Introducing friends is a great way to grow sales (this is not recommend a friend as currently in the site)- in a niche market.
 
What I want is to get customers to send a link to a friend and, when the friend buys for the first time, I can reward the friend and/or the introducer. Could be with a free gift or with bonus points.
 
There could be facility [optional] limited to new customers and not to those who have already bought.
 
It needs be able to facilitate a mailing so that, if appropriate, each recipient receives a unique code to use, generated automatically.
 
Another idea would be for the e-mail acknowledgment of a customer order to be able to have a paragraph something like:
 
"We hope you like the [product/s] and found shopping with us easy and enjoyable.
If you click this link [link] you will be able to send information to a friend who might also like to buy products like these.
And, when your friend orders for the first time we will send you ...etc..."
 
Finally the system then needs to be able to alert 'admin' when an introduction has been completed.
 
Does anyone else find this interesting? Might be another opportunity to share the cost on some custom coding if enough people want to collaborate?

Yes, would be interested,
 
I would also be interested in facility to mass generate order coupons and gift certificates.
 
e.g export / import coupon codes we can send out single use unique coupons to thousands of customers much quicker than having to manually create codes.

I agree. Seems like we can collaborate a lot in here, I wish we had a forum set up to add-on's that we want to contribute to in addition to the personal ones. We could really facilitate a nice program with contributions.

Absolutely right, Dan.
There is a good air of co-operation that could benefit us so much if it could be well organised. And it would also be good for Viart.
 
Thanks for your contribution yourshopping
 
I will wait a couple of days to see whether anyone else wants in on this and has any additional points to include and then I'll ask for a quote.
 
Chris

Hello Christopher
 
count me in. this is an excellent idea.

If there are no more contributors tomorrow I will submit this to Viart.
 
I feel it would be helpful to share e-mail addresses so that we can collaborate fully when we are the point of proceeding.
 
In the meantime I will keep this thread updated.
 
Mine:
chris {at} malikonline.co.uk
 
Chris

Thanks, sounds good

My email
 
admin [at] viartsolutions.com

Thanks to Dan [who has sent me his e-mail] and for Ibn Saeed for joining this collaboration
 
** your-shoppingcouk ** - do you want in on this?
Would anyone else like to share the cost of this and get the feature early?
 
I am going to add this as a support request today.
 
I will put up this thread and the following summary as a brief to work on.
Do comment if you wish, please.
---------------------
Summary of key points:
---------------------
1: System automatically creates a unique introducer code (UIC) for each customer at registration. We will need a simple way to update _existing_ customers with such a code.
2: When customer clicks on any link on site to send introduction to a friend the message takes the "UIC" with the message
3: When admin sends a newsletter - the message to each customer can contain a link to encourage introducing a friend including the "UIC"
4: When the friend places an order one or more of the following options will be available, as specified in admin:
4a - the friend gets a benefit - discount; free delivery; extra bonus points, a free product; a gift; etc
4b - the customer who introduced the friend gets as a benefit - discount on next order; free delivery nest order; extra bonus points, a free product; a gift; etc
4c - the above actions are logged against the accounts for both the customer and the friend
4d - Admin needs to be able to receive e-mail notification of the introduction
4e - an e-mail to customer thanking for the introduction (i) when as the introduction is made (ii) when the friend registers
4f - a admin report to be available on introductions made and the results, over time, for marketing analysis.
 
Best wishes
 
Chris

Yes, would be interested to hear costings.
 
Will drop you an email.

Well, I agree, however, these need to be approved/not approved check boxes and we select which ones approve and which ones do not. Option at end to send notification to the user the the situation was approved/denied with denial reasons set up as a static table of denial options...

Yes, of course, Dan. I will add your comment to the Support request.

Thanks Chris

Dan / yourshopping (and anyone else who would like to join this custom work.
 
This is the response to the ticket. Any thoughts, views, comments - I can then respond.
 
My thought is that it can be part of the affiliate system - just needs the extra functionality requested.
 
===========
Hello Chris,
 
We can use a part of affiliate functionality as it already has a special 'affiliate code' which can be used. So, we can add a new possibility to this presently available functionality to get rewards for customers who use affiliate codes (friends codes). Please, let us know if this solution is ok for you or you would like to like to have an independent affiliate functionality, in this case we will offer you a different solution.
 
With regards,
Natalia
ViArt Support Team
==================

Works for me...

Yeah, sounds cool!

Great idea...ViArt should take these brilliant ideas into consideration to be one step ahead from other softwares..

emresonmez - are you interested in sharing the cost of this?
 
Chris

Hi all - I have had a response from Natalia - I give this below with my response. Would appreciate your comments as we could be getting somewhere.
 
