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#1 06-15-2016 17:24:27

ThomasGiannou
Member
Registered: 02-10-2007
Posts: 184

checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

I'm surprised I had not noticed this before now.  If 1 to several items are being purchased by a customer, when the customer goes to the checkout, the price of each item is not being displayed.   The total of all the items is displayed at the top right, but the prices of each item is not being displayed.  What program(s) need to be modified and what should the code actually be in order to get the item prices displayed on checkout?   

When the customer process their order and the final order is displayed, the prices of each item are properly displayed with each item.   I am using the current version 8 shopping cart.  The omission of individual product prices also appears to be happening on the version 9 shopping cart sites.

Last edited by ThomasGiannou (06-15-2016 22:34:37)

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#2 06-16-2016 05:29:36

zanart
Member
From: bedford
Registered: 04-02-2008
Posts: 1706

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

By default, the individual prices are shown to the right side of the screen, inline with the product title.
This is true for V8 and V9 sites checked on a PC.


Rob

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#3 06-16-2016 09:09:05

webmaster
Administrator
From: York, PA
Registered: 04-20-2001
Posts: 19798
Website

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

No individual product pricing is shown on the main checkout screen where shipping and billing options are selected and payment info is gathered.  All items are itemized in the cart (prior to that main checkout page) and on the confirmation, invoices, mails, etc (everything seen after the order is processed).


Nick Hendler

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#4 06-16-2016 12:50:35

ThomasGiannou
Member
Registered: 02-10-2007
Posts: 184

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

It seems really odd not to display the accumulated product prices on the checkout screen where we are asking the customer to complete the purchasing process.
The product description is showing.   The product count is showing.   But the critical product cost accumulation is not showing!  This checkout screen is supposed to be a one stop screen where a customer is finalizing the transaction and making a purchase.  It makes no sense at all to now withhold the cost of each of those items the customer is purchasing.   To show those costs every where else, but not on the most critical process supported by the shopping cart (accept and process payment and close the order), doesn't make any sense to me.
I wear a lot of different hats:  Business Owner, Chief Financial Officer, Auditor and Accountant, IT manager, Analyst-programmer, etc.
I wear all of those hats, so it looks like this is going to be another situation where I'm going to have to dig into the innards of this shopping cart and figure out what the program name is, where that program is located, and then figure out what the code has to be to display that accumulated cost for each of the items on the checkout screen.

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#5 06-16-2016 13:21:51

zanart
Member
From: bedford
Registered: 04-02-2008
Posts: 1706

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

Apologies for the incorrect information as I misread your post.
I would disagree that you need a breakdown of product prices on the checkout page as the customer has already confirmed what they wanted and are now looking to checkout.
The shopping cart page is where the customer can make their decision about proceeding with the order based on the prices shown. Once they click the checkout button they should be fully aware of the individual product prices, even moreso as they have entered their personal details by the time they get to the checkout page. At the checkout page, the sale is compete all bar the final payment confirmation. I don't think any customer would require a individual product price breakdown at this stage as they have already made the decision to buy.


Rob

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#6 06-16-2016 14:31:30

ThomasGiannou
Member
Registered: 02-10-2007
Posts: 184

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

I disagree with your assessment.   You have dropped the continuity on that check out screen!!  On that checkout screen you display the description of each product a customer purchases and you display the "count" of how many product items the customer is purchasing.   But you dropped the continuity by refusing to display the cost of the items being purchased.   Your program even contradicts your assessment.   What good is it to show the customer wants 1, 2, 3, 4, or whatever the count is?   According to your assessment, they should already know what the counts are.    Further, what good is it to show a description of all the products the customer is purchasing?   According to your assessment, they should already know what the products are.   Clearly, you had some reason for putting the product descriptions and the number of each product they are purchasing on the checkout screen.   Your desire is to have this be the best shopping cart available.   Not putting the cost of those products being purchased on the check out is a big step backwards and is a break in the continuity of this system.   
I have purchased a lot of different products online through other shopping carts and they show the details including item costs of what I am buying at checkout time.   Not doing that on this shopping cart is a minus on rating this shopping cart.   I'm going to put the code in my version of your shopping cart because I want to eliminate this as a reason for a any customer deciding not to complete their purchase.    Having the product prices present also carries forward the continuity in the system.   You show the prices before they get to the checkout page.   You show the prices after they make the payment.   But you don't show the prices on the checkout page.   That is flaw in your product.    To expect customers to remember all those prices is asking too much of any customer.
Hopefully, it will be easy for me to correct this issue on my version of your shopping cart and in subsequent releases or upgrades that I install.

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#7 06-17-2016 00:23:42

zanart
Member
From: bedford
Registered: 04-02-2008
Posts: 1706

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

It's not my software!
It is just my opinion of Kryptronic Software, and I agree with the way Kryptronic software works in this instance.
I am entitled to disagree with your assessment.


