New Checkout Process

[Darren B]

I empathise with you Bruce because I have been in your position (product manager), but I really believe this is a case of development doing the least they could to tick the box and justifying that everything else would be far to expensive/ time consuming.

There is no technical barrier to the checkout dynamically updating the information as the customer makes each selection. It happens on many sites I use for shopping. A total re-design of the checkout function was my expectation.

This is a tough call IMHO the checkout should have been redesigned using new technologies avaliable, But i know little about this side of things however teclan have taken an existing system and made it work so lots could have been done?

I have commented elsewere that sometimes you feel actinic dont look outside the box, sure the guys working on this are extrememly tallented but fresh blood and thinking sometimes makes a big difference. Lets be honest the biggest grip is people feel no one at the towers listens properly and the standard reply is "best practice"

this stupid lilac forum is a good example - someone likes it so thats all that matters - weres the user configurable templates?

[brucet]

have you a demo site somewhere with the new checkout in operation?

No demo atm but I normally have a test site running at http://dead.test.actinic.co.uk/

It won't always be perfect because I mess around with bits of it, but the checkout should always be ok.

[Mike Hughes]

what payment method can i use to force said bounce though? if its a vanilla site on a test domain i dont have a PSP to bounce too

sagepay, secpay or paypal should do. Any old thing can be entered in the settings as we just need to see if it goes straight to the psp or there's a bounce page in the way.

Mike

[pinbrook]

ok I can do paypal..

[EDIT] no i cant... what a pain, I am using my notebook, with 1024 res, but the payment and security box to configure paypal is too high for my screen, i cant get to the Ok button to set the payment.

the site is online at pinbrook dot co dot uk forwardslash acatalog

with checkout not touched, but with no PSP!

[brucet]

Unfortunately because the new checkout is such a big change, we knew there might be issues with upgrading sites. We've done our best, but as always we can't predict what customisations might have been done. Writing the upgrader is one of the most difficult tasks.

Hopefully if you look at the pristine (atm) checkout on my test site, you might be marginally more impressed by how it looks and works.

[Chunkford]

ok I can do paypal..

I take it any money accidentally sent will go to your holiday Paypal account then!

[cbarling]

Lets be honest the biggest grip is people feel no one at the towers listens properly and the standard reply is "best practice"

I'm sorry, but I'm getting sick of the accusation that Actinic doesn't listen because it is plain and simple wrong. I sat in a series of meetings where we analysed the wish list (see below) and looked at how other major ecommerce sites did checkout. Please point out the major sites where a different approach is taken to the one we have adopted. Please provide facts.

... we have eliminated the initial country capture page and the separate address capture page (unless the shopper has Javascript disabled). The PSP bounce should also be gone ...

Those were the most commonly requested changes. Other common requests were to reorganise the data capture more logically, and make the page lengths more balanced. In response to that, we moved all the address capture to page one, and everything else to page two.

"Those were the most common requests" - that is, Actinic looked through the wishlist on this subject and implemented the changes requested. How is this "no one at the towers listens properly"?

We have heading for ten thousand customers and many more users. Around 12,000 sites are driven by Actinic. Individual's requests can't be actioned but that doesn't mean that no consultation is going on.

this stupid lilac forum is a good example - someone likes it so thats all that matters - weres the user configurable templates?

As has been stated elsewhere, some changes were made to the forum as soon as they were raised. Others are on their way.

Chris

[pinbrook]

I guess we'll have to use Brucet checkout, i'll remove mine.

Although flexible dialog boxes would be good!!

[Mike Hughes]

No demo atm but I normally have a test site running at http://dead.test.actinic.co.uk/

Thanks Bruce.

That looks pretty slick and logical to me. It certainly does what I expect from a checkout so I don't have any major problems with it. For me it's much better than the old checkout.

I quite like having the delivery options away from the address page as it gives me some space to explain what the options are.

