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So how could we proceed on this?, the google group people seem to think the best way would be to send the mail through mailchimp to include the order info and the qr code with the variables in it, it also seems like a good idea to me as it would include html templates which would look nicer than plain text emails, I don´t know if there are other ways of accomplishing it, but it seems like the quickest route from point a to point b, i´m also willing to pay for this customization
i´d like to know your thoughts on the whole thing
what im trying to do is basically outline here in text, pics and video, its pretty cool
http://blog.mailchimp.com/pyow-mailchimps-next-iphone-app/
but instead of sending discounts through emails i´d like to send their purchase info and redeem/validate using their iphone app which is linked to the mailchimp account in order to validate that I sent that email
Im not really a developer or know what their api limitations are, but I Just asked in the google group they have for the api to see if anyone can give any useful info on this
so ive been playing a bit with mailchimp and its QR function and I got to thinking more about the process behind the idea of integration
basically mailchimp adds the following “merge tag”/code to their email content to create a qr code:
*|QRCOUPON:MESSAGEl :#:#|*
basically it shows a message, it could be the product name, or in my case i would want the customer name and the product name, the first # is the number of times the cupon/voucher can be used, and the second # is the size of the qr code in the email, I used size 3 in my tests but 2 would probably be just fine, after all, I want it to fit on one page.
mailchimp sends a unique QR code to each email address, so in the example, every person I send the email to through mailchimp will get a unique code and be able to use the coupon the number of times that is desired, in my scenario, once
at the store/pick up point/etc, the customer brings the printed email or the email on a smartphone and it is scanned with pyow!
the pyow iphone app is linked to your mailchimp account, so you would have to sign in to the app using your mailchimp account in order to validate the coupon, it will show up as invalid if you arent on the account that created the campaign
when you scan it, the app shows the name of it, and if its valid, and if it is, you can click on “use coupon” which will mean that it can no longer be used again, in my case this is convenient since its basically proof of purchase, and since I would include their name and perhaps their email to the qr code MESSAGE part, they could prove their identity using an ID of some sort, however perhaps further down the line it would be conveinent to add the “add extra instructions for seller” as part of the qr code message as well, so the person could specify the name of the person who would be picking it up
mailchimp offers free accounts which can have up to 2,000 subscribers and send up to 12,000 emails a month, I think this is enough for most of us, I mean if I was selling 12,000 products a month, I would not mind at all having to upgrade to another plan, the subscriber limit would be more of a limitant, but im thinking we could just delete the lists and start fresh when its starting to fill up, besides wp-estore also saves the customer info, so it wouldnt be lost
im pretty excited about this and hope it can come true!
Im not a developer, but I understand programming a little bit, however I do intend on taking some courses for php and databases, my comment for testing was more as a customer, like testing the functionality and informing of bugs and whatnot
perhaps the newer version of voucherpress with its api will be able to do it, although im starting to believe that the mailchimp method might be better since they can create a campaign, create a qr code, email it, and also redeem the qr code using their app,
what do you think ?
