Customer Accounts Online

[mms]

Just a quick question,

Is it possible to have customer accounts online in actinic whereby our customers can see their account details and past orders, account balances etc on our website live.

If so can someone explain how this can be done or where I can get more information on this subject.

Many Thanks

Roy

[Duncan Rounding]

No, customer account information is managed offline on your local pc.

[mms]

Customer Accounts

What I mean is that lots of sites have a login for customers and they are able to see their orders they have made and also see their past detals.

how is this done and where can I get more info?

Roy

[Duncan Rounding]

Actinic stores customer login details online so customers can login, although the account is made offline and uploaded. You cannot view past details, history etc as that is not stored online - only offline on the local pc.

[BodyBits]

This is a very pertinent question !

I have just removed the customer accounts (a bit more than 10 thousands!) I had since 2001 from a busy site (http://www.body-piercing-jewellery.com )and one of the reasons was that I was really tired to read customers kind of "expecting" to login to view the details of their orders, the shipping status, and what they bought before as size and colours where not easy to remember !

It seems all non actinic sites have gone that way, with this facility to allow customer to access their own part of the site, and that when they buy from an Actinic site, they would just expect to find the same facility, but ahah, no way we can do this..what a shame..

Surely there must be a way to link the customer accounts with its own database on the server? I know, there are security questions raised, but they could be resolved in the secrued area, and this could lead to also have the possibility to leave a review from customer to a product displayed on the website, and so on..so many little tricks that makes a great online shop.

Although, reading one of the post of this forum, I realised that customer accounts where best suited for business to business websites..but when you sell complex products needing many parameters to make the product, here in body jewellery (like guage,length,top ball size,top ball colour,top ball jewel coulour, bottom ball size,and so on to make a complete product to be manufactured to order), I think it would be rather suited for people to be able to go into their past orders and see what they had...

Don't get me wrong, I am pro actinic since 2001, but since these first days, I feel the business world have moved on so much, and really wish Actinic takes more seriously these kind of needs, as I felt a bit left on my own when I compared my actinic site with non actinic competitors !

Comon ! everybody nowadays likes to be able to login to "follow"on their relations with a website. All the big ones do it ! Viking Direct, Dabs, ebuyer, Verbaudet, and so on ...

let's keep Actinic the best by adding these on the wish list !

[pnagames]

i have to agree with your Patrick

all the major retailers in our are offer similar facilities where they remember all past orders etc... (even card details)

as we do not keep card details we would be happy if the customer could have details of their past orders and also their address details kept in there so at least they could skip a step in the checkout.

i think this need to be sorted with Actinic as this is a big negative point.

as for customer comments on product. This can be done already with some coding and an external sql db on your server. the only problem will be that the customer will not be able to edit his comments after submitting them. (and ofcourse you will need to review them before they are published)

[leehack]

I understand these points/frustrations, i really do, but you are asking actinic to be something it is not. Almost certainly in a few years time, actinic will need to go online database in some way, but i don't see you getting this kind of functionality for quite a while.

To be running 10,000+ accounts in actinic is only proof for me that you are using the wrong package. I have favourite T-shirts and socks, but at some stage i have to accept that they have too many holes in for use, or that i have outgrown them. Tough decision i know, it's not nice seeing my favourite T-shirt polishing the mantelpiece.

You can spend too much time waiting round for things to change, in which time your business gets left behind IMO. Correct VAT pricing and slimline checkout have been wanted for 5 years, 50% of that has finally been granted in V9. It takes a long time to get what you want.

[Ginnys Attic]

What is the purpose of customers logging in then?

We don't use Business but have recently been considering upgrading to Business because of the customer login and the marketing but if it doesn't even pre fill the name, address etc for the customer what is the point of having them login?

And what exactly are we getting for the extra £400 other than the additional marketing options (which I feel should be in Catalog anyway as discounting is a necessity of any online store and site wide discounting is imo ridiculous).

