Remove email required field!

[Mark H]

We are thinking of removing the email format checker (causes a lot of problems with people who really don't want to leave an email address but can't seem to make up a fake one), and changing email to a "non-required" field. I know the arguments for insisting on an email address, and I would have thought that these days most people don't have a problem with leaving an email address, but looking at our web stats it appears that a lot of people bale out of our checkout at that point, and we can't see any other reason why they should. Has anyone any feedback on this? Thanks

[jont]

Abandoned carts are probably going to be something else rather than the email address.

If you really feel it is the email address it would be worth making it additionally clear in the T&C you are not going to sell it on to viagra.com or even make a note against the field that the email address will only be used for contacting in an emergency etc and not added to any marketing campaigns .. make users have to manually opt into any email newsletters you have.

May be worth posting the URL to the sales site for others to take a look if anything else is causing issues during checkout

[Bruce]

Hi Mark,

Have you got around this issue as yet. You had a chat with Kiran on Friday and I thought he gave you a workaround to prevent the email address that is entered from being validated.

Kind regards,

[Mark H]

Thanks Jont - I'd rather not post the URL - we keep an eye on two of our competitors "issues" on other forums (via Google....) and would rather that they weren't able to do the same - we can't see anything else that is off-putting - the piece of info that we don't have is how many people bale out of checkout on other sites ie what is the "average"?

Hi Bruce - yes thanks, we have removed the format validator by commenting out any lines in the following code (in OrderScript.pl) which weren't already commented out:

# Validate Email for '@' Symbol
#
if ((ACTINIC::IsPromptRequired(0, 12) ||
# if e-mail address is required
length $::g_BillContact{'EMAIL'} > 0) &&
# or the e-mail field has value $::g_BillContact{'EMAIL'} !~ /\@/) # and it is not in the expected format
{
$sPreValidationError .= ACTINIC::GetPhrase(-1, 2378);
}
#
# clean up the input

I think from memory we did the same to the Delivery Contact code (elsewhere in the same script) as well. Mark H.

[Mark H]

PS - Jont - we have now implemented the Actinic "opt-out" of email newsletters option in checkout. Whilst it is too soon to say whether the number of people leaving checkout has reduced, the majority of customers are saying "no newsletters" - so "abuse" of email addresses still appears to be a concern with the majority.

[jont]

Hi Mark,

did you change that under phase=0 id=15? That text should be re-worded by Actinic to make it a "tick here if you want to subscribe" rather than the other way round (one for the Mods).

The main issue is acting responsibly with the e-letters you send out (again with an usubscribe link). I targetted 1000 the other week with a specific offer and only received the 1 un-subscribe (which was down to them not wanting to use a works email address). If there is no unsubscribe facility on a website I am buying from I tend to use a disposable email address that can easily be filtered but I guess not everyone takes that precaution.

Hopefully your sales will increase now they have the option to opt-out

[Mark H]

Hi Jonty - that's exactly what we did, and we changed the text to:

"Tick here if you do not wish to receive email offers and news from us (either way we <B>never</B> pass email addresses to other companies):"

We felt that having to opt out might get us a few more email addresses than having to opt in, but the reassurance was there all the same! We too are careful and have had an excellent unsubscribe rate (about 4 per 1,000), but people don't know that when they are in checkout for the first time....

Given the nature of our products (upmarket "one off" house accessories - durables) I think our customers are probably at the less internet savvy end of the spectrum and need that little bit of reassurance (and probably haven't set up alternative email addresses). We'll see

[David@MPL]

PS - Jont - we have now implemented the Actinic "opt-out" of email newsletters option in checkout.

I'm sorry but I'm obviously being a bit slow at the moment, everyone seems to be talking about making sure you have an opt out of newsletters box for customers . . . how do you do this?

I've searched and I can't find anything about added a tick box to the checkout and I can't find anything within Actinic to enable this as an option.

It's not a major issue for us at the moment because we don't do newsletters . . . but if we want to in the future we need to start (legitimately) collecting email address.

So, am I thick or is this something more complicated?

[Mark H]

Hi David - Jonty has given the clue: "phase=0 id=15"

If you go into Design, Text, you will see a GOTO button at the bottom left hand side - if you click this and enter 0 for phase and 15 for id, you will be taken to the box that has as one of the lines "Occasionally we share our address list.....etc" - you might have to scroll down a bit.

We have ticked "show" but not "required", and have changed the prompt to:

"Tick here if you do not wish to receive email offers and news from us (either way we <B>never</B> pass email addresses to other companies):"

After an upload this will then show in checkout after the customer's email address, and if they tick this, "keep details private" will appear on the packing list - after that it is up to you to honour it!

PS - I presume that this is available in all versions of Actinic - we use Developer

[David@MPL]

Eureka! Thanks Mark

Oh, and yes it's available in Business.

[David@MPL]

Another quick question, where is the value of NETQUOTEVAR:INVOICEPRIVACYCHECKSTATUS controlled from?

Also NETQUOTEVAR:INVOICESEPARATECHECKSTATUS and NETQUOTEVAR:INVOICEREMEMBERME are unchecked and check respectively, where are these controlled from?

[Mark H]

David - I can't help you with that one - hopefully someone else will be able to.

[Bruce]

The NQV values you are looking for are controlled by OrderScript.pl which then sets the value in the cookie.

Kind regards,

[David@MPL]

Thanks Bruce