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Automated Auction Process


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Hmm,

The auction is only going to let you check out if it is in Ended status. When the auction is updated so is the end time just for this reason, in case the auction has ended early. I am not to sure if in buy it now auctions the end time changes at eBay, if not it may not auto update. In this case the manager would not know the auction has ended so you may have to manually change the end time.

 

So here is what auctionout.php does,

 

First it does one finall update before you check out. You enter your email address. Then it goes to your auction_data table (Current Auctions)looks through all the entries to see if the email matches. If it does not match - error message. Else it looks at the status of the matching email to make sure it is Ended. If it is not Ended - error message. Else it updates the status to Completed, puts the item in the shopping cart and proceeds to check out.

 

Hope that helps.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

 

Update

Things are going pretty good with the Turbo Lister CVS Export Add on.

It should be done in a few days.

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harborsales,

you need to adjust the setting in auction info. You need to adjust your hours to the proper time zone. What time zone are you in? eBay runs at Pacific time. By default the manager is set to 3 which makes it eastern time zone. If you are in Pacific time set this to 0.

 

 

Nimitz_1061,

I am not sure what you mean? If you are talking about auction listings, you can re-use these as many times as you want.

 

Hope that helps.

:D

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Smitty

 

I changed to Pacific Time Zone and then updated but I still does not recognize the email that is registered with Ebay.

 

I am not to sure if in buy it now auctions the end time changes at eBay, if not it may not auto update. In this case the manager would not know the auction has ended so you may have to manually change the end time.

 

Where and how do I manually change the end time?

 

Thanks for all the help

 

Mike

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Smitty - what I mean is, why enter an item description manually to creat an auction listing when you have descriptions already in the database? Why not have an option to select an inventory item and automaticly transfer the existing description into the auction listing - and perhaps edit it if need be? I have over 600 items listed in my store - and about 2000 images (I'm still working on building the database!) and selecting from those items and automaticly moving the data into those fields would save bandwidth and time. Is that more clear??

 

David

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harborsales,

You can edit the end time in Current Auctions. You should also be able to see the winng bidders email. Have you read the manual?

 

Nimitz_1061,

This is on my list for Automated Auction Process v1.1. There will be a dropdown list, a quantity box and a button to transfer items from the catalog to the auction listings. Also, when transfered, it will deduct the quanity from the catalog.

 

:unsure: :unsure:

Edited by smitty1
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Smitty

 

Yes I have read the manual and it does show the correct endtime. I use the winning email address that is in the admin section but I still get the error of incorrect email address. Now when I go back into current auctions the status of this auction is now completed.

 

Thank you for all the help and advice you have given me.

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harborsales,

This may be the problem. Try changing the status back to Ended from Current auctions and then go back to auctionout.php. You can only checkout if the the auction is in ended status.

 

Hope that helps.

:rolleyes:

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harborsales problem is this...

 

When a winning bidder logs in for the first time, the AUCTION_INFO table for this auction is updated with a SET PRODUCTS_STATUS='Completed'.

 

So basically, the winning bidder can ONLY login once. <_< WHY?

 

If something happens, and it aways does, that the winning bidder doesn't complete checkout, they can no longer login to finish the order.

 

The SET PRODUCTS_STATUS='Completed' update should happen ONLY when checkout has been successfully completed. Instead, the update should be at the end of checkout_process with all of the rest of the order updates. This would be the logical way to handle it.

 

harborsales... I hope this helps get your issues solved. Let me know where I can assist. ;)

 

-R

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ugottasalsa,

 

Although I do agree it would be nice to add this at the end of the transaction, it shouldn't really matter. The winning bidder logs in and the item is put into his cart. if he has a problem and has to try again later, he should not even need to login. the item will still be reserved in his cart via cookies. All he would have to do is go right to the cart and there it is. I also wanted to keep as much as possible contained within the contrib so that is why I kept this is in auctionout.php.

 

Hope that helps.

:D :D

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I can appreciate what you are trying to do, but there are "what if" scenarios that you are just plain overlooking. Sure things SHOULD work, but sometimes they don't. Sh-t happens! ...And yes, it does matter!

 

So what happens if...

 

The Winning Bidder logs in, adds the item to his/her cart, then the phone rings... the baby starts crying... and the kids come home from school.

 

When they finally realize that they were in the middle of paying for their auction, its a day or two later. BUT... by this time, the cart session has expired, and since the DB was already updated when they logged in for the first time, they can no longer login. Now what?

 

Here's another one...

 

You have just logged in as the winning bidder, you haven't added the item to your cart yet, and your PC decides to freeze, causing you to have to reboot. When rebooting, the system will no longer boot? The DB has already been updated so you can no longer login, and their never was a Cart session. Now what?

