Preventing zero orders

[jmedinger]

My customers site uses hidden products and referenced components to give a price to each item

This also allows for stock levels to be managed on each size of each item

The problem is this - should a visitor hit the add to cart button WITHOUT having checked the box for the size they want, this sends a null value through to the checkout.

Is there any way of bouncing this process so that if the user hasn't checked a field, they get an error message saying. "Please select product size" or some such thing?

Cheers

Jos

[Ben]

Hi Jos

It may be that you have ticked the 'Is Optional' checkbox in the Component dialogue, giving customers the option of whether to select no size.

If this is not the case, please post up the site URL and I'll take a look.

Ben

[jmedinger]

Hi Ben -

On the site (www.bbclothing.co.uk/acatalog), all components are marked as optional because each component represents a size of an item (which references a hidden product on which we've set a stock level)

This has to be the case because if you don't give it this value, the check box to tick that size doesn't get displayed...

My issue is this, if NO size is checked, shouldn't there be an error message saying
"You haven't selected an item"

Jos

[Ben]

Hi Jos

The best configuration for what you want is:

Product
- (Component)
-- Size (Attribute)
--- Size 1 (Choice)
--- Size 2 (Choice)
--- Size 3 etc (Choice)

You will have a Permutations tab in the Component dialogue box. Click the 'Fill List' button in this tab and the table will be populated with your 'choices'. You can then associate each choice to a hidden product to carry the stock reference across.

The display of the choices can be determined in the Attribute dialogue box - radio buttons are nearest to what you have at the moment.

Hope this helps.

[jmedinger]

Hi Ben

This is how we originally started doing it however because a lot of customers wanted to order more than one size at the same time (and subsequently return the wrong size) we had to have a method of allowing more than one click box (or drop down selection) at a time

I tried to substitute the radio buttons for check boxes but Actinic barfed when I tried this.

The only way (still not foolproof but better) that I can see to keeping the checkbox selector but preventing the customer hitting the Add to Cart button without an item selected is to set one of the components as 'Set as Default'
This way one box is always checked when the page loads and if they order the wrong size - well, they pay for the return.

Ideally, I'd like an error message if a null value is passed to the cart...

Any further ideas?


Jos

[Ben]

Hi Jos

The problem here is that with radio buttons you can select only one and with checkboxes, you can make them singularly optional or mandatory, but I don't know of a way to make it mandatory to select at least one (any one). You could add a 'checked' attribute to one of the boxes to nominate it as the default, or there may be some javascript you could include in the page to ensure that at least one of the boxes is ticked.

I can see another option using the Actinic interface which would enable customers to purchase more than one size. With the setup I mentioned above, further component|attribute|choices trees could be added, exactly the same as the top component except that these components would be optional and would be called 'Second Selection', 'Third Selection' etc. It would be best displayed as a number of dropdown lists. Then if customers only wanted one size they can select from the non-optional dropdown at the top, and if they want more than one size they can select from the number of dropdown lists below.

Any good?

[jmedinger]

Ben,

I think this is what we do at the moment...

Our current structure is

Product
- (Component Size 1) Referencing associated hidden product
- (Component Size 2) Referencing associated hidden product
- (Component Size 3) Referencing associated hidden product
- (Component Size 4) Referencing associated hidden product

This generates the checkboxes you see and allows multiple selections of sizes before the add to cart button is pressed

If we select the 'Selected by Default' option on the 1st component I suppose this will at least require them to change it if necesssary and prompt them to select the correct size

All of this is fine and works well - it's simply the selection of NONE of them that I want to prevent...

Jos

[Ben]

Hi Jos

What I mean is:

Product
- (Component - non-optional)
-- Size (Attribute)
--- Size 1 etc (Choices)
- Second Selection (Component - optional)
-- Size (Attribute)
--- Size 1 etc (Choices)
- Third Selection (Component - optional)
-- Size (Attribute)
---- Size 1 etc (Choices)
etc.

The attributes can be displayed as a series of dropdown lists on the page. It's not a perfect solution in terms of design, but it may get you closer to the functionality you're looking for.

Ben

[jmedinger]

Hi Ben,

I see what you're driving at and it would end up with a drop down for each size - as you say, not an ideal design solution but I can see it is one that would work

It would also unfortunately have the side effect of creating 2 new layers of work to create the attribute and the choice for EACH component which would increase the frustration of my already overstressed customers!

No matter - I think I can persuade them to use the 'select as default' option to prevent the worst of this scenario happening and I can look to utilise the method you'v suggested i other shops

Many Thanks

Jos