Can't Sell To Public - Serious Design Flaw

Developers, it's urgent that this be fixed for 7.0.3.  Site owners can't sell to the public.  This is a serious design flaw.  Other Unity members have posted on this but the problem seems to have been dismissed by Boonex.  My site is "members only" except for news, ads, and store. I want to allow store purchases to the general public. First, I don't want someone to be forced to join just to purchase one of my, or my members', items.  Second, the Dolphin cart is one of the few features that actually warrants premium memberships, which I need to be able to support the costs of running my site.

These are the details of the problem:

1) When you try to add an item to the store, in the "Product's Files" section under "Allow Purchase To," the "Public" group isn't listed as an option. It IS LISTED in "Privacy Settings - View Product" but not there.

2) One developer suggested allowing purchases to the "Default" group and setting it to "Public." However if you do that and go the store as a non-member, there is NO "Add to Cart" button. In other words, this solution doesn't work.

WHERE THE ERROR EXISTS:

AS I SEE IT, THIS HAS OCCURRED BECAUSE IN "ADMIN>SETTINGS>MEMBERSHIP LEVELS" THERE IS NO MEMBERSHIP ACTION TO ALLOW A PURCHASE FROM THE STORE. YOU WILL FIND ALL OTHER STORE ACTIONS, LIKE BROWSE, SEARCH, AND VIEW PRODUCT, BUT THERE IS NO "STORE BUY PRODUCT."

THIS IS A HORRIBLE OVERSIGHT. IT WOULD SEEM TO BE THE ONLY WAY YOU COULD SET UP THE APPROVED ACTIONS FOR A NON-MEMBER TO INCLUDE BUYING FROM THE STORE!

Hopefully a Premium member will confirm this and submit it as a bug in Trac.  If a known solution exists, please post it here.

Thank you very much.

Makes sense. We plan a serious Store update in 7.1, and will consider your note then.

@Andrew

If you want Dolphin to be much more attractive, maybe think of the integration of some real E-Shop script, like osCommerce or Zen Cart for example... ;-)

Glad to hear this will be addressed in 7.1. Not sure if incorporating a Zencart, or OScommerce though. I think it would be a nightmare. Those carts are made for a single admin, not really made for a community to utilize and add products. The whole idea of being able to associate your membership to a paypal account is perfect. Just a couple of tweaks like not needing to upload a file to be downloaded, and allow a product to be purchased by a non-member.

Just my 2 cents worth being a new member. I am a firm believe in the KISS  (keep it simple stupid) method

v7.1 was scrapped in favor of v8.  You'll find the overhaul there (and keep in mind that Andrew said they would consider their suggestions).

Thanks for the update Nathan. I hope he decides to make the changes, the store is a important module and I found alot of forum posts on the matter, so I guess I am not the only one. Like I said, just a couple little tweaks to the existing method is all it needs. When I get some time to play with it, I am going to see if I can get them done on my site then I will post a couple files for people to take advantage of it if that helps.

I know alot of people use this (at least that was what I was told) for adult content which is cool, but not every community is going to want or need to download digital files. There is a decent market for artists specifically that want a community, and the ability to sell. I could see an artist community that allows them to sell (ie: etsy) and get critiques from other artists. The other artists ratings could actually drive up the price of the piece.