Example implementations include the National Skills Academy, Phi University, Happy Computers and Endeavour College of Natural Health.

As a fully featured e-commerce application, Course Merchant contains the feature set you'd expect to see on any ecommerce application - e.g. product search, product browse, price search, related items, featured items, sale items, inventory (spaces available), etc. A full range of options may be set - for example, Course with Book, Course without Book, Summer Workshops, Campus Location. There are also discount voucher codes.

Course Merchant is effectively a standalone ecommerce website system that sits alongside Moodle and sells access to your Moodle courses. We tailor the look and feel of the e-commerce site so that it matches the Moodle design so that the user experience of navigating between Moodle and Course Merchant is completely seamless. Once payment is made in Course Merchant, the learner immediately receives an automated email with a direct link to login to the Moodle course they have paid for.

The e-commerce site handles the customer's order information and your chosen payment gateway (see below) handles the online payment processing.

All e-commerce administration is performed via the Moodle administration screens and there are no Moodle code or script changes involved meaning that Moodle can be upgraded without breaking the integration. Moodle course access features such as enrolment keys still work normally. ‘Buy Now’ code may also be placed directly into Moodle screens if needed.

Course Merchant features

The general Course merchant features are below.

General Catalogue

• Sophisticated e-commerce catalogue for Moodle
• Unlimited categories, courses and options with attributes
• Cross list courses in multiple categories
• Set categories, courses or options to be inactive so they don't display
• Set descriptions for each category
• Search engine compatible catalogue page
• Inventory management – set limits on course places (seats) available
• Optional cart quantity and totals on the catalogue page keep a customer's total within sight at all times
• Sale, Sold Out (Course Full) and Inactive status capabilities
• List courses as “sold out", with or without a "limited places" custom message
• Order tracking
• Customers can search by catalogue number or price
• Optional advanced search page
• Add keywords that don't show on the catalogue page, but are searchable Optional "email to a friend"
  List of up to 5 related courses for each course sold
• VAT and other sales taxes supported
• Shipping calculator
• Tax calculator
• Issue gift or discount coupons
• Membership discounts
• Existing student discounts

Payment processing

• Any currency
• Manual card payments on a secure server
• Define your own payment methods
• Purchase Orders (can defer auto login)

Your Account

• Every purchaser has an account created automatically
• Additional purchases aggregated into this one account
• ‘Your Account’ feature – students login & maintain data
• 'Forgot your password' link emails reminder information
• ‘Your Account’ linked to Moodle - Moodle profile changes reflected in Course Merchant and vice versa
• Fully automated email with new account information
• Batch upload student accounts if required
• Collect additional data at checkout (How Found, Student Numbers, etc)

Admin and Order Management

• Password-protected administration area for instant updates
• Upload images within the administration area - no FTP needed
• Course lists in administration area may be viewed by category or keyword
• Easily view course sales so you can keep track of your bestselling items
• Online invoicing capability
• Online packing list and address label printing (for physical goods postage)
• Online Admin area lists all orders plus best sellers
• Optional offline order manager with fully customisable report builder
• Batch download of new orders
• Automated email notification of a new order

Marketing

• Customisable Home Page with 'Featured Products', 'On Sale' or 'Latest Products'
• Highly search engine friendly
• 22 different languages
• Build Froogle file automatically
• Support for Shopping.com, Bizrate, Miva and Overture
• Built-in affiliate program
• Third-party affiliate programs supported
• 'Buy Now' code may be placed in emails and other web pages

Payment gateways

Next steps

If you need to integrate e-commerce functionality into Moodle then we are keen to talk to you. Contact us to find out more.