Magento

A while back I made a comment on the blog about the ability to have a catalog only site.

By this i Mean a site where the products are not for sale, there is no shopping cart, probably not a wish list, therefore no payment or shipping modules. This unfourtunately is not using many of the great features the Varien team created but for certian clients of mine (Manufacturers) its helpful as they do not sell directly, but the system is so nice it could be used for this.

Ive been playing around on my linux install (only way i can get it to work, (not a big deal, its super alpha in my mind)) but cannot find the settings for this, Roy (i think) mentioned this would be possible.

Is this something that is possible:

a) with this preview release (if so, how)

b) something possibly availible with future releases

c) something that is possible only once a person (me!) modifies the script myself (ill obviously wait a few weeks for a more stable release to start messing with the core)

d) anything else

thanks

Chris Mc(Kooter)

You can try to create another store under main Website. Then you can disable all modules that are not needed ex. payment, shipping , cart on per store basis. Other changes will requre manual changes to template system but you can simply duplicate it and append what do you want

ahhh, thanks, hopefully this will work for what i want

whats the point of using magento then? why not just use a simple image gallery script? this is like trying to use drupal to run a brochure site.

if you look at magento, it has wonderful features for manufacturers, such as grouped products, related items. I think if you thought about how you would create a professional site for a manufacturer of a product, an ecommerce solution would be perfect, besides the shipping, payment modules, its spot on. I dont believe the companies that hire me would be satisfied with a “image gallery”.

i think one can not question if someone thinks magento without cart is a perfect solution. sometimes small details disqualify other solution.

I have to admit, I’ve seen other sites that look like shopping carts, except that you cannot purchase products because (perhaps) they only sell to distributors, which means you can only buy from distributors. This is annoying, but something helpful is a link to “Where to Buy”. I’m not sure if you’re looking to build a site that showcases products, but if so, and I’m on your site… of course I want to buy your products!

Scott - 01 September 2007 05:39 AM

I have to admit, I’ve seen other sites that look like shopping carts, except that you cannot purchase products because (perhaps) they only sell to distributors, which means you can only buy from distributors. This is annoying, but something helpful is a link to “Where to Buy”. I’m not sure if you’re looking to build a site that showcases products, but if so, and I’m on your site… of course I want to buy your products!

I agree, I hate it, but legally they cannot sell, they have an agreement to allow the retailer to be the only one who can sell.

If it’s a manufacturer’s site, sometimes it’s not worth it to tell things directly to end customers. Trust me, people can be a real pain. =P

Plus, the shipping overhead can also be ridiculous. It’s only in recently that manufacturers have started selling directly to consumers.

For a good example of a shopping cart esque site without any actual shopping, check out this book publisher’s site: http://www.barbourbooks.com/

HI McKooter!

As this is a fairly old thread, were you able to use Magento as a catalog only site?  And if so, may I ask how?

By the way, for us, being able to search on multple fields is a must have function that an image gallery cannot give.

Thanks,

M

I am looking for this feature too. Anybody?

we are interested in this too.

the solution however is given above:

You can try to create another store under main Website. Then you can disable all modules that are not needed ex. payment, shipping , cart on per store basis. Other changes will requre manual changes to template system but you can simply duplicate it and append what do you want smile

disable under “System” -> “Configuration” -> “Advanced” the payment and shipping modules and any other modules that are involved in the shopping cart and checkoutprocess.

Additionally I would customise the template to remove the “add to cart” button and the “shopping cart widget” in the sidebar.

that should be it.

it’s definitely not an out of the box solution, but maybe someone will create an extension for it, that automates the removal of all the above mentioned modules ?

here’s a solution that I found after further search:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/20853/

It tells you which module you need to turn off in admin area
( Advanced > Disable module output > Mage_Checkout set to disabled )

and it also tells you that you need to manually remove the “add to cart” button from your template.
You should be able to find instructions of how to do that here in the forum.
We will be testing this later down the road for a new project.