===========
From Viart:
-----------
Subject: RE: Support Request :: Custom Coding - Introduce a Friend
Hello Chris,
 
We can combine two current functionalities:
- new auto coupons functionality
- affiliate functionality
 
So, when a new affiliate user registers on the site there can be automatically generated a new coupon with the user's affiliate code and then when someone accesses the site with this affiliate code the coupon will be automatically applied for user's purchase. The advantage of this solution is that we already have a part of functionality for this so we will require minimum time for its implementation.
 
Please, let us know in case you have any questions or comments.
With regards,
Natalia - ViArt Support Team
==================================
 
My response:
-----------
Hello Natalia
I am not sure this does the job - I want customers to recommend us to
a friend. The customer will not already be an affiliate so will not
have a code. I must admit I am not sure I quite understand what your
are suggesting.
 
"then when someone accesses the site with this affiliate code the
coupon will be automatically applied" I don't understand how the new
user gets the affiliate code.
 
I think this could work:
 
1: If all normal customers can have an affiliate code automatically.
2: If they can click an introduce a friend link on site and get this
code automatically attached to the e-mail.
 
Is this part of what you are offering?
 
Regards
 
Chris

I think what you're saying Chris is much more logical, however it seems good collaboration is being done, so I'm anxious to see the cost...

We seem to be working hard not not yet going forward - the Viart logic is quite right but I am not sure it fits this particular feature.
 
=====================
From Viart
Subject: RE: Support Request :: Custom Coding - Introduce a Friend
 
Hello Chris,
 
We think that all that logic for friends should be a part of affiliate program, to get commissions by affiliates for every purchase and generate some discounts for users who use those affiliate links.
  
As you probably know now this field can be selected when a user registers but we can extend this functionality and generate it automatically using for example 'login' field and then user just need to use this auto-generated field to add it to the link of your site like http://www.example.com/?af=1234
  
There can be different ways the users can use this code.
- Put this code on some of their sites.
- Send this code with email to their friend.
- other possible ways to promote your site
 
 
============================
My response
===========
Hello Natalia
 
The main issue in all this is that the customer does not have to anything more than send an e-mail to a friend saying "Visit www.thiswebshop.com - you will get a discount on your first order - and I will also get one" or something similar.
 
Anything more involved and it will not work. We need to have a way that automatically gives every customer an affilliate/introduction code automatically. It has to be _very_very_ simple from the customer viewpoint.
 
"There can be different ways the users can use this code" - it will not work if the user has to do any of this. The ideal is that they just click on a link on site (eg Send a note to a friend to visit this shop. When they buy they will get XYZ and you will also get ABC). And the site sends the e-mail.
 
This is not affiliate linking - they don't have web sites for a code - they don't take the trouble to create their own e-mail and then fuss about inserting a code. They don't want to promote my site - just earn or win something for just clicking a link and introducing a friend to us.
 
Automatic and uncomplicated are the keys to making this work. Of course there may be several options but these should be for admin only to decide.
 
Is this becoming a problem?
 
Regards Chris

Hello christopherO,
I have my shop online only for 3 months and I was thinking about this feature for the future. Currently I do not need such feature since I do not have many members at the moment. But in the future I may share the costs for custom work we really need.

We are now moving forward - Natalia has proposed a solution which should be useful for what we want. I have agreed to move along this route:
----------------------------------------
 
From: support@viart.com [mailto:support@viart.com]
Sent: 19 March 2008 16:31
 
Hello Chris,
 
It is not a problem at all.
We just try to find the best possible way to implement this functionality.
 
In case you do not want to combine it with affiliate functionality we can use original user_id information in tell a friend link, for example. Then the information about friends user id can be saved in database to generate discounts for users who invite their friends.
To create some discount rules we will improve our coupons system so you will be able to create a new coupon like, for example, if customer's friends spend more than 1000 the customer gets 10% discount on further purchases.
 
Let us know if it is ok?
 
With regards,
Natalia
ViArt Support Team
 
==========================================
I have also added - for clarity:
 
- can we keep in mind that we may want to pass a benefit (discount, free product, or whatever)
to the introduced customer . . . as well as a reward for the customer making the introduction.
 
I see all rewards will depend upon the new customer making a purchase.

great!! moving forward with great benefits

Hello Dan and Andrew
 
We are getting down to detail - I have had this from Natalia
Do you want to make any comment before I respond?
 
Regards
 
Chris
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Hello Chris,
 
We can create new settings for the Coupons Discount systems like:
 
1. Option to apply discount for friends visits:
 
Apply discount if:
 
( ) for all friends visits (o) only for friends from the list of customers below:
 
[x] Chris
 
[x] Dan
 
...
 
[x] Dick
 
 
2. Another option to apply discount for a customer who invites friends:
 
Apply discount if customer's friends bought some products:
 
Minimum Amount [ 100.00 ]
 
Maximum Amount [ 1000.00 ]
 
With regards,
 
Natalia ViArt Support Team

Would this be able to mass create coupons as per on of my posts?
 
Thanks
Andrew