This section is intended for both site owners and site designers of sites where the Catalog and Shopping Cart is enabled.

Topics

Background:  the following effect how the site will interact with the visitor.

  • A visitor to the site needs to go through several steps to purchase products from a site and after the purchase (optionally) tract the progress of an order.  This help page describes the steps and the options available to the site designers.
  • If the site will track inventory for all products whose Available Quantity is not set to '-1'.  This allows the system to present visitors from ordering out of stock or discontinued items.
  • Products can be grouped into families of related items so that the common information is carried in the parent product and under that are child products which have some distinct characteristic (e.g., a particular brand and style of men's jeans would be the parent and each waist and inseam size combination would be a separate child product.  This allows you to show an image of single jean but allow the actual jeans to be ordered (and optionally their inventory tracked). 
  • The system can be configured (but adding a special field) to have a product appear under more than one parent product by creating an alias.  To ensure quantities are correctly supported only the real product will have a quantity, image etc.
  • If a product does not have child products its is called 'stand a lone'
  • Products can also have one or more options associated with them, which can effect the cost of the actual item (e.g., special gift wrapping) as well as free text (e.g., initials on a bathrobe).  In this help page we will refer to these a options.
  • The system can be configured to accept various kinds of payment.  If PayPal is selected, the site must wait for PayPal to report back that the visitor made their payment on the PayPal servers before the order can be completed.
  • The site can be configured with discounts which will be activated is the proper code is entered (and optionally the correct location for the shipment selected).
  • The site may be configured so that a user can sign in at the payment page and have their prior billing and shipping information inserted (except for credit card information which is not stored for security reasons).
  • The basic flow through the site consists of:
    • Finding the product and selecting it along with any associated options.
    • Viewing the item in the shopping cart and either continuing to shop or selecting a destination, entering any discount codes
    • Proceeding to the payment page and completing that.
    • Viewing a "Thank-you" page with optional order tracking information.
    • Optionally going to order tracking page to view the status of the order.

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Selecting a product: the first step is to find the product.  The site can enable the user to do this by:

  • Inserting a direct buy button on a content page using this code on any content page to automatically place a selected item into the shopping cart.  In this example the Product ID is 12 and the site catalog is CataLog.
    • Use the following code
      |.f:form method='post' action='/cgi-bin/complex2/doscartQ.pl'.|
      |.f:input type='hidden' name='Action' value='Add'.|
      |.f:input type='hidden' name='PRID' value='12'.|
      |.f:input type='hidden' name='12:Quant' value='1'.|
      |.f:input type='submit' value='Order It'.|
  • Inserting a link to product display page from a content page, using the same assumptions as before. 
    • Use the following code:
      |.f:form method='post' action='/cgi-bin/complex2/proddisp.pl'.|
      |.f:input type='hidden' name='PRID' value='12'.|
      |.f:input type='submit' value='Show It'.|
  • Searching the catalog by entering keywords into a search box.  The system's default behavior is to search the products.  This functionality can be modified by site specific routines. |.SC_SEARCHTAG.| will be replaced by a text box to enter the search terms and a button to initiate the search.  In the default setup there is a drop down list where the visitor can select whether to search the SKU, Product Name, Short Description or Long Description. 
  • Browsing all or part of the catalog until the proper product is displayed. 
    • The product will be displayed under a category.  The listing will either have an button to put the product into the shopping cart or a link to product display page which will have such a link.
    • There normally will be a link on the content page directing the visitor to the catalog.  The following special tags can be used.
      • |.catalog.| links to the top of the catalog, that is a list of all the categories in the site's catalog.
      • A special tag: |.catlink:#.| will display the name a category # as a link that category's display page.  Where # is the unique category ID number of the selected category.
      • Lists of either the top level categories (those which are not under any other category), or all categories can also be displayed on the content pages using |.SC_TCATLIST.| and |.SC_SIDECATLIST.| respectively.
      • |.SC_TOP2CAT.| displays the names of top level categories with their immediate children within a div id='top2cat' pair. Each category name is a link to the appropriate category display page.

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Shopping Cart: Once the product is selected to be placed in the shopping cart the shopping cart will be displayed.

