I know that you can enter custom data for each product and have it saved in the purchased items channel, but I was wondering if this supports matrix fields? I know that internally Matrix actually saves all their data to another database table in EE. I’ve tried just adding the normal HTML fields that matrix would require inside of the item_options variable and got everything to save and go all the way through checkout but it seems like Matrix is never triggered to use that data and save it to their table.

Basically what I’m trying to do is create a way for the user to enter in as many other members (email,name,phone) as the quantity of passes they are purchasing. I’ve been able to have them edit it after the purchase, but I really need for them to do it before throwing it in the cart. If you have any other suggestions please shoot them my way, thanks.

but I was wondering if this supports matrix fields?

No

However, the CT Order Items field WILL automatically add any data thrown at it…. in a matrix format. This doesn’t carry over to purchased items channel, but the order items field in the orders channel will add this data.

http://cartthrob.com/docs/tutorials/adding_custom_data_to_purchased_items_and_orders/

Yeah but I think it works better with the actual purchased item as their are different types of memberships that they will purchase so I wanted to attach data to each purchase.

Although I think I could compute through the cart the number of each type of membership and then during checkout require that they fill out that information based on the types of memberships and quantity. Maybe even eliminate the purchase items out off the equation completely. Might end up being an even cleaner solution. Thanks I will let you know how it works out.

EDIT
For anyone else looking for a similiar solution I resolved this issue by created a textarea fieldtype in purchased products. Then I created a json object with jQuery before submitting the add to cart form.

Since I already had a cron job running through all entries to update member groups, I simple added one more step to take the JSON encoded field and populate the matrix field I also had in purchased items to provide a nice display for the client on the backend and easy to navigate information.