You can offer your customers to subscribe to some of your products. Subscription is a good method your customers can use to pay for regular services. For example, if your company is a hosting provider your customers are most likely to make periodic payments for the time they use your hosting space. In this case you could sell your hosting package as a subscription product.
Note. You can use subscription options only if Subscriptions module is enabled. Please specify a secret key for Subscriptions module under General settings -> Modules options.
When you set up a subscription to some product, the product price becomes 'setup fee'. The pay period and the period fee can be specified in the 'Subscription' dialog box which can be accessed by clicking the Subscriptions link in the 'Product Management' section menu when you are editing a product.
To set up a subscription:
Find the product for which you want to set up a subscription. Open this product for modification in the 'Product Management' section.
Click the Subscriptions link in the 'Product Management' section menu. The 'Subscription' dialog box will be opened.
Picture 1: 'Subscription' dialog box.
Select the pay period from the drop-down list. You can choose between Annually, Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly, or define any other period you want by using the By period entry and specifying the number of days in the period in the field below.
Enter the period fee. Period fee is how much the customer will pay per period. For example, if your monthly hosting package costs $20, you should enter 20.00 for the period fee.
Enter the cost of one day (COST
OF ONE DAY) and the number of days in the period specified in the
Pay period field (DAYS SAME PERIOD).
Your customers do not have to wait till the beginning of the next pay
period to start using your subscription services. If a customer subscribes
to your product one or more days before the beginning of the next full
pay period, he can start using the product and will be supposed to pay
for the real number of days he uses the product before the next pay period
begins. For example, you set your pay period to 'Monthly'
and collect fees for your services on the 10th day of every month. If
a customer subscribes on the 1st day of the month (10 days before the
next pay period begins) in the current period he will be supposed to pay
for 10 days. To find out how much the customer should pay for 10 days
you will need to multiply the cost of one day by 10. X-Cart Subscriptions
module does the job for you: you will need only to specify the cost of
one day of using the product and the number of days in the period specified
in the
'Pay period' field. The sum that your customer pays when he buys a subscription
includes 'setup fee' and payment for the days before the beginning of
the next full pay period. It is calculated according to the formula: setup
fee + (the number of days before the next pay period * cost of one day).
The cost of one day may be found by dividing your period fee by the number
of days in the period. If the period fee is $20, and the pay period is
set to 'Monthly', the cost of
one day will be calculated as follows: $20.00 (period fee) / 30 days (the
average number of days in a month) = $0.666667
Picture 2:
Subscription. 'Monthly' example.
If the period fee is $90, and the pay period is set to "By Period
- 45 days", the cost of one day will be calculated as follows: $90.00
(period fee) / 45 days (the number of days in the period) = $2.00
Picture 3: Subscription. 'By
period' example.
Click on Apply. Pay dates button will appear.
Click on Pay
dates button. Use the calendar to select the dates on which your
customers will be supposed to make subscription payments.
Picture 4: Calendar.
You may accept the dates offered by the program or select different
dates. All selected dates can be unselected at once by clicking on Reset to empty button. To select a pay
date click on the appropriate date. It will be highlighted. To unselect
a date click on it once again. You will be able to return to the first
variant offered by the program at any time by clicking on Reset
to... (your pay period)
button. As soon as you are satisfied with your payment schedule, click
on Update.
To delete a subscription, click on Delete.
Note:
If you want to use the Subscriptions module you need to adjust a scheduling
program to periodically run the script <xcart_dir>/admin/pay_subscription.php. (on
UNIX platforms it is usually cron)
For example:
/usr/bin/curl --get http://www.mystore.com/admin/pay_subscription.php?key=secret
/usr/bin/wget -q -O- http://www.mystore.com/admin/pay_subscription.php?key=secret
/ustr/bin/fetch -o- http://www.mystore.com/admin/pay_subscription.php?key=secret
where 'secret' is your secret key for Subscriptions module (set under General
settings -> Modules options)
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