seller for starting and ending the Vacation is shown here.
Is Active: The current status of vacation mode is shown here.
Vacation Halt: If Seller has stopped the vacation mode before the specified date.
Comment: The comment or message used by the seller to inform the Admin regarding the reason for the vacation mode activation.
How to disapprove a seller vacation mode?
If for any reason the admin not want the seller to go on a vacation mode. The admin can deactivate the vacation mode for the particular seller at anytime by clicking “Cancel” as shown in the image below:
Clicking cancel will open a pop like above and the admin has to give a reason for not accepting the vacation mode request and then click “Submit”.
Seller Account Interfaces
This is the interface which will be accessible only through seller account section.
Menu Location
After installation, a menu(My Vacations) will be displayed to the seller in the “SELLER ACCOUNT” Menu tab as shown in below screen:
On clicking the highlighted link, the system will redirect seller to his “My Vacations History” window.
My Vacations time configuration
Here all the menu items and fields of the module are mentioned:
In the above window Click on “Set New Vacation” at the right top side of the interface. A new window appears for the configuration of your vacation mode.
Settings Description
1. Vacation Start Date: In this field, the seller will set the date for which he is going to vacation and will not to available on the MarketPlace. Please note : For testing also always mention the present date or date yet to come. Do not enter a past date in this field.
2. Vacation End Date: In this field, the seller will set the date when his vacation ends and will again be available on the MarketPlace.
3. Your comment to this vacation: Seller can specify the reason for activating the vacation mode. This message will be seen by the admin.
4. Save: Click Save button to save all your settings made.
Stop a vacation mode
The vacation mode automatically stops at the Vacation End Date specified by the seller.
The seller can stop a vacation mode any time manually by clicking “Cancel ” as shown in this screen print below: A pop up will appear where the seller has to mention the reason/comment and click “Submit” to stop a vacation mode.
Module Work Flow
When the admin will install this module on his MarketPlace, each seller will get a sub menu on their seller account page. The once a seller sets his vacation time through the interface provided to them on their seller’s account, the cron which has been already configured in the module will start working. The module will automatically start and stop a vacation mode for a particular seller according to the time set by the seller. During the time period of the vacation mode, the particular seller’s profile will be inactive on the MarketPlace and his products will not be shown to the customers either.