  • The visitor will see one line for each product they have selected.  If the same product is selected twice there will be two lines since different options could have been selected each time.   Each row will list the product SKU/Product Number, its name (with any options selected below it). the unit cost, the number of ordered and the extended cost (i.e., unit cost * number ordered).
  • The number ordered can be changed by changing the number in the field.  If zero is entered, the line will be removed.
    • If the system tracks inventory a warning will be issued if the visitor requests more than is available and the maximum available will be placed in the cart.  For this reason the system will empty any carts left on the system after 6 hours.  If a visitor closes their browser and returns later to the site, they will not reconnect with the site since session cookies are used and the browser discards them when it is closed.  Session cookies are used rather than persistent cookies both for privacy reasons and because cookies with a set expiration time will expire even if there is continued activity.  Remember, there is no mechanism for the browser to tell us that the customer has left.
    • If an item has a discount quantity (that is the price changes if more than a certain number of an item is ordered) the unit price will automatically change if the number of items in one line are greater or less than this number.
  • Below these lines is a summary of the current total cost, less tax and shipping.
  • A drop down list of destinations is below if shipping, taxes and if applicable discounts depend on shipping location.
  • If the site supports discounts on the entire shipment then the visitor can enter any discount code.
  • At the bottom are graphics which when clicked on allowing the visitor to either continue shopping or go to the payment page.

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Payment Page

  • Depending on the type of payment the site is configured to accept the visitor may see different options.
    • If the site is configured to accept PayPal they will be told to enter the shipping (and select a shipping method if their is a choice) before the link to the PayPal site is displayed.
    • If the site is configured to accept Purchase Orders no validation will be performed if Purchase Order is the selected payment method.  
  • If the site retains their prior shipping and billing information they will be first given the options to sign back in.
  • If the site supports multiple shipping methods they will be given a choice based on the shipping destination.
  • If they change their shipping destination the system will re-display the page with the new options and possibly costs.  
  • The payment process occurs on a single page there are up to five sections.
    • Shipping name address, and phone
    • Billing name and address, if left blank the system will use the shipping information.
    • Payment information, normally this is the standard credit card information.
    • Shipping method selection (if there is a choice).
    • A summary of the shopping cart contents.  This is as above but the number of items cannot be changed and the shipping and tax lines, if applicable are available.  Normally, there should be a link back to the shopping cart in this area. 
    • Finally there is a submit your order button.   There is a separate graphic for payment by PayPal if applicable.
  • Note on PayPal:  The payment process with PayPal requires the visitor to leave our server via a popup page.
    • We record the shipping information before displaying the button to link them to the PayPal site.
    • Once on the site they can: sign in and pay, click to return to our payment page and pay by another method or abandon the process. 
      • If they pay on the PayPal site their system may sometimes fail to notify us that payment was complete..
      • If they don't click on this link, or they abandon the process we will not be told.  After six hours the system will empty their shopping cart.  If you are notified by PayPal of an order and do not receive a notification from us you will have to manually complete the order (see Orders section for details).
      • About 10% of the PayPal users fail to complete the process after paying and PayPal does not provide our server's with a notification, they just tell you.
    • When they link back to our servers they will receive the same post order processing as if they payed using a credit card on our servers.
  • Notes on credit card processing:
    • All credit cards are validated to determine if they expiration date is in the future and that the number matches to coding for the selected card type.
    • The system supports real-time processing as an option.  If this is selected the credit card information is sent to the processor in the background and either validated or a failure message is returned.  If a failure occurs the error message our system receives is displayed and the visitor can retry. 
    • On success a copy of the credit card information is encrypted and stored with the order to allow for charge backs. 

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Post Order Page

  • The system can support fully custom post order processing (e.g., display links to electronically delivered goods).
  • This system supports a template based thank you page with a link to an order tracking program generated on your site.  An encoded version of their order number is displayed along with a link to this page. 
  • The system can also support a basic thank you page. To avoid security alerts the page needs to be on the secure server.

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Order Tracking

  • If an order tacking thank you paged is used the visitor can return to the site and determine when an order is prepared for shipment. 
  • The tracking system mirrors the status displayed as you process the order.  So if you ship the order in sections they will see some items as shipped and other items as on back order.

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