Thread: Payment and search header

Payment and search header

Vantage looks great but I have a few questions:

1) Payment for listings - I want to start with free listings then switch to paid. How would this work? Can I do a bulk email to all business listing owners only advising them of the new fee, then when they login can they have a choice of fee e.g., yearly = $X premium = $ Y? I havent seen any payment pages in the demo so I have no idea how it would work. I would not want business listing owners to have to redo their listings after the fee is implemented. Hope this is clear. In other words is there a seemless way to go from free to paid from the business listing owner perspective?

2) Search bar - can the code be easily modified so the 'search' already has the term in the search bar? I only have one category - lets say horse trainers - I'd want users of the site to only complete the 'near' part of the search and have the other search term permanently populated with 'horse trainer' because there would no other listings than horse trainer in the site.

Thanks

Hi.
Any listings that expire can be re listed for the same fee. So, if it was listed for free, it can be re-listed for free. You can optionally disable re-listing. If you change your pricing, only new listings will be effected. At this time, tiered pricing (AKA membership packs and/or listing packs) has not yet been implemented. Your best bet is to offer free listings as an introductory promo, that way long term users won't be surprised when you start charging.

That would require modifying the theme.

Ok I think I understand. So let's say I allow a 6 month free listing. Then I want to charge. When it renews, then the business owner will be charged/asked to pay without having to relist, correct? Is there any kind of automated email msg to business owners? Like "your free listing is coming to an end, be sure to continue your membership for all these great benefits etc"

Can I email all business listing owners with news or changes etc?

Hi.

Not quite. Re-listing does not require the customer to need to type everything in again. When the customer has an expired listing, they just need to re-list (AKA "re-activate") the existing post (assuming you enable the feature). When re-listing an existing post, the customer is charged the same fee for the same features. So if it was free, it will be free again, and if it was $10, it will be $10 again. Only newly created listings will be affected by price changes.

Yes, there is an automated "your listing is about to expire" email system.

Mass mailing is not built in, but there are plugins for WordPress that do that well. I would at least blog about changes to pricing/features.

Ok, so once free always free in terms of re-listing. Are there any changes planned to allow a switch from free to paid? Alternatively is this something that could be changed in the theme fairly easily? I really need this feature and would pay someone to program it if it's not a huge undertaking. This is the only thing holding me back from purchasing - everything else looks great.

Emailing sounds good.

Ideally I'd like to pay Appthemes to make this change but would like to know if a skilled programmer could do it relatively easily (ie switching free members to paid upon relisting)

Anyone at all who can answer?

Alternatively, could Vantage somehow work with a Wordpress membership plugin to handle the payment side, etc?