Improving look of cart in customer emails

[johking]

This seems to be a perennial question but I can't find much reference to it except in emails from back in 2003 so wondering if I am missing something that has been solved.

The problem is with the formatting of the shopping cart element in the customer emails, which is very messy and looks confusing.

The threads I hav looked at are:

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=2620

and

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=6284

Has any fix been found with this since then?

Many thanks

Jo

[taliesyn]

I looked at this the other day, and as far as I can see, the answer is no

As long as your e-mail reader is using proportional fonts, then the tab separated items are in the CART variable are always going to be scrunched up.

I have actually removed this from our customer e-mails because it looks awful.

[johking]

Thanks for replying, taliesyn.

So do you just have the order number in the customer emails then?

I'm trying to think whether I would care for that as a customer - ie thinking "What order is this again?" Have you had any feedback on those lines from customers?

[taliesyn]

Thanks for replying, taliesyn.

So do you just have the order number in the customer emails then?

I'm trying to think whether I would care for that as a customer - ie thinking "What order is this again?" Have you had any feedback on those lines from customers?

I just have Order Number and Time/Date (See: http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=13581)

I'd ideally like to tell them what they've actually ordered in the e-mail, but hey ho. I'm working on the theory that any order acknowledgement is better than none.

[johking]

I see what you mean, it does look better...

What about the shipping and payment received emails - do you send them? We are going to have to because some of the items are going to be pre-ordered and you can't expect folk to remember an order number from a wee while ago.

If anything they look even worse I think

[taliesyn]

No, we don't send them. Our PSP (Protx) sends an e-mail out confirming payment so we don't bother with those.

[johking]

On that thread you posted, your example customer email says - We will notify you by e-mail when the order has been despatched. So do you just do that manually then?

[wjcampbe]

While I agree that the layout is a little untidy, I leave the details of the order intact within the confirmation email to ensure full compliance with the Distance Selling Regulations(2000) and E-Commerce Regulations(2002).

Technically, I guess just saying your order no 123456 value 50.87 is compliant, but why leave the question open? 3 widgets at 10.00, 6 wodgets at 5.00 total 60.00 is definitely a firmer contract.

Just my opinion..

[taliesyn]

On that thread you posted, your example customer email says - We will notify you by e-mail when the order has been despatched. So do you just do that manually then?

Yes, pretty much so.

While I agree that the layout is a little untidy, I leave the details of the order intact within the confirmation email to ensure full compliance with the Distance Selling Regulations(2000) and E-Commerce Regulations(2002).

Technically, I guess just saying your order no 123456 value 50.87 is compliant, but why leave the question open? 3 widgets at 10.00, 6 wodgets at 5.00 total 60.00 is definitely a firmer contract.

Just my opinion..

It's more than a little untidy, especially if there are several order lines. Quite frankly I don't feel that a full order confirmation e-mail containing all the order lines is within the scope of the DSR or the E-Commerce Regs.

Believe me, I'd much prefer to have them in there if I could, although I feel that it looks awful and therefore makes us look unprofessional.

[garyhay]

This (the way e-mails look) can be down to your e-mail software wrapping text to a fixed number of digits.

[taliesyn]

It's more to do with the fact that most e-mail software uses fonts with proportional spacing rather than wrapping the lines.

Cart Contents look OK with fixed fonts.

[taliesyn]

The VB Code tag uses fixed width fonts so as you can see:

Dear Fdsfsdfdsfs,


Thank you for shopping at blahblahblah


We have received and are processing the following order:


******************************************************
Order Number: FSSFSD10010329
Order Date:   20 April 2005 11:24 GMT


Ship To:
Fdsfsdfdsfs 
Sdfsdfsd 
Sfsdfds 
FDSFSD 
United Kingdom 
1231232131 
blah@blahblahblah.com 




Shopping Cart (Prices in British Pounds)
 REFERENCE         DESCRIPTION                     QUANTITY        PRICE         COST 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 AB123             Description Here                       1       £24.95       £24.95 
======================================================================================
                                                               Subtotal:       £24.95
                                                                  Total:       £24.95


******************************************************


We will notify you by e-mail when the order has been despatched.


Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

everything lines up.

Just copy an e-mail with cart contents from your e-mail program into NOTEPAD and you will get the same result.