Wordpress Custom inquiry Order Forms.. confused where to start? WordPress

• SOLVED

Hey everyone

I hope everyone is well on here,
I need some support with a woocommerce ordering type facility issue i'm confused about

I'm currently building a wordpress website for a small business which sources and deals in classic car parts.

They basically deal with clients who know what they are looking for..

The purpose of the website is to facilitate an order process.. where people can request a specific part from the company and they go looking for it on behalf of the customer via their connections etc.

Okay, here is the outline

This company want the ability for customers to fill out a specific order form on the front end answering a few questions and detailing precisely what part they want.. but have the website capture the inquiry as if it is a woocommerce product order in the backend.

Basically they want to capture all inquiries as a woocommerce order.. but with an "inquiry" status

They would then receive the standard woocommerce emails saying there is an order etc

They could then see if it is possible to acquire, if not they can notify the client, but if they can they can then update the order in the backend with the cost to acquire the part.. THEN update the status to 'awaiting paymant'.
on doing that the client is sent an automatic email with the banking details.. upon receiving the payment they could then update the enquiry to "on order" and then to "delivered" etc - just like normal woocommerce order management

This is what i need help with

I have always used woocommerce to deal in generic product sales..
does anyone know what i could consider using to build a solid custom order form which integrates with woocommerce to allow for inquiries to be registered as orders, using custom information from the front end using forms?

The other consideration I have is that, the company in the future might consider selling physical car parts on the website, and therefore also be natural woocommerce products.. and so the website might be offering both Orders & inquiries.. but also physical products.. which would both need to be registered in the woocommerce backend.

So i don't want to hack up woocommerce etc to make to work..

Please could you guys give me some advice as to what you would consider doing to solve this.. are there certain plugins available that integrate in woocommerce to allow for this? how can i solve the issue of having both products and inquiries being registered using woocomerce?

Thanks so much for any advice!
its greatly appreciated

Answers (1)

2015-03-03

Kyle answers:

Mike,

This is certainly a unique situation and you will really have to spend time walking through all available options to find what is best. It is very likely you'll need to hire an expert to write something a bit custom.

In my head I picture breaking it up a bit.. first step would be a gravity form or something of that nature to capture the information. When they submit the information it will actually create a 'draft' of a product in the backend. The client then goes in and reviews the information and can set a price and a password for the user to view that product and add it to their cart to checkout. You of course could add some bells and whistles and there, like email notifications if an item is published, that sort of thing.