[leehack]

They can be served with different prices, different payment methods and do not need to fill out the checkout process are the first 3 that spring to mind. Plus sections can be completely hidden from normal customers etc.

[BodyBits]

Yes Leehack,

i know what you say, and tend to agree for the business side of things getting sorted another way before waiting for a better age in actinic.

the way I was using customer accounts was to allow customers for a 10% discount on 90% of products once they had passed their first order. We where creating a customer account everytime a new customer where buying.

It was working quiet nicely, but in a way, it was more work to process orders. But it made feel the customer they "belonged" to the site..and keep coming back with their login, etc..

And as I said, the drwback was that they where always expecting to see past orders and where always looking to track their orders...unfortunately.

I think customers accounts are better for B2B websites, more suited. But for the ones that need a full blown customer facility, then if actinic is not doing a step that way, many customers will orientate their websites on database driven websites on the server..shame...

For my part, I will follow on what you say Leehack, and stick with Actinic as I am an Actinic conviced, and work my way round to it.

In fact, I just have to drop my prices by 10% for everybody..that's simple enough !

Would be interested in getting that bit of coding for integrating reviews on products though, if any help can be brought on this side..

[leehack]

Would be interested in getting that bit of coding for integrating reviews on products though, if any help can be brought on this side..

Codepath do an addon for this now.

[JSnow]

customer accounts online in actinic whereby our customers can see their account details and past orders, account balances etc on our website live.

Gabe,

What are the chances of having this added to Actinet? Not sure how much info you can pilfer from the mdb but it could be worth a look.

The only immediate problem would be that the order data will only be as up to date as the latest order download. This could be solved by placing a "compromise" message though (perhaps something like "Info is updated once every 24hrs. New order details will therefore only be displayed after 24hrs."). Updating the account info could be instantanious as the client would be editing the table data directly.

Basically, it would be damn nice to offer clients the opportunity to view and change their account details online.

[Ginnys Attic]

Codepath do an addon for this now.

Avaialable here - http://www.codepath.co.uk/actinic_plugins.htm#soapbox for £149.00

The addon has been discussed elsewhere in the forum and from what i recall a few improvements are planned for the future and being worked on but as it stands it does seem a fairy decent mod and having just checked is already in version 2 with some new features which make the £149 price a little more appealing.

Gabe,

What are the chances of having this added to Actinet? Not sure how much info you can pilfer from the mdb but it could be worth a look.

The only immediate problem would be that the order data will only be as up to date as the latest order download. This could be solved by placing a "compromise" message though (perhaps something like "Info is updated once every 24hrs. New order details will therefore only be displayed after 24hrs."). Updating the account info could be instantanious as the client would be editing the table data directly.

Basically, it would be damn nice to offer clients the opportunity to view and change their account details online.

I'm quite suprised that a developer hasn't come up with an addon for this sort of functionality tbh but i'm even more suprised that it's not a built in feature of paid for ecommerce software in the first place.

[gabrielcrowe]

Gabe,

What are the chances of having this added to Actinet? Not sure how much info you can pilfer from the mdb but it could be worth a look.

The only immediate problem would be that the order data will only be as up to date as the latest order download. This could be solved by placing a "compromise" message though (perhaps something like "Info is updated once every 24hrs. New order details will therefore only be displayed after 24hrs."). Updating the account info could be instantanious as the client would be editing the table data directly.

Basically, it would be damn nice to offer clients the opportunity to view and change their account details online.

I have done this kind of thing recently. There are a lot of problems with the way Actinic handles its orders, with respect to its offline nature. My solution, was to upload the data to a database, and then let customers log in.

Trust me when I say that its more complex than it initially looks.

I dont think that an Actinet plugin is out of the question for the management of such a backend, but not at the moment. There are many more pressing matters to tend to.

[leehack]

There are many more pressing matters to tend to.

I can't get past level 14 either, darn x-box lol.