Rob

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#8 06-17-2016 01:34:48

ThomasGiannou
Member
Registered: 02-10-2007
Posts: 184

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

I have many years of experience in designing and programming financial software applications.  I am also a business owner who has a concern this problem is being ignored by Krytronic.  I am also well trained in accounting.   Not putting the prices on the items being displayed at checkout time is a violation of generally accepted accounting principles.   I also think it contributes to why customers frequently abandon this shopping cart instead of completing their purchases.   Kryptronic staff apparently does not have the accounting skills to recognize that this is a problem.   I am also concerned about their customer service because I have gotten no feedback at all about what the code should look like to cause the checkout program to display the costs for each product.   
I've looked at the checkout program code and it isn't exactly what I would call intuitively obvious.   I think I'll take a look at the code in the program that displays the completed order after a payment decision is processed by the customer.   That should be operating on the same data records the checkout program is accessing.   If that proves to be true, I should be able to move the code needed to display the product costs into the checkout program.
I'm not interested in anyone's opinion about whether this should be done or not.   I have made the decision to make this change to the code that is part of this shopping cart that is running on my web site.

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#9 06-17-2016 07:16:10

webmaster
Administrator
From: York, PA
Registered: 04-20-2001
Posts: 19798
Website

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

@ThomasGiannou:

You need to relax a bit, please.  You haven't been ignored by Kryptronic.  I replied to this post yesterday at 10:09 AM.  Today at 02:34 AM, 16 hours later, after you've made two posts to the forum you state you're being ignored.  Your expectations for a free support forum are quite unreasonable.

My undergraduate degree is in business administration with a specialty in accounting.  I was on a career track to become a CPA before I dove into programming.  I can assure you that there are no violations of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) present in the software.  Your statement that not listing items individually on an online store checkout page is a violation of GAAP is inaccurate.

If you want to modify the checkout screen to show the shopping cart contents, edit the file {private}/apps/ecom/ECOM/includes/cototals.php.  You'll want to load the cart, which is in the global variable 'ecom.cart_contents' (an array), and look for items in that array that have savetype=CART.  Use the coding in {private}/apps/ecom/ECOM/includes/cartdisplay.php as a basis for your modifications.

If I were you, I wouldn't do anything here.  The software purposely doesn't list items on the checkout screen, as research proves doing so results in a drop in conversion rate.  This drop in conversion rate is directly attributed to the item listing making the checkout more complex (harder to understand, too much information) and longer (takes more time to review and scroll).  The safe bet here is that if you make this change you'll see a reduction in sales as a result.  Please be advised of this.  The only way you do better with a change like this is if your client base is not representative of the typical Internet shopper as defined by the research available online that focuses on this.


Nick Hendler

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#10 06-17-2016 10:34:41

ThomasGiannou
Member
Registered: 02-10-2007
Posts: 184

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

Nick, thank you your guidance in determining where to add the code to display the item dollar amount on the checkout screen.   That is going to save me a lot of work trying to figure out where to put the modified code.  That's the missing customer service I was whining about.
Adding one field to that screen is not going to clutter it up.   As far as accounting principles are concerned, this modification is going to fully express the financial aspects that are currently missing from the checkout screen.   The current screen display for the check out says "Item subtotal"  that terminology means there should be at least an item total displayed on each product.   That financial data is currently missing from the checkout display screen.  The count times the price of a single product cost is the dollar amount I plan to display on each product on the checkout screen.   Those dollar amounts added together will support the "Item subtotal" displayed on the checkout screen and will make the checkout display screen fully compliant from the standpoint of accounting principles.   
Putting this modification in place will increase the customers trust in what they are seeing and will keep the customer from having to leave the checkout display in order to see the financial details behind that "Item subtotal".   This will solve the accounting compliance issue as well as take away a reason why customers have to leave this screen in order for them to verify the "item subtotal" amount that comprises part of what we are asking the customer to pay. 
As I said earlier, every good shopping cart I've ever seen, displays the cost of the items I am purchasing at checkout time.  I remember seeing this problem a long time ago and I was distracted by something else and never got back to talking to you about this.   I've spent a lot of time trying to explain the importance of this modification and I've obviously failed to get you to understand the need for it.   Life is like that at times, but I do want to thank you for your guidance as to where to put this modification and find the code that I'll need to put in place.

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#11 06-17-2016 10:46:41

webmaster
Administrator
From: York, PA
Registered: 04-20-2001
Posts: 19798
Website

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

Thank you.  This is not a modification we will be making to the base software because research shows that it will negatively impact the conversion rate of the store.  If you find results to be the opposite, please post back.  I highly recommend you archive the original files so you can revert the change when/if you see a conversion drop.  Good luck with this.


Nick Hendler

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#12 06-17-2016 11:05:28

zanart
Member
From: bedford
Registered: 04-02-2008
Posts: 1706

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

Hi Nick
I actually removed coitemdisp.php from the checkout page over a year ago, and our site has got a lot busy and certainly hasn't seen an increase in aborted sales. I think it was unnecessary clutter.

