importing form data to shopping cart

[jayty97]

I have a complex order form I have designed using formspring for customers to purchase custom built radiator covers. It works great for what I need it to do and formspring makes creating and editing the form extremely simple. I am looking for a shopping cart solution which will allow me to input the created items information using a url redirect. The price of the product is the most important, but I would also like to have a description formed using the information in the form as well, mainly for the customers reassurance. I have the forms ready to go, but can only have one order per transaction through paypal without a shopping cart to manage the items the way it's currently working. I also need all of the normal funtionality of most shopping carts available such as, a stored customer database, the ability to give retailers a percentage off their total as well as a line of credit, be able to run coupon promotions and also provide multiple fixed price items on top of the custom order ones. I have been searching high and low, reading up on a multitude of shopping cart programs and have not been able to find a solution for importing the form info to the cart to form a customized product. The order form has a lot of dependencies that ultimately form a figure which is multiplied by the sum of the products given dimensions.... with other values added for different options. A little too complex for any of the carts built-in ordering options I would imagine.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[incrediBILL]

Adding adhoc data to shopping carts has always been problematic but I've done it before with a product that's no longer being sold, but I can give you some hints for what you need to research.

What I'd suggest doing is research carts that allow user entered instructions in a text area, such as the type of cart that would be used for the clothing industry with custom tailoring instructions or anything of that nature. Another thing to look for might be what cart resellers use to allow people to type in custom inscriptions for engraving or whatever, just anything that will take your full description text and store it in the cart.

Once you have that you can probably create a default product in the catalog, since the cart will need a product part number to reference, and then map your form fields to match the fields in the product ordering page and you'll probably be good to go.

Wish I could give you a more specific answer but I don't have one.

Hope this helps.