Organization and menu issues with Commerce

[erc]

I think I may regret purchasing Commerce, it doesn't seem flexible enough to do what I need. 

The only reason I purchased it was to collect donations and recurring donations. I don't sell anything. Commerce doesn't support recurring donations, so I have just created Products for the one-time donations and Subscriptions for recurring donations.  As a result, I'm not using the Donations feature at all.  I don't need the Goals feature anyway.

Here are the issues I have at this point.

• The "Store" Menu item and Title doesn't make any sense for me, since I'm not selling products.  I'd prefer if it said Donations.  I don't see any way to change it.
• Going to the Store only shows my Products, it doesn't show Subscriptions
• I could create a custom menu structure that would help with the disjointed organization, but that doesn't solve the problem of everything being named in a way that will be unintuitive to my members.

I doubt there is any workaround, but I figured I would ask for suggestions before disabling Commerce on my community. 

[Bluto]

Did you ever consider changing the language file?  Should be able to change any text you want.  How do you think they make the different languages.

[Meddysong]

@erc: You can change the wording by using some inbuilt tools:

 

[erc]

1 hour ago, Bluto said:

Did you ever consider changing the language file?  Should be able to change any text you want.  How do you think they make the different languages.

By magic, of course.  No, I didn't even know that Language interface existed.  In fact, I expected that if I really wanted to change the wording, I'd have to edit theme files.  I'm relieved to find this isn't the case.  I think between the language settings and some custom menus, I can get to where I need to be.  Thanks!

[Joel R]

As others have mentioned, the language translation is actually quite powerful.  It's not just for translation to foreign languages.  I've translated all ecommerce words on my site to Pledge and pledges, which I think has a softer tone and demonstrates an affinity or loaylty to my site.  A product connotes a one time transaction, a pledge connotes a lifetime oath.  

I would encourage you to use all products or all subscriptions. As you mentioned, if you use both then they appear in two different places in the menu which is confusing to users.  It's up to you which one you choose but try to select only one.

[erc]

2 minutes ago, Joel R said:

As others have mentioned, the language translation is actually quite powerful.  It's not just for translation to foreign languages.  I've translated all ecommerce words on my site to Pledge and pledges, which I think has a softer tone and demonstrates an affinity or loaylty to my site.  A product connotes a one time transaction, a pledge connotes a lifetime oath.  

I would encourage you to use all products or all subscriptions. As you mentioned, if you use both then they appear in two different places in the menu which is confusing to users.  It's up to you which one you choose but try to select only one.

I would like for them to all be in one location, but I require an option for both a One-time donation as well as a Recurring donation, so unless I'm missing something, that tells me that I have to use Products or Donations in addition to Subscriptions.  I agree it's more confusing to have them separated, but I don't see any other way to offer both options.

[Joel R]

Products can be recurring.  

[opentype]

Go with products. That’s what I do, for example here: https://www.typografie.info/3/store/category/1-community-unterstützung/

People can pick the first option (yearly subscription) or buy the donation products with a flat price (which by the way can also be put multiple times in the cart to increase the “donation”). All is offered in one category. 

I do use the (manually adjusted) donation progress bar, but not the feature itself, since it doesn’t come with any settings. I don’t want people to send me 1 dollar via PayPal, so PayPal takes most of the money as fees and I have to do bookkeeping for that one transaction. 

[erc]

6 minutes ago, Joel R said:

Products can be recurring.  

Oh, wow, look at that.  Yeah, file that under "I was missing something".  

And it supports multiple renewal options so I can allow people to choose between annual/semi-annual/monthly options from a single product.

Thank you!

[erc]

The visual language editor is amazing, I can't believe how easy they've made it.  Thanks all who pointed it out.  

I have one last question about Commerce regarding Purchase Benefits.  If i'm changing the group for a user when they purchase, there's an associated option called: Return to previous group when purchase expires or is canceled?

How does that work for Products that don't have a renewal set up?  Is there any way to set an expiration for products that don't have an option to automatically renew?

EDIT: Nevermind, the answer is No, the setting doesn't have any effect on products that don't renew.