Getting rid of "My Account"

[ihatedeskjets]

After installing the checkout without account contrib, and then moving it above "login" & "my account" it dawned on me I could scrap those funtions altogether.

 

My checkout would run like this: from cart > checkout without account > payment. Customers would still get e-mails, my store will have all their details etc. My products are not the frequent purchase type of thing and my customers dont return to their account very often.

 

So, does anybody think it's a bad idea to scrap accounts ?

[ihatedeskjets]

Let me phrase it another way, "Does anybody know if it wont work for some reason" for instance if I modify login.php to remove the new account and existing account login thus just leaving the option to CWA will it all still work, I've tested on a spare site and it seems ok, but did not checkout so i'm not sure of the admin side of things.

[Guest]

Good Afternoon Ken,

 

From what I understand of your description it will work just fine. You are merely removing options from the the viewers.

 

A regular account and a guest account are almost identical in their treatment within the scripts. In my store the differences between the two are with the guest account: a) logins are recorded as -1, b ) no password is saved, and c) guest accounts cannot login after the initial session.

 

The only bad thing I see with guest accounts is that if a person wanted to purchase from you again, they would need to use a different email address. May or may not be a problem. (You stated already your cliental are not likely to return.) (I wonderer if anyone has done a workaround so guests can purchase multiple times?)

 

I think that "from cart > checkout without account > payment" will work good for you.

[ihatedeskjets]

Hey Doug,

 

Check this out.

 

The only bad thing I see with guest accounts is that if a person wanted to purchase from you again, they would need to use a different email address. May or may not be a problem. (You stated already your cliental are not likely to return.) (I wonderer if anyone has done a workaround so guests can purchase multiple times?)

 

 

 

I've done a rough setup of it here test site I've altered configure so NO pictures will show on this site so its safe for anyone to try.

 

Please ignore the layout, it looks a mess but we can run through the checkout procedure to finish with cod or cheque. I tested it with same e-mail address and it works fine as the e-mail used for guest is forgotten when the session expires or the guest clicks logoff after payment,

 

The continue button at the end can easily be made to log the guest off.

 

After checking the admin side all I can see is the test orders I made, no customers. Pdf invoice and everthing else works as it should.

 

So we end up with add to cart, provide address details and pay. NO login, NO register, Fast checkout.

Customers lose the My Account functions.

 

On the admin side we lose: newsletters (as we have no customers) I cant think of anything else

All of the Notifications type functions.

 

We do retain the customers details so it would be simple to let the store create the customers for us by copying the details from the database orders > customers, this way we get newsletters functions back, and the customer can return later and login. (hmm, there's an idea) So we would end up with , PWA but the guest becomes an account holder.

 

More work to do.

[Guest]

I didn't put the name to the site right away.

 

Off topic> I got the overlapping menu like before (Firefox). Tried with Opera 9.25 and IE7 - NO PROBLEMS - menu looked good.

 

I ran an order through no problem. I immediately ordered a Corrupt cop outfit <hmmm> using the same email address and it went through perfectly, almost as easy as having an account. Good job.

 

When you get the last of any remaining kinks you might want to consider gathering the code a releasing "An Improved PWA" contribution. hint hint

 

Customer account functions may not be that important. Just because they don't have an "account" does not mean you can't communicate with them. You can inform then of any backorders without an account. You still can send tracking information when the product ships. The only thing that can't happen is some poor saps wife log in to the account and find out what her husband is buying for his side adventures. (Oh yea, why can't they sign up for a newsletter or product updates? You gotta keep details for the orders, they're in the database. It just runs a little different - Not saying you need to provide for a newsletter or anything, but even as guests they still could get one.)

 

Ran into problems with the google code. They have updated both of the scripts from what you have install. They automatically detect the connection and make the appropriate calls. And the newer version of the second script has added features.

 

Before you are done change the "Login" nav title when in cart

 

Before you are done change the "My Account Information" to maybe something more neutral like: "Personal and Shipping Information", I'm just trying to get rid of "Account"

 

Your "No go on continue until terms are checked" is a neat feature, could you expand it to "until all required filled in". That would be a nifty contribution. (I can validate the heck out of anything in php, but not tooooo familiar with javascript)

 

Petty good work on a better PWA.

[ihatedeskjets]

Warning, Images reactivated to check layout of new mods.

[seb1188]

You may want to consider the Data Protection Act though...

 

Your customers must have an option to view and ammend or delete any data held about them at any time on demand. If they can't log in, it'll be a pain in the arse when you start getting e-mails.

