Using ProductCart - Placing an order for a Customer

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Placing an order for a Customer

Printed From: ProductCart E-Commerce Solutions
Category: ProductCart
Forum Name: Using ProductCart
Forum Description: Running your store with ProductCart
URL: https://forum.productcart.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1923
Printed Date: 26-February-2025 at 11:21pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Placing an order for a Customer

Posted By: DMC1
Subject: Placing an order for a Customer
Date Posted: 20-August-2008 at 2:57pm

Has anyone else had this problem:

When I try to place an order for a customer, I use the control panel. By clicking on "Place Order", I am automatically logged into the customer's account in the storefront. I can add items to the order but when I go to checkout, I get a message saying "Your cart is empty".

Any advice on this issue?

Thank you!

Replies:

Posted By: katharina
Date Posted: 20-August-2008 at 3:08pm

I had this happening several times, and so did our customers. You basically have to shut down your browser and start over. I've noticed that this seems to happen when you log into the control panel, click on place an order and then do not click on start shopping but follow the store navigation instead. Not sure why our customers have the same issue, because some of them are new customers, so they are not going through the login process.

Another issue we have is a strange error message. You log into the back office then several minutes later a customer calls and you pull up the customers account and start creating the customers order. The system may log you out while creating the order and you get this error message that doesn't make any sense. So always make sure you have a fresh login when taking customer orders.

Both are annoying , but don't happen that often. However, we had customers questioning our sites security because of that.
Katharina

Posted By: DMC1
Date Posted: 20-August-2008 at 3:20pm

Thank you for your expedient input.

I just tried to use IE instead of Firefox and it seemed to work there instead. When you get the error, are you using Firefox?

Maybe its best to use IE instead for this type of action (placing an order for a customer).

Thank you!

Posted By: katharina
Date Posted: 20-August-2008 at 4:23pm

Actually the other way around. I had it more often with Internet Explorer. I now use Firefox, but still have it occasionally.
Katharina

Posted By: cpgmar
Date Posted: 21-August-2008 at 6:06pm

We discovered this problem also and figured out by experience that you have to go to the "start shopping" button first. Also, make sure you open a new browser between customers or you can enter an order for the previous customer! Log out after entering the completed order and either close the browser completely or before you enter any new order, refresh the page and double check the account information. You may even need to refresh the page again at checkout as addresses may come in again from the previous.

If someone could explain what the proper procedure is for this, I would appreciate it.

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Cindy

The Tasteful Garden

www.tastefulgarden.com

Posted By: ProductCart
Date Posted: 21-August-2008 at 6:36pm

Hi everyone! When a customer places an order (or you on behalf of a customer), the customer session is NOT ended. This is by design as the customer may want to click on the link to view the printer friendly version of the order, or do other order-specific things such as sending a message through the Help Desk.

To avoid any customer session issue, log out the customer after the order has been placed. Nothing needs to be done on the Control Panel side. That is: from the order completion page (orderComplete.asp), click on any link (e.g. in your navigation) to get to the customer account menu page (custpref.asp) and then click on the logout link to log the customer out.

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The ProductCart Team

Home of ProductCart http://www.productcart.com" rel="nofollow - shopping cart software

Posted By: DMC1
Date Posted: 22-August-2008 at 10:53am

I think the problem is actually regarding the browser losing the customer session.

(My initial post mentions how items can be added to the cart on behalf of a customer but then when "checking out", the cart displays an empty message.)

At some point the browser loses or cannot recognize that the customer session is active. For some reason, when I use IE, I don't seem to have this problem though this seems to be the opposite effect for some other users.

If any one has any advice on how to fix this, please send it on!

Posted By: katharina
Date Posted: 22-August-2008 at 11:09am

It's not a timeout issue, as far as I can tell. I wish I had the answer. We have been trying to pinpoint it for 2 years now, and could not find a trigger. Have been having it with IE and Firefox.
Katharina

Posted By: ProductCart
Date Posted: 22-August-2008 at 11:50am

The most common reason for a loss of session is a change in the domain name. That is: if you are shopping on http://www.earlyimpact.com, but then get redirected (or click on a link) to http://earlyimpact.com, the session is lost unless the server has been setup to automatically redirect all requests to the same domain.

To the browser, www.earlyimpact.com and earlyimpact.com are two completely different things (in fact, you can set up your server to point them to two completely different IP addresses, if you wanted to). That's why sessions are not maintained across the two.

To do items related to this:

- Make sure all navigation links use a consistent URL
- Make sure that the store URL in "includes/storeconstants.asp" uses the same domain
- Make sure that the store settings (home page URL and SSL URL) use the same domain

-------------
The ProductCart Team

Home of ProductCart http://www.productcart.com" rel="nofollow - shopping cart software

Posted By: DMC1
Date Posted: 22-August-2008 at 2:40pm

Perfect - Previously, I was logging into my control panel via xyxyxyxyxyx.com and my website address was http://www.xyxyxyxyxyx.com - www.xyxyxyxyxyx.com

I just tried logging into the control panel with "www" beforehand and it worked out exactly as it should when I tried to place an order for a customer. I hope this helps others as well!

Thank you!

Posted By: RUOnTheNet
Date Posted: 24-January-2009 at 10:59pm

I am adding to this thread because it is the more recent forum entry that deals with

shopping cart empty.

We are experiencing many instances in Firefox when a user simply tries to add an item to their cart. This seems to occur right after a new user account is created, and primarily with FF. The person creates a new account and then goes shopping. Then they get the empty cart message, after adding a product.

This also happens very frequently in FF with the admin features of adding orders. I expect that the cache or sessions are not being cleared properly, because it occurs after we've created a new customer account and continue shopping on their behalf.

We are using PC V 3.xxx something above 3.1 (unsure as we've had a few updated pages sent our way) and the Access dbase. We have an SSL and no changes in urls.

Any one else experiencing this? It is a concern as we see much higher cart abandonment rate with FF users over IE.

Thanks. /a

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Alan,
www.AreYouOnTheNet.com
Internet Sales, Marketing & Affiliate Program Management

Posted By: DMC1
Date Posted: 26-January-2009 at 5:06pm

I had similar issues with this but were solved when I made sure that all links pointed to the full name of our website. For example, in some places, I had abbreviated to COMPANYABC.com instead of always using http://www.COMPANYABC.com - www.COMPANYABC.com . This slight difference seemed to result in the sessions not registering items in the cart. I made sure to include the "www" in all areas including the SSL link address and I have not had any issues with this problems since the changes. Hope that helps.