mailchimp hasnt answered me just yet ( they work mon-fri), but digging a little bit in their site makes me think its possible to do what I mentioned in the last message,
the mailchimp api 1.3 seems to allow Campaign Creation and Sending Functions
http://apidocs.mailchimp.com/rtfm/
http://apidocs.mailchimp.com/rtfm/campaigncreate.func.php
http://apidocs.mailchimp.com/rtfm/campaignsendnow.func.php
so im thinking we could create a campaign, in mailchimp or in wp-estore and access it with wp-estore, and send it with customer and product info, and afterwards perhaps it could replicate it with different customer info, or update it and send it, whichever works best
and their mobile app takes care of the redeeming process, so if its possible, it seems it could work pretty good together
this goes without saying, but I would happily help out testing
ive also contacted mailchimp, they created a way to send QR codes in their mails, and you can specify how many times it can be used, this is controlled with their iphone/ipod touch app “Pyow!”, ive asked them if they have an api for it, explaining the context more or less, i will post their reply here, the ideal scenario here would be that mailchimp sends the email to the customer including a qrcode for the specific product and showing that it can only be redeemed once, thus the client can take the email printed or show it on their device and it can get scanned by an ios device and redeemed
more information here http://blog.mailchimp.com/pyow-mailchimps-next-iphone-app/
the blog post is from 2010, but it gives more information about how it works than the product page which is
Yeah ive emailed the developer for that plugin and sent him messages on his website and his facebook and he has yet to respond, im going to ask on twitter now, I hope he checks his twitter more often than his fb/website/email…
heya
I would like the purchase to be made and then have a customized voucher sent to the customer in an email with the information of their purchase, I ideally wanted to include a barcode or QR code or something with the information embedded and to be able to know when the customer has used the voucher and so it cant be used more than once basically, Im not sure if that helps answer the question, but here are teh steps
step one – customer makes a purchase
step two – they get an email with a voucher they can print, the voucher contains information about the purchase
step three – customer takes printed voucher to location(store or wherever) and gets product in exchange
step four – someone somehow marks the voucher as used
thats pretty much the idea I have, I hope it helps, and sorry for the confusion
Hi, the developer answered and seemed to be a bit confused,
he says
“
Hi,
I think we need to step back a bit. What exactly do you want to do?
Chris
“
maybe it will help if I give the plugins description, its
Have you ever wanted to give away vouchers, tickets, coupons or tokens on your website? If so this plugin is for you. You can create a voucher with whatever text you want, choosing the layout and font from a range of templates (you can also add your own templates). Vouchers can then be viewed, downloaded and printed from a specified URL.
There are shortcodes to add a link to a particular voucher, to show an unordered list of all your vouchers, or to show the registration for to request a restricted voucher.
You can require visitors to provide their name and email address to get a voucher. If an email address is required an email is sent to the address with a link to the voucher URL. Each voucher has a unique code, and vouchers that have an email address associated with them can only be used once, so once a registration-required voucher is downloaded it can’t be downloaded again.
So heres the reply, i hope its useful
Hi,
If the shopping cart is a WordPress plugin running on your site it has
access to all the functions that are defined in the VoucherPress
plugin – they run on the same context. Therefore you can use the
internal VoucherPress function to create a voucher. This is not as
robust as an API, but would work. The function (in the
about-to-be-released version) is defined as:
voucherpress_create_voucher
(
$name, // (string, required) the name of the voucher
$require_email, // (tinyint, required) whether the voucher requires
email registsration to download (0 or 1)
$limit, // (int, required) the total number of instances of this
voucher available (0 for unlimited)
$text, // (string, required) the main body text
$description, // (string, optional) the description of the voucher as
sent to the registered user by email
$template, // (int, required) the database ID of the template to be used
$font, // (string, required) the string name of the font (available in
the return value of the voucherpress_fonts() function)
$terms, // (string, optional) the terms of the voucher, printed at the bottom
$startdate, // (int, optional) the date (UNIX timestamp) this voucher
becomes available
$expiry, // (int, optional) the date (UNIX timestamp this voucher
stops being available
$codestype, // (string) the type of code to generate (‘random’,
‘sequential’, ‘custom’, ‘single’)
$codelength, // (int, optional) the length of random code to generate
$codeprefix, // (string, optional) the prefix to random or sequential codes
$codesuffix, // (string, optional) the suffix to random or sequential codes
$codes//
)
I intend to rewrite the plugin completely and as part of that will
provide an API, but for now you can use the internal functions.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
Chris
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so thats pretty much that
heya, so the voucherpress guy responded to me, this is what he said
Hi,
Yes, it’s an open source plugin so you can make whatever changes you
like (and you contribute those changes back to the plugin for others
to use). There isn’t an API at the moment, but the database tables are
pretty easy to understand. If I were to write an API what features
would you need?
What should I tell him?
looking around a bit im a little confused on which function I need to remove the price from showing up (I set the base price to 0 so customers dont get confused with the price variation method), my php knowledge is somewhat limited ( but im learning! )
