Purchased Items Overview

Purchased items can be individually saved to a channel entry after a transaction has been completed. This option makes it possible to associate a particular product with a member ID, as the purchaser is set as the author in the Purchased Items channel. This is a great option if you sell products that are downloadable, or otherwise intangible and need to create member specific access to the purchased product.

Setup

The Basics

Several fields in a Purchased Items channel can be mapped for use by CartThrob. Item ID, Quantity, Price, Order ID, and License Number can all be mapped for use by CartThrob.

  • ID will store the original entry_id of the item.
  • Quantity stores the quantity purchased.
  • Price stores the price the item was purchased at (because you might change the price over time, it's good to have a reference for what the customer paid).
  • The Order ID field stores a reference to the order ID that the purchased item is associated with.
  • The License Number field will automatically store license numbers for items that have been identified as requiring a license number when added using the add_to_cart_form.

Additionally, you can create any other custom fields that you would like in your Purchased Items channels. Additional custom fields will allow you to add notes after a purchase, or capture more data from the customer during the purchase. While using the add_to_cart_form, you can create input fields to gather customer data, for instance:

<input type="text" name="item_options[customer_notes]" value="I'm buying this for my big sister" />

If you have a field in your purchased items channel with the short name of "customer_notes" or "purchased_customer_notes", the data from that item_options field will automatically be added to your purchased item.

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Set up your channel and then map the fields in CartThrob's backend.

Advanced

As mentioned earlier, purchased items are associated with the purchaser. This association could allow you to create a shopping cart for a classified ads site, a professional test/quiz-taking site, or for a site selling paid advertisements.

If you need to allow lots of different types of customization, you may need to look into other options beyond adding extra fields to the purchased items channel. Please see the getting started section for more details.