[Guest]

You may want to consider the Data Protection Act though...

 

Does anyone know what if there is anything similar in the United States?

 

How does this affect those of us with US based sites/businesses and have UK customers....

 

or have there been any agreements signed by the US which would put my site under other authority?

 

Is this a UK thing, a European Union thing, or a UN type thing?

[futuremillions]

Warning, Images reactivated to check layout of new mods.

 

:thumbsup:

This is working out well. I did a test purchase. Everything is great. I will follow along closely until this is a contribution. And to think I almost installed PWA. Whew!

[ihatedeskjets]

You may want to consider the Data Protection Act though...

 

Your customers must have an option to view and ammend or delete any data held about them at any time on demand. If they can't log in, it'll be a pain in the arse when you start getting e-mails.

 

 

I'll have to check on that, good point.

I checked, individuals have the right to obtain information held about themselves (SAR) but I dont find anywhere in the act thats says they have the right to login and change it themselves. We could easily print the info as part of the pdf invoice and ship it with the goods or something. As long as our Terms let them know we are keeping their address and e-mail (which is obvious anyway).

 

It's going to be a while until I can finish this as I'm going out of town next week for 3 months. I'll take it with me on my suse laptop but wont have much time to work on it.

 

I've uploaded the altered files here www.sexy-underwear.org.uk/modded_files.zip , if anyone wants to finish it off please do. To use them you will need PWA installed and probably MATC, also maybe Nochex as there is some Nochex code in my checkout files. Most of the changes are only cosmetic i.e the files dont show a box or text but the code runs the same.

 

It wont be too hard to compare / merge . If anyone is serious about having a go and finishing this I can give you an ftp account for my test server sexy-underwear, Please Pm me .

 

1 Last thing, has anyone tried to change delivery address or billing address at the last second with PWA ? mine doesnt work. it wont let me alter anything.

[seb1188]

Does anyone know what if there is anything similar in the United States?

How does this affect those of us with US based sites/businesses and have UK customers....

or have there been any agreements signed by the US which would put my site under other authority?

Is this a UK thing, a European Union thing, or a UN type thing?

 

The US doesn't enforce data protection very strongly. However, it is advisable to follow the European Data Protection policies if you're going to have any customers from Europe, as the European legislation makes it illegal to pass personal data onto any 3rd country that does not have adequate data protection legislation unless the data controller himself can guarantee its safety, or with explicit informed consent of every customer. Or something like that! The US created a voluntary program in response to the European legislation (the EU legistlation made it illegal for the US to receive any personal data at first) - it's called Safe Harbor but I'm not sure how that works.

 

The UK data protection act (1998) can be found http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/Acts1998/ukpga_19980029_en_1 there.

But it's long. So this will probably be more useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_privacy

 

Good ol' wikipedia.

 

There is legislation in the US protecting children's privacy though. If you're going to have customers under the age of 18 you may want to have a quick read of http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm that, or look on google for a summary of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act 1998.

 

In short, data protection means only storing necessary data, telling your customers what your storing, giving them instructions on how they can have it ammended or removed, quickly allowing them access to view it should they request it, not passing data on to ANYBODY else without their knowledge and consent, and not holding the data for longer than necessary (interpret that how you will).

In the UK it is also necessary to have adequate protection in place on the data such as encryption and password protection.

 

Now I personally store all my customers data on a server in the US... so I'm following these rules pretty damn strictly!

[Davefromcornwall]

After installing the checkout without account contrib, and then moving it above "login" & "my account" it dawned on me I could scrap those funtions altogether.

 

My checkout would run like this: from cart > checkout without account > payment. Customers would still get e-mails, my store will have all their details etc. My products are not the frequent purchase type of thing and my customers dont return to their account very often.

 

So, does anybody think it's a bad idea to scrap accounts ?

I'd be very interested in trying this idea. I hope someone with more coding skills than I possess will have a go at it.

 

The less complex the checkout procedure is, the better. If neither I or the customer really need an account to be created, then it would be far better to remove that option entirely, in my view.

[ihatedeskjets]

I've now got a few days to try to complete this, I'm going to do a fresh install to work on as my store is so heavily modded it would be near impossible to

catalogue the changes.

 

This will be my first attempt at building a contrib out of my mods so dont expect too much, if it's ok i'll use this thread as a kind of "blog" as I go then interested forum users can perhaps guide me.

 

More in a few days.

