Same old problem...shopping cart sharing

[Guest]

Hi folks,

 

I have been looking the entire day, with no luck about how to share the same shopping cart between different shops.

 

The shops are on the same domain, but on different sub-directories. I want customers to be able to switch between shops yet retain their cart contents, even when not logged in (yet).

 

After the entire days search I have come up with nothing. I thought that the Virtual Mall contribution would solve this, but it hasn't (unless I did something wrong?)

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions...

 

Luke Ray

[♥Vger]

It depends how much you are prepared to spend really. If you have a full ssl installed, and 'Force Cookie Use' is then enabled, then it should be possible to keep track of shopping carts once someone is logged in, as both the http and https domains would be www.yourdomain.com, no matter which shop in which folder the person was on. The session id is then stored in the cookie.

 

I don't see how you can keep track of people who are not logged on, as they move from one store to another, and each time they do that they'll generate a new session id for the other store.

 

Vger

[Guest]

I have come back to this problem today.

 

The problem is that even though the user could login to one store, when they switch to the other store they still have to login.

 

Does anyone know how I can overcome this problem and have the user recognised as logged in between different stores on the same domain. In other words, logging in to one store means being recognised as logged in to all stores?

 

Is this where forced cookie usage come into play?

 

Thanx in advance,

Luke Ray

 

 

 

It depends how much you are prepared to spend really.  If you have a full ssl installed, and 'Force Cookie Use' is then enabled, then it should be possible to keep track of shopping carts once someone is logged in, as both the http and https domains would be www.yourdomain.com, no matter which shop in which folder the person was on.  The session id is then stored in the cookie.

 

I don't see how you can keep track of people who are not logged on, as they move from one store to another, and each time they do that they'll generate a new session id for the other store.

 

Vger

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[radders]

Not sure how thaey could be logged in to a store for which they aren't a customer. That is a much more comlicated issue. Surely you would need one of the shopping mall contributions.

[Guest]

Not sure how thaey could be logged in to a store for which they aren't a customer. That is a much more comlicated issue. Surely you would need one of the shopping mall contributions.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

well, they are already a customer of the store. All of the seperate stores share the same database and the same login information, making it possible for a customer to set up just one account and use this login information between all stores.

 

In light of this, would you consider this as a simpler task now to achieve?

 

Luke Ray

[radders]

Yes, that helps.

I must say I would have expected Vger's suggestion of 'force ccokie use' to have worked for you. Did it not work at all?

[♥Vger]

If there was a full SSL on the main domain, and the cookie domain for http and https for all websites on that main domain is www.yourdomain.com then it should work (with 'Force Cookie Use' enabled).

 

But Luke Ray doesn't say if he has a full ssl installed on the main domain, and 'Force Cookie Use' enabled on each site. So, have you?

 

Vger

[radders]

The other thought I had was that it might be possible to store sessions in the database in a common table. I have to admin that I'm shooting in the dark here though having never tried anything this ambitious.

[Guest]

I am behind in the replies because of the time differences...

 

I do not have SSL installed on the main domain. In fact, I do not have SSL at all.

 

I tried to force the cookie usage, but this did not help. Now it seems that this will only help if SSL is installed.

 

The first problem was in getting the customer to share the same shopping cart between stores on the same domain. To get rid of this problem, I thought it best that I get the customers to log in before they add anything in to their cart. The log in information will then be shared and remembered between stores, hence the members shopping cart wil be remembered.

 

The problem now though is that the login session is not recognised between stores. Can't it be the case that the login session is based on ip address?

 

If SSL is the only way forward, do you guys have any idea of a good SSL provider?

[♥Vger]

'Force Cookie Use' only works under two conditions - with a full ssl, or with no ssl at all. It generally doesn't work with a shared ssl. So, if you don't have any ssl, then it should work - provided you have no https entries in your configure.php files and do not have 'enable ssl' set to 'true'.

 

Before going out to buy a full ssl I would concentrate on getting it to work without ssl. If you cannot get it to work under those circumstances then there's probably something else wrong, and this could prevent you from getting it to work correctly with a full ssl installed.

 

Session ids will not (as you have found out) be carried across between stores. Basing session ids on IP address will not work when it comes to any AOL customer - as AOL caches every single file under seperate servers running on seperate ip addresses.

 

Vger

[Guest]

well, I have played about tith the 'forced cookie usage' = ON. But I am wondering if there are any values which I have to edit in the configuration files associated with each store, namely:

 

define('HTTP_COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'www.scanditan.se');

define('HTTP_COOKIE_PATH', '/franchise/solution/catalog/');

define('STORE_SESSIONS', ''); // leave empty '' for default handler or set to 'mysql'

 

I am also wondering if it has anything to do with how I have set up my stores on my server. For example, the administration of the entire catalog is controlled via:

 

english/catalog/admin

 

whilst the various catalog directories are on:

 

english/catalog

franchise/machine/catalog

franchise/solution/catalog

 

the 'forced cookie usage' = ON has not helped.

 

Thanks Vger!

[♥Vger]

Try this - which stores session data in the database, and if it's one common database for all stores it may help to keep track of things.

 

define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'mysql');

 

If that doesn't work try making the cookie_domain

 

define('HTTP_COOKIE_DOMAIN', '.scanditan.se'); //note the dot after the www is still in place

 

Vger

[Guest]

I think this will be another one of those unsolved mysteries for a little while longer. I am going to re-style the website so that I make it look like there are different stores, but actually running from the same catalog directory.

 

Thanks a million for your help Vger! I know I am not the only one who has tried solving this problem, and not the only one who has failed!

 

Best regards,

Luke Ray