Reserve Tickets vs Buy Tickets (Authorize Only vs Authorize & Capture)

[Diallo]

I looked at all your solutions but was still unable to determine if you have a ready made solution, or if customization is required.
We are a start-up company desperately in need of a working solution to our Event Ticketing / eCommerce problem. I’ve already paid for a multitude of WP Themes/Plugins but to no avail. I’m really hoping you can help.
I’ll try to be brief….
Your Event Calender and Ticketing solution looks promising, however, we need the ability to:
1. Configure the Events with the initial ticket options (defined number of tickets) for Pre-Order only. This means the customer enters payment info as normal but with the knowledge that they are “Authorizing” the future charge once the minimum required number of pre-orders/”Reserved Tickets” have been completed. Once that defined number has been met, then the “Buy Tickets” option is enabled, where the remainder of the tickets are “Authorized and Captured” charges. So for example, tickets 1 – 150 get the “Reserve Tickets” button, and then tickets 151 – 200 get the “Buy Tickets” button. Best case scenario is that once ticket 150 is reserved, all of the first 150 tickets automatically process. However, I’m totally ok with manually clicking a “Process” button for each ticket.
2. Our Merchant Bank is BB&T which uses Authorize.net as a payment gateway, so I’ll need that feature as well.

I’ll just stop here for now until you respond.

Thank you!

Diallo

[Barry]

Hi Diallo,

Thanks for considering our ticketing addons.

In short, it should absolutely be possible to accomplish your goals – though a little customization here or there may be needed 🙂

The first thing to note is all of our ticketing addons are designed to integrate with and build on top of an underlying ecommerce plugin (one of WooCommerce, Shopp, WP E-Commerce or Easy Digital Downloads). As much as is possible, our plugins do not interfere with the checkout or payment handling side of life – that is all delegated to the ecommerce plugin in question.

So, in many ways, the important thing here is to determine which of those ecommerce plugins best meets your needs here. Most, I believe, support Authorize.net – but you may need to purchase a further payment gateway addon to open this up.

Typically they all also facilitate an order flow whereby the merchant can choose to complete orders and payment will not be taken until that happens – similarly, it’s generally possible to short circuit things and make them authorize/complete orders automatically: so it should certainly be possible to achieve what you want, but I’d strongly recommend checking in with the authors of each plugin in the first instance.

Does that answer your questions?

[Diallo]

Hi Barry!

Thanks for the response. I didn’t even know I received a response. Too bad I didn’t receive an email about this. Anywho….
So it appears I need to did the right ecommerce first then come back to you all to customize a plugin/extension to make it all work?

[Barry]

Yes, I’d definitely recommend looking at and settling for an e-commerce plugin that meets your needs first of all – so long of course as it’s one we have built a ticketing addon for 🙂

On the customization front, just for the avoidance of doubt, do bear in mind that we don’t typically offer customization services – though we’re always happy to try and point you in the right direction.

Thanks again!

[Diallo]

Ok so it looks like WooCommerce is my best option thus far. I have their Authorize.net CIM and Pre-Orders plugins so those portions seem to do the trick (minus some customization needed). So how can you help me with my request on the ticketing part. Do I go with Events Pro or WooTickets (or both)? What’s the difference and which will help me to achieve my goal?

Thanks

[Diallo]

Why is my response marked as “Answered”? This should still be open.

[Barry]

Hi Daillo,

Sorry for any confusion.

Why is my response marked as “Answered”? This should still be open.

This is an open forum – we don’t want to force people to create an account and login to ask questions here in pre-sales – and a consequence of that is anyone can mark a particular reply as being the answer (after all, there’s no truly reliable means of differentiating between you and any other user unless we make you login first of all).

I can reassure you though it does not mean the thread is “closed” or that you will receive no more support from staff, nor does it mean you feel a given reply is the correct one, just that someone does 🙂

Do I go with Events Pro or WooTickets (or both)? What’s the difference and which will help me to achieve my goal?

That’s a great question: they actually do two quite different things, but both function as extensions of our core plugin (The Events Calendar,which is freely available).

If you are only interested only in ticketing at this time then you don’t need PRO, WooCommerce Tickets will suffice. On the other hand, if you need to take advantage of some PRO features (see the products page for more on what those are) it may be that you’d like both 🙂

Does that help?

[Diallo]

Thanks for that explanation!
OK so it looks like I’d need both for what I want to accomplish.
So the only question remaining is…how much customization will I still require after purchasing both?
Let me list the requirements again, plus a few more and maybe you can point me in the right direction.
– Configure Events w/ limited number of “Reserve Tickets” (i.e. Pre-Order/Early Bird). Charges are “Authorize” only until all of these ticket types are sold.
– After final above ticket type is sold, “Buy Tickets” option is AUTO-enabled, and remaining tickets sold as “Authorize & Capture” charges.
– Display number of tickets sold/remaining.
– Display progress bar showing how close to being sold out.
– Display countdown timer of time left to purchase Reserve Tickets (Early Bird).
– Display deadline for Buy Now (standard) Tickets
– Admin acct/page for Venues to view/print list of attendees, update venue photos, etc.

Sorry to take up your time, but I’m so behind schedule with this.
Thanks again!

Diallo

[Barry]

Hi diallo,

I’ll try my best to summarize but it’s well worth bearing in mind that a lot depends on the abilities and product-knowledge of the developer implementing these changes 🙂

– Configure Events w/ limited number of “Reserve Tickets” (i.e. Pre-Order/Early Bird). Charges are “Authorize” only until all of these ticket types are sold.
– After final above ticket type is sold, “Buy Tickets” option is AUTO-enabled, and remaining tickets sold as “Authorize & Capture” charges.

So you’d probably need to customize both the ecommerce plugin (to authorize but not complete some orders and to automatically authorize and capture others). This may be simple – for instance, setting WooCommerce to auto-complete orders is pretty easy – but I’m not in the very best position to guide you as it really relates to someone else’s product.

To selectively show and hide different ticket types is definitely possible and I wouldn’t count it as a particularly advanced customization.

– Display number of tickets sold/remaining.

Not hard – and in fact there are existing examples of doing just this on our forums 🙂

– Display progress bar showing how close to being sold out.
– Display countdown timer of time left to purchase Reserve Tickets (Early Bird).
– Display deadline for Buy Now (standard) Tickets
– Admin acct/page for Venues to view/print list of attendees, update venue photos, etc.

Obtaining the stock levels is pretty straightforward – the logic for doing this is part and parcel of displaying the number of tickets that remain – but much of these last 4 points are customizations that you’d be building from scratch.

You could certainly get creative and post a calendar event marking the end of early-bird tickets for specific events then use our countdown widget, for example, but if for any reason that’s unsuitable then you’d basically be implementing your own.

All that to say, what you are outlining is absolutely possible and our own plugins are every bit as customizable as you need them to be: but I can’t speak for other plugins (such as WooCommerce) or more particularly for add-ons for other plugins (such as a particular payment gateway).

I do hope that gives you some ideas though – and hope to see you across on our WooCommerce Tickets forums soon 🙂

[Diallo]

Thanks Barry! This is very helpful.
I feel at ease knowing that your products can be customized to fit my requirements.
How would I go about requesting the customizations I need? Is it by using the forums?

Diallo

[Barry]

Hi Diallo,

We can certainly point you in the right direction on the forums – but generally speaking you need to implement any changes yourself (or of course hire a suitable designer/developer) 🙂

[Diallo]

Ok thanks again! (..exhale…)

[Barry]

Happy to help 🙂

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