IPS Commerce (Store & Product) Questions

[superaven]

Hello,

Just recently relaunched a pretty big forum on IPS after being a Xenforo user for a really long time. I purchased the Commerce module as we'd been using a third party help desk service and figured this might be a smarter way of handling support requests. Bummed that guests cant open support tickets, but do have all support emails going into the system via pop3, so that goes a long way to solving it. Anyhow, starting to explore the features of the Commerce module and had a few questions...

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1. Firstly, I noticed there a "subscriptions" option. Seems self explanatory and assume its most often used for premium membership upgrades on the forum. My question is that I noticed setting up regular products also allows for "renewal Options" and "Purchase Benefits". I'm a little confused between the differences of these two items that can be sold and assume its so that the the regular product has those extra features so that a customer purchase of a physical item can also allow for a subscription as part of it?

Was thinking of something like... I could make a member patch that is a physical item and purchase gets you the patch plus an upgrade of a member account. Then also allow for the membership upgrade to be renewed later for a discount off since they wouldn't be receiving another patch. Am I thinking about this correctly?

2. Second question is that IPS support told me I can restrict product categories and the product themselves to target specific member groups I've configured. Was sort of wondering of how this could be hugely evolved as an idea and wondering if the Commerce module makes it possible or if there is a market place item that build on commerce to allow one to achieve the following: 

Would I be able to setup a community market place that allows members the ability to sell their own items, that we would in turn host? Sort of like a virtual flea market or Etsy like community shop? Maybe even be able to create sections like the official forum shop, a section with highlighted / vetted member shops, then a general community flea market section?

No doubt this opens up conversations regarding trust, but the same way Etsy allows for a community market place and IPS allows for the moderating of members, I would think it's doable and just wondering if Invision has though (and created this), has plans to or if maybe an enterprising IPS Market Place developer has created such a thing?

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Anyways, I'm super excited to be on the IPS platform! Took nearly two weeks to import and process our old forum, so just now getting into tweaking and see what this software can do.

Thanks in advance for any tips, advise or info.

[Joel R]

#2 Sales Portal Pro or Classifieds already available in the Marketplace for user selling.  

#1 You should think of Subscriptions as a simplified form of a regular Product.  Some IPS users didn't want all the complexity and options of regular Products.  

You can use either depending upon your needs.