[ihatedeskjets]

Hmm, that was far to easy, I maybe missed something but the contrib is here http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/5950

 

I would prefer if someone tested it on a "spare store" to confirm it works ok.

 

Feedback asap please.

 

Ken

[ihatedeskjets]

Now no need for purchase without account, i've updated the contrib and removed a load of code form login.php.

 

Using my login.php and creat_account.php you now get fast checkout with no customers creating accounts.

[ihatedeskjets]

state of play so far:

 

No need for pwa to be installed,

I've removed the password entry and checks, also newsletter option box

It no longer complains of duplicate e-mail address

Customers ARE still registered in the database, so you can send newsletters etc,

 

To do:

remove all references to login or my account, (we dont want those pesky people logging in and changing stuff do we)

alter some of the text stuff

 

Add checkout_shipping mods to remove "choose from address book" option

[ihatedeskjets]

Done:

removed logon and my account from header, removed greeting from language file, removed "choose address" from shipping and same for billing.

 

It now goes from cart to payment without any reference to an account ( i hope) , after payment order success is shown , if the customer clicks continue they do not see a logoff or my account link, or welcome back message, just the store frontpage.

[benjaminburden]

Ken-

 

I can't seem to load your test site, can you confirm that:

 

1) The customer has the choice of creating an account or checking out without one

 

2) If the customer does not create an account, he is still in the customer database and viewable from the admin side

 

3) if 2 is correct, the customer can sign up for newsletters and the admin can email them directly through admin back-end

 

Thanks, we have many customers asking for this functionality.

 

Benjamin

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[benjaminburden]

Never mind, I see now that is what "purchase without account" does:

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/355

 

Thanks,

 

Benjamin

[ihatedeskjets]

Never mind, I see now that is what "purchase without account" does:

http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/355

 

Thanks,

 

Benjamin

 

Sorry for the delay in replying Benjamin,

I have only just received the topic reply notification.

 

You are correct on point 2, but point 1 will not apply with my mod, the customer will have no account login available, I created this for stores to offer simple fast checkout for "1 off purchases" where the customer does not want "yaap" ( yet another account and username / password to remember ) like me.

Very often when i'm shopping online I just want to pay for it !, end of experience, as I already have too many usernames / password combinations to remember.

 

 

My contrib removes the customer experience of having an account, BUT they are added to your database in the normal way, you can mail them, send newsletters etc but they cannot login.

Customers can re-use the same e-mail address to purchase, my test site at test it here was down for a while as my host installed a new server, but it's running now so you can see what the contrib does.

 

checkout on my test site goes to cod or check / money order so you can complete your purchase, please provide feedback if it's not working.

 

Ken

[ironchef]

Hey Ken,

 

Great contribution, its exactly what I was looking for. I am about to embark on the upgrade. I am wondering what type of conversion increase you have seen since implementing this?

 

-Dan

[ihatedeskjets]

Hi Dan,

I'm not using it myself on my main site, I use the standard purchase without account contrib, but I have noticed a lot of people are taking the short checkout route as they dont want another e-mail / pass combination to remember.

 

Hope it goes ok,

 

Ken

[ironchef]

Hey Ken,

 

Installed and everything is looking good, just what i was hoping for.

 

I may have a possible issue. If I go to checkout and put in my address info then go to the shipping options page and then exit the process. Now when i go back to checkout it goes directly to the shipping options page, which is cool but i don't see any way to change that info or go back to the previous step to change the info if i needed to? Unless I'm missing something, i'll probably just add a link in that goes back to the first step.

 

Thanks again, I think it will really help conversions!

 

Dan

[ironchef]

Ok that was easier than I thought. It clears out the information instead of being able to edit the old info, but that's not a huge deal to me.

 

 

in /checkout_shipping.php

 

find:

 

<tr>
    <td class="main"><b><?php echo TABLE_HEADING_SHIPPING_ADDRESS; ?></b></td>
</tr>

 

replace with:

 

<tr>
    <td class="main"><b><?php echo TABLE_HEADING_SHIPPING_ADDRESS; ?></b> (<a href="create_account.php"> edit </a>)</td>
</tr>

[ihatedeskjets]

Thanks Dan,

I'll have a look a a "reset" button on the checkout_confirmation when I get time, so if anyone made a mistake they can reset the address and ship / payment methods to start again.

 

But new projects at work dont give me much time for the next 6 weeks or so.

 

Glad it installed as per the readme.

 

Ken