Also just ordered from screwfix and debenhams online, neither of which had any individual product details or prices on the checkout page.


Rob

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#13 06-17-2016 14:02:54

ThomasGiannou
Member
Registered: 02-10-2007
Posts: 184

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

Nick,  the main reason I decided to use your shopping cart years ago, was shipping management was much better in your software than the cart we were using which now is out of business.   Over the years, the software updates you have put in place have been very useful to my large customer base.   The recent changes I made in getting the USPS albatross off the ground are already showing improved conversions of orders. 
As a business owner, one of my goals is to eliminate the necessity to modify customer purchase orders so we can give them the lowest shipping costs.  My goal is to make sure that process is fully supported by the Kryptronic shopping cart.   I am finding that to keep that USPS albatross flying efficiently, I have to do a test purchase on each product we sell and on 1, 2, and 3 counts of those products to make sure the shopping cart is presenting those products with the most efficient shipping options.   This usually requires me to adjust the shipping dimensions of the product to match up with what I know from experience will work with that product.   By doing this testing, I am eliminating the work we have had to do on orders in the past to give the customer the lowest shipping cost.   This testing also reflects back to our customers and we are seeing the conversions go up because now the customers are finally able to see the actual rates they are going to be charged and they are having much fewer problems with the shipping rates we are using. 
I also eliminated charging a handling fee on our purchase orders.   I had to raise product prices to recover the costs that were covered by the handling fee, but this is giving the customers a view that total costs are going down on shipping and handling, and that helps push purchase conversions up. 
So far, we have made very few modifications to the Kryptronic software.  I've dealt with packaged software systems for over 40 years and I have found in the long run those systems are better managed with no modifications made to them.  When we do make modifications, we always archive a copy of the original program.   We also turn the original code in the modified program into comments and we carefully comment the code we put into that program.   This makes it easy to understand exactly what was changed and provides a path back to the original code.  When upgrades come out, one has to save those modified programs and quickly jump on the task of retrofitting the modifications into the upgrade.   If we make a lot of shopping cart modifications, then we have to set up a test system so we can test those modifications before putting the upgrade into production.   I would rather avoid having to do all that kind of work.

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#14 06-17-2016 20:26:04

ThomasGiannou
Member
Registered: 02-10-2007
Posts: 184

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

webmaster wrote:

@ThomasGiannou:

If I were you, I wouldn't do anything here.  The software purposely doesn't list items on the checkout screen, as research proves doing so results in a drop in conversion rate.  This drop in conversion rate is directly attributed to the item listing making the checkout more complex (harder to understand, too much information) and longer (takes more time to review and scroll).  The safe bet here is that if you make this change you'll see a reduction in sales as a result.  Please be advised of this.  The only way you do better with a change like this is if your client base is not representative of the typical Internet shopper as defined by the research available online that focuses on this.

Nick, the software certainly does list the items on the checkout screen.   This is true in version 8 as well as in version 9.   I'm just objecting because you are not also displaying one more data field with each of those items, the cost of the item.   

I don't buy the statement that research shows if you show the item detail on the checkout screen, that people will leave the cart and go somewhere else to purchase their items.  I do not believe that is true.   Your shopping cart already displays the item detail on the checkout screen and I have never seen any evidence (no phone calls from any customer about this).   This shopping cart is definitely displaying the item detail on the checkout screen.   I do believe if you don't have the dollar amount with the item, that could cause people to leave because they will not trust what is being displayed because the financial aspects are incomplete.   

In your shopping cart, there is also another reason why the items MUST be displayed on the checkout screen.   The customer has to make the shipping decisions on the checkout screen.   If a customer wants to send two items to different shipping locations, that business process could not be done if the items were not present on the checkout screen because that is where that very useful business function is performed.  Here is a problem I have been encountering about that feature.  This is a feature that only works if the customer enters multiple items into the shopping cart.   If they say they want 2 of an item, the feature of shipping to two different locations will not work for that situation.   They need to enter an item twice if they want to send each of those items to two different locations.   We need to put a message up front in the selection process to inform the customer that this feature is available in the checkout screen of the shopping cart.  I get calls from people who want to send the same item to two different locations, because they don't know the shopping cart supports this capability.   Customers don't seem to be able to figure this out at first because there is nothing in the selection process to inform them of this feature.   I always get calls from new customers who want to do this because they can't see that the shopping cart supports this function.

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#15 06-20-2016 07:50:45

webmaster
Administrator
From: York, PA
Registered: 04-20-2001
Posts: 19798
Website

Re: checkout does not display the prices of the items being ordered

You are correct in that items that are being shipped are displayed on the checkout screen to identify which shipping groups they're being shipped with to allow for selection by the customer.  Not all items details are there.  Only shipped items (no services, downloads, gift certs, etc) are displayed, only items which require a shipping selection.


Nick Hendler

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