 

Look at the bigger picture instead of being so closed minded. YOU may not ever experience this, but others might. If you are going to do something, don't do it "half-way". Be professional... do it right!

 

Look, I don't mean to seem harsh, but there are too many people that are being plain lazy and not looking at every possible variable for their contribs. This unfortunately is a good example of just that. You have a good thing here, but its not quite complete. There are a few grey areas. Just because you want to stay away from the core osC files is no excuse. THIS IS AN ADDON FOR OSC... So intergrate it all the way.

 

Instead of saying NO, take it for what its worth.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

-R

Edited by ugottasalsa
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OK then, how do you really feel about the situation. Just to let you know I am a very open minded person. I have worked very hard on this contrib, and on the first release sure there is going to be a "few greay areas"? What do you expect? By popular demand, I will put this on my to do list for the next release.

 

Any other sugestions for the other "few grey areas"?

:unsure: :unsure:

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Look at the bigger picture instead of being so closed minded. YOU may not ever experience this, but others might. If you are going to do something, don't do it "half-way". Be professional... do it right!

 

Look, I don't mean to seem harsh, but there are too many people that are being plain lazy and not looking at every possible variable for their contribs. This unfortunately is a good example of just that. You have a good thing here, but its not quite complete. There are a few grey areas. Just because you want to stay away from the core osC files is no excuse. THIS IS AN ADDON FOR OSC... So intergrate it all the way.

 

Instead of saying NO, take it for what its worth.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

-R

The only suggestion is if this guy geels so strongly about this, then maybe he should use try to create a contribution of his own that fulfills all of HIS requirements. Maybe then other people can be harsh and critisize his contrib

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I think Smitty has been quite open minded. I'm not sure I'd have called this a 1.0 release myself , but revision numbers are largely a matter of preference and Smitty has never said he thought it was complete and perfect. I do seem to recall that the techical term for software that is complete, and perfectly functionals, let me see.. mmm OH YEAH thats it, obsolete!! :D !

 

Anyway, I'm enjoying seeing how this contribution unfolds. And I like the fact that it allows me to handle sales via my merchant account rather than PayPal - which may eventually save me some money.

 

As for suggestions for gray areas..

 

Mmm I'd say - differentciate (sp) auctions from fixed price from store items (primarily for strategic tracking for the store owner - could be useful), ability to use the HTML Editor 1.7 contribution to edit auctions and About Me pages, gallery integration (generate your own gallery automaticly usable from every aution and store item) - heck, the list could go on and on - and likely will. But - you gotta start somewhere, and I think Smitty's done one important thing that few of us ever do - and thats get started and make something happen. So, three cheers and a big thank you for Smitty!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the delays I have been very busy lately with work. I am almost finished with the "moving products from the catalog to the auction listings" and the "auction listings export to turbo lister" add ons. You can check them out at the demo found here:

 

http://www.smittys.pointclark.net/auction_demo/index.php

 

What do you think?

 

P.S. They are not totally functional yet, but you can get the idea.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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Smitty,

Trying to install and use when going to www.(website).com/auctionout.php I get the following error message:

 

Warning: main(includes/languages/english/FILENAME_AUCTIONOUT): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\dev\catalog\auctionout.php on line 15

 

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required 'includes/languages/english/FILENAME_AUCTIONOUT' (include_path='.;C:\php4\includes\pear') in C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\dev\catalog\auctionout.php on line 15

 

Line 15 of auctionout.php is:

 

require(DIR_WS_LANGUAGES . $language . '/' .FILENAME_AUCTIONOUT);

 

Any help????

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Hello,

 

Update

The "moving products from the catalog to the auction listings" is now done. It will be released soon with Automated Auction Process v1.1.

 

You can check it out at the demo here: Demo

 

What do you think? Feedback?

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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Smitty - looks great. Is the export routine not working or is an error generated because its a demo setup? On trying to export existing auctions I noticed that I could not mark which ones to export and got a tep stop error in the download - suspect this is related to the demo setup - but the menus and controls seem to be great!

 

David

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK I know this is a stupid question and usually I'm not a total idiot like this, but where do I change the footer text in the listings

 

By default it's -

 

 

 

Shipping Information:

Shipping and Handling bla bla bla.

 

Payment Information:

Within 24 hours of the auction closing a e-mail will be sent to the winning bidder with instructions for payment.

Or for fastest payment after the auction ends Click Here

 

Terms and Conditions:

By placing a bid on this item, you indicate that you have read the Shipping Information, Payment Information, Terms and Conditions policies and agree with them.

 

Happy Bidding!

 

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT OUR OTHER AUCTIONS!

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