Pincode-based delivery and cash-on-delivery rules for marketplace sellers

The challenge

An Indian technology company was building its own multi-vendor marketplace, where independent sellers list products and handle their own orders. Whether a seller can deliver to a customer, and whether cash on delivery is available, depends on the customer's pincode, and each seller covers different areas. A single store-wide rule wasn't enough.

The marketplace needed a way for administrators to maintain the master list of pincodes, and for each seller to decide where they deliver, where they accept cash on delivery and how long delivery takes.

What we did

• Marketplace foundation. The client bought our multi-seller extension directly, and we installed and configured it on their OpenCart store.
• Pincode upload for administrators. We built a custom module that lets the marketplace administrator upload the list of serviceable pincodes.
• Per-seller delivery and COD rules. Each seller can mark, pincode by pincode, whether they deliver and whether cash on delivery is available.
• Delivery time options. Sellers can attach delivery time options to their coverage, so customers see realistic expectations.
• Server move and reinstallation (2019). When the client moved to a new server, we reinstalled and customised the extension there.
• Fix round. We resolved a list of issues: "Add to Bag" buttons, admin product page errors, a server error caused by SEO-friendly URLs, 404s on seller pages, seller rating and product count display, a wishlist notice, and showing sellers' display names instead of usernames. We also explained how to use the pincode upload.

Tech stack

PHP, MySQL, OpenCart 2.1, vQmod, multi-seller extension, custom pincode module