It would be nice to have the payment options on the second page as that's really just a single selection which shouldn't need a page all to itself. Something that can be looked at in future I'm sure.

Mike

PS. Certainly no sign of any bounce page to the Actinic Payments site.

[leehack]

Address details across 2 pages was the terrible thing on the last one IMO, the new one is much better. I pretty much agree with Mike apart from the payment options point, i think this page operates as a final check and confirmation page, which i think works well.

I can't wait to get hold of a real v10 checkout and restyle it, think it will look and operate very nicely.

[brucet]

Thanks, that makes me feel a bit better

I take your point about the payment selection, although as it stands page two already has a possible 8 sections in it. So it could get a bit long if you use all the marketing functionality, allow tax exemption etc etc. and had the payment options as well.

Ideally we would have provided some choice about which information to capture on which page. But the inflexibility of Perl made that rather complicated, and the estimate for developing it was prohibitive.

[pinbrook]

I think it would be worth reading why-good-checkout-design-is-more-important-than-trustmarks with a view to integrating the best of the suggestions with the new checkout - to make a super duper checkout.

[Darren B]

I'm sorry, but I'm getting sick of the accusation that Actinic doesn't listen because it is plain and simple wrong. I sat in a series of meetings where we analysed the wish list (see below) and looked at how other major ecommerce sites did checkout. Please point out the major sites where a different approach is taken to the one we have adopted. Please provide facts.

Sorry if this is how it makes you feel Chris, but thats they way it feels from this side of the fence.

Take the wish list thread, a quick flurry of activity when i mentioned nothing seems to happen and guess what? I dont see any recent acknowldegements, so how do people know that the wish list you guys are working on active includes recent requests, is this not a valuable part of communication.

As for the checkout, i actually said i quite like it although the upgrade trashed my layout and cant really comment until i have a proper working version, maybe im not impressed - sorry if this is not the response wanted.

My comment about best practice was that this seems to be the favourite comment these days. I also read lots of different websites and columns and unfortunately they dont all tell the same story, so as to what is best practice is more down to unique markets, column writers plus lots of other variables and opinions.

I am far from an expert on best techniques and practices in the ecommerce world but i need the tools to try things, no disrespect is implied to you guys at actinic but maybe i miss understand things but if i try and pass information back to you on what i would like to see in your product nothing gets acknowldged, the only way i can get a response these days is to be out and out rude about it.

Maybe you guys are listening but how would you feel when you hold the door open for someone and they dont even say thank you. Well thats how it comes across.

As i said, sorry if i offended you or anyone else at Actinic

Darren

[cbarling]

I also read lots of different websites and columns and unfortunately they dont all tell the same story, so as to what is best practice is more down to unique markets, column writers plus lots of other variables and opinions.

I think that you hit the nail on the head there.

There is no simple answer for the online retailer and what is right for one is wrong for another. Our job is to try and find the best core functionality that allows sites to build their own variants on top. At the same time, things must work reasonably out of the box.

In my opinion everyone would benefit from trying different things and seeing what works with their own particular products and demographic. Certainly that's what I believe the most successful Actinic stores do.

The wishlist is an important part of our decision process. I agree that we aren't good at feeding back from it and we do need to look at alternative technology to help that to happen in the future.

We are members of a number of industry bodies like the IMRG, The Catalogue Exchange and e-consultancy. These guys facilitate meetings and publish papers, and we try to keep well up to date with them. Taking input from them is an important part of the value that we see ourselves as adding to our customers.

Chris

[Darren B]

As i have always said Chris, if Yourself, Ben D or Ben P, Bruce or any others at Actinic ever want to call me and talk you have my details.

Your the man at the top Chris, They follow you, if you think it needs more then it probably does, your the one to make it happen you certainly have all the skills at Actinic if its new techonology to improve the wish list then go for it. The intergration of the knowledgebase was probably the best forum change i can ever remember being made. Why stop there?

Darren