Bulk Buying Requirement -Sahaja Aharam -India -WhiteLabel

We had a discussion with @ramoo and @kothagunda on implementing a white-label instance of Openfoodnetwork for Sahaja Aharam which is a farmer producer organisation working with Local Organic Producer Cooperatives.
The current major issue for Sahaja Aharam is that they are only able to sell in retail 5-10% of their produce. Hence they are looking at ways to cater to bulk buyers. Below are some of the requirements/gaps we arrived at in an initial discussion based on how Bulk Buying happens currently in India in an Open Market.

  1. Search by product in the main page : Buyer searches for a product in all shops in main page. Currently it only has shop name and suburb search.
    a. This will provide list of all shops having that product. So that the buyers can pick the one they want.
  2. Filter by month of order cycle : Once buyer searches the product in main page, he/she should be able to filter out based on the order cycle.
  3. Quotation functionality/Cycle : (To cater to Bulk Buyers/Orders)
    a. Quote-Request : Instead of placing an order, buyer will ask for a quotation by providing his requirements ( Quantity, location, date required etc). As seller might give approximate price in item (or no price stated). Once quote request is placed
    i. Quote shows up in buyers and sellers account .
    ii. An email is sent to the seller/buyer.
    b. Quote-Response : Seller reviews and reply backs with the price based on the buyers requirements. The quote-response will have a expiry date and payment advance requirements, before which buyer has to accept the quote or respond with a better price.
    c. Quote-Negotiation-Request : Buyer asks for a better price.
    d. Quote-Negotiation-Response : Seller provides same or another final price by rejecting or giving a better price, along with quote expiry date.
    e. The above Negotiation cycle can have multiple rounds. But history of all the negotiations are tracked.
    f. Order-Request: Buyer accepts the price, and places the order, by one click (Quote to Order conversion) before the quote expires
    g. Order-Confirmation : Seller accepts the order. (This step may be redundant). Seller can upload product , and certification documents which might be of use to buyer.
  4. Payment Functionality / Cycle:
    a. Advance-Payment : Once order is placed, the Advance Payment has to be made before the date specified by seller.
    b. Payment-Complete : Rest of the payment could be made before/on/later delivery
  5. Order/Quote View
    a. Buyers should be able to see all the Pending Quotes, Pending Orders, Confirmed Orders in their account view.
  6. QR code for product:
    a. Provide generic description of what that product is.
    b. Has certification details of product and traceability of producer
  7. Seller Edits an Order : Buyer places an order. Then decides to negotiate the price with the seller(may be by email/msg/phone/UI). The seller decides to decrease the price. Seller reduces the price of an item in the order, without affecting the item price in the shop. Or provide a discount % in orders (STOP GAP FOR QUOTATION FUNCTIONALITY)
  8. Disable guest checkout : Sahaja Admin would like to make account creation mandatory for checkout. This will help gather info of all the consumers, and save all their quotations and orders in their accounts.
  9. Item Price not mandatory : Item price should be optional or an approximate price option should be given while an item is being added by seller. More relevant to Bulk orders and quotes.

All these requirements are not mandatory to go ahead, but we also need inputs in understanding if the above requirements are

  • Aligning with the values of OpenFoodNetwork
  • Do these requirements match any others Country Intance’s requirements within OFN community too ?
  • Some Funding will be provided by SahajaAharam, would there be any interest in collective funding some important functionality to be developed ?

Other related threads are this.

@Kirsten @MyriamBoure @oeoeaio @NickWeir @lin_d_hop @tschumilas @enricostn