Anyone know of a plugin for this?

Hi CodeDog,
Are you specifically looking for a plugin solution for this? At a basic level, this won’t be too hard to build. I’d happily help via the forum. Perhaps it could be released as a plugin once complete.

My understanding of the problem so far;
– You need a custom post type of type ‘reverse-auction’
– Public front end where customers can request a quote for a service (please can you let me know the required fields)
– Other users can simply comment on this post type (relatively standard WP comment system?)
– The post can be marked closed & comments disabled (by Admin?) once seller has been found?

Please give me as much detail as possible. I may be able to work on this tomorrow.

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, a friend of mine is setting up a site where they will be selling products in their online store, but would like customers to be able to (outside the store) request a quote for a custom product modification.

It would be similar to some of the programming job websites where people can post a requirement and request bids. In fact, it would be very similar.

For fields, the poster would need to be able to enter a username, email address, and description of requirements, with the ability to upload an attachment for example purposes, etc.

They shouldn’t have to register as a member to be able to request a quote, though it might be helpful to have some sort of Captcha system or something similar. And of course an email address would be required.

Contractors would then be able to reply (comment) to the request. This could all be done in one comment field, but it would be helpful to have a separate field for the quote amount. That way the replies could possibly be sorted by quote amount, which would be handy for viewing replies.

It would also be helpful if any replies were also automatically emailed to the OP.

Then the site admin would have the option to mark any request closed at any time, which would of course close replies (comments).

If this could be done on a page, similar to WP posts (maybe using short codes?), with an archive system similar to WP’s current post archive system, it would be perfect.

I thought because of the number of sites I see doing this kind of thing there would already be at least a few WP plugins doing this, but I can’t find one.

It could of course be ‘fancied up’ and made even more usable, but those are the basics I’ve been looking for…

Interesting. I’ll take a look at this tomorrow. It seems strange that nothing like this is available right now!

I haven’t worked too much with comments before, but this all looks find given the add_comment_meta functionality. Keeping an attachment associated with a comment might be tricky, so they might have to be associated with the post itself, otherwise the Media page would begin to look a little messy.

Would you want the responses to be open and public, or hidden?

Make sure you follow this thread with email updates. I’ll do the same. Shouldn’t be too much work to get this working in a basic state. Design can come second.

I may not have explained it well enough, the comments (quotes) wouldn’t need attachments, just the original post (request) so they can attach possible examples of work being requested.

All posts (requests) and comments (quotes) can be public, that way other people that might be looking for the same thing can find them.

I thought it was strange too that there seems to be nothing like this. I’m not a plugin writer by any means, but it seems it would be relatively simple compared to some of the very well written and feature rich plugins available for other things. not that it will be simple or easy, of course, but comparatively. And as I said it’s something I see a lot on various websites. Could be a niche market. ??

I have notifications turned on, so I’ll be watching. And thanks again…

I’ve developed a lot of additional functionality for various websites in the past but I rarely get the opportunity to make something that’s standalone.
Keeping the comment meta to just text (contract value) and not images will speed up development time ??
I’m happy to write it – I’m up for a challenge. I might need some help naming it though!
Will post back an update when appropriate.

Really appreciate any help with it, Aaron. Anything I can do to help let me know. I code, but I’m not really familiar with WP structure yet except for a few installs/setups.

A name………..

– EZ Quotes

– Quote This

– EZ Bids

– Aaron’s Bidding System

– Quotes R Us

– Quote Request System

– WP Bids and Quotes

Okay, enough wasting space. Good luck, and let me know if there’s anything I can do…

Ha, thanks!

Keep an eye on it here https://www.impression.co.uk/wordpress/

Aaron

Hi Aaron,

Just wondered if you’d had a chance to look at this yet? Not rushing you, just thought I’d check. Hadn’t seen anything on your site…