Commerce - Referral System

[OilPrice]

Hey,

I can't seem to find too much information about the referral system, which is why I'm here hoping to find more answers.

Ideally it would be great if we could possibly "trial" the Commerce application to see whether it suits our requirements. However, can the referral system still be used if there are no products being sold on the site - for example we're looking to encourage more users to sign up to our forum by getting current members to send referral links to others to encourage new sign ups; we're also looking at adding incentives for the referrer as well, but are these only available for use on products that are being sold in the shop? Or can incentives be withdrawn by other means.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[Joel R]

You can use referrals independent of the store.  

You can also check out referrals by @Fosters in the Marketplace which adds some minor enhancements.  

You can also demo a full copy of the suite (including commerce) by asking IPS to set up a test suite for you.  

[OilPrice]

Thanks for your reply, Joel.

I have requested to demo, however in the meantime can referrals be monetized without the use of a shop - how does a member redeem their incentive?

Thanks!
 

[Joel R]

I'm not familiar enough with referrals to fully and deeply answer your questions, since I don't see other clients using referrals that much.  

However, any monetization usually involves the Commerce app.  That's the only app that handles payments, invoices, checkout, products, etc.  There are other peer monetization apps like Sales Portal Pro or Classifieds in the Markerplace, but I'm pretty sure they all require commerce as a base.  

The only other thing that I can think about is to see if this will integrate with Members Shop, which is a digital points economy.