Hello,
Does anyone know of a way to allow a pre-selected group of customers (who we could add an attribute/source code/any other ideas.. to) to book a restricted number of tickets - i.e. no more than 2 - for a specific performance online.
We need to ensure that no other customers can book for that performance and also ensure that those who do meet the criteria are not able to book more than two tickets. We ideally need to do this online with promo/source codes rather than having to ask the customers to phone and check them manually. Any ideas welcome!
Many thanks,
Jessica
If you use offers on the performance setup - there is a option for limit - however, I don't know if that value is actually enforced in the API or if it is just there for reference. In any case, for the most part, I think this would need to be done predominantly with front-end validation and traps. Off the top of my head, I would approach it like this:
1. For this performance, code the number of tickets text box or drop down to only allow values of 1 or 2.
2. "Even with that limitation, couldn't somebody come back and purchase again and again?" - yes. So, you can use GetExistingOrders or GetTicketHistory - this could be run at checkout time if you use a dummy authentication to allow patrons to shop without logging it. Once authenticated, you can determine if the patron already has tickets to this event. If they do, wipe out the cart and thank them for their interest but remind them of the policy.
3. Duplicate accounts - if they are really serious about getting more than two tickets, there isn't anything to stop them from creating a fake or duplicate account unless you have good methodology in place already to prevent that sort of thing. In that case, you may want to do a validation against the credit card being used - but that's sketchy at best.
Like I said, I'm sure there are better solutions out there once a little more thought or experience can be applied to it - that's just off the top of my head. I'll be watching with interest to see other suggestions because I'm sure we'll be asked to do the same thing at some point!
Good luck!
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Mara Hazzard from Yale did a presentation on something very similar to this in San Antonio last summer. She'd probably be a good contact for you.
-Patrick Schley, First Stage Children's Theater
Hi Jessica,
The slides from the presentation I gave are available here under Web Offers and Variable Pricing. What we did was highly customized to our needs and used some non-standard fields. I'm happy to talk about it with you in more detail if you'd like. Also, you might want to take a look at the new v9 Offers functionality, which might meet your needs.
Best of luck!
Thanks for all your help!