This section will help you learn to interact with options of the shopping cart. Since The Internet Publishing System is a customized set of applications, no two sites or administration systems are the same. As a result, the references and language included in this Editor Help section may appear somewhat generalized.
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Below is the table of contents for Shopping Cart Help. Click on any text link to view editor help on that specific topic.
Defining Products for the Shopping
Cart
User Accounts Required for Checkout
Using Special Codes to Track Sales
Coding Links Into the Shopping Cart
Coding Links Through Splash Pages
The shopping cart is used to purchase all items sold on the system. The shopping cart is able to handle many different types of items in one checkout. A prospect can purchase a subscription, purchase a book, and register for an audio conference in one shopping cart checkout.
The shopping cart will allow you to pass in a source code, a promotion code, and a special price with each item that is added to the shopping cart. These parameters are important because they will help you determine the media and promotion offer that originated the sale.
The Internet Publishing System has several modules that manage content that can interact with the shopping cart:
Each of these modules is used to create and maintain the items or content that can be purchased. Each module produces a splash page for the item to be purchased. The splash page contains a description of the item, a picture if available, the price, and a link to add the item to the shopping cart.
The shopping cart uses an individual’s account to access address information and to store the shopping history. Like most popular shopping cart systems, a user must login or create an account as part of the shopping cart experience. The most common way for an individual to receive an account is to purchase a subscription or other shopping cart item. The user can also create an account by registering for a free e-newsletter. The MailZeen module and the shopping cart use the same database to store customer information.
During checkout, the customer is asked to log in, create an account, or get a reminder of their password. Once logged in, the customer can update address information and complete the checkout.
Tracking the source of your sales is an important function of the shopping cart. E-commerce sales can be difficult to track because there are so many ways that a customer can get to a product page. They could link to the product from an add in am email promotion, they could come from a direct mailing, from a keyword purchased on Google, or from a banner ad on your site. To help you track these sources, the shopping cart accepts two parameters with each link to add an item to the cart. The parameters are called source code and promotion codes. The shopping cart does not define these items. The cart simply stores these parameters with the item sold. In this way, you can define these codes and access reports of sales for each code.
You can create special promotion pages in your content administration module. To create a link directly into your shopping cart to add an item, use the following code:
<a href=https://www.domain.com/cgi-bin/udt/sc.view?client_id=yourID&prod_id=18&prod_type=event&prod_promo=specialoffer&prod_source=event&cart.func=ADD&prod_price=1000>Click
here to purchase</a>
Yes this is
HTML. If you do not recognize the HREF
HTML syntax, please refer to an HTML reference book to become familiar with
this tag. Note that as you change the
values of the parameters, you must not change the names of the parameters or
the syntax of ampersands that separates them.
The link must be keyed in on one line.
Do not put linefeeds in the middle of the link.
This example uses a
generic domain name. You will need to
look at a link to your shopping cart and determine the exact name of your
domain. The following items define the
parameters that can be submitted to add an item to the shopping cart:
Like any HTML link with parameters, these links can also be coded as FORM submits with hidden fields or user inputs as parameters. Here is an example of this type of submission:
<form name="orderForm" method="post" action="/cgi-bin/udt/sc.view" >
<input type="hidden" name="client_id" value="yourClient">
<input type="hidden" name="prod_id" value="209">
<input type="hidden" name="prod_type" value="catalog">
<input type="hidden" name="prod_source" value="123">
<input type="hidden" name="cart.func" value="ADD">
Enter the promotion code:
<input type=text size=6 name="prod_promo" value="">
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
One challenge in tracking items purchased is that customers can wander around your site before they click the link into the shopping cart. When this happens, the tracking codes placed on the link to the site can be lost. To meet this challenge, iProduction has coded your splash page templates to set cookies with tracking codes when you link to the splash pages. In this way, no matter where the customer goes before they order, the shopping cart will pick up the tracking codes used to get the customer to the splash page. Here is the syntax:
<a href=”http://demo.iproduction.com/catalog/audio/140010-1.html?s=source_code&p=promo_code”>Click here to order</a>
This link will take the customer to the splash page for the catalog item. When the page is displayed, cookies will be set for the source and promotion codes in the customer’s browser. If the customer wanders around the site to learn more and later returns to the splash page and orders the item, the tracking codes will be recorded with the sale.
To view sales reports by source code or promotion code, go to the administration menu, select “Subscribers” then “Order History Report”. Select the desired promotion or source codes. The report will be listed with sales from these codes.