[ecmark]

I work for a web design agency, and we're always on the lookout for software to help us with client projects. Lemonstand looks great for something that's only just about to come out of beta - very flexible.

One point I have is about the checkout. Ideally you want new customers to register as they make their first purchase. Guest checkout can be handy, but generally you want people to register, and the registration process should be part of the normal flow of the checkout.

The checkout registration process on lemonstand seems to require the user to pick up a store generated email to recover their password before they can proceed, which puts a bit of an obstruction in the checkout process - maybe they don't have easy access to their email. It just gives them a point to bale out.

Ideally at this checkout step the user would ENTER their desired password rather than needing to pick up the store generated one. They enter their email and password, and are automatically logged in ready for the next step in the checkout

This is discussed in the thread here: http://forum.lemonst...irmation-email/
where you provide an option to have the password generated and sent to the user AFTER they place their first order.
The problem with this method (as we have found with another store that uses the same system) is that when users come to place their 2nd order, they have no idea what their password is (because they never make a note of it or change it when they receive it - maybe the email goes into spam or something). They try and login with their normal password, and are told the details are wrong. So they need to do a 'recover password', which again puts that barrier in place on the checkout.

If they set up their account with their usual password when they create their first order, we don't have any issues (this is how it works in cs-cart, which we currently use).

Is it possible to set up lemonstand in this way at all - even if it meant disabling the guest checkout option?

[h.ziehm]

I like your idea and I think it would be a great thing if we were somehow able to combine the registration process and the checkout. You could add a field named x_password to the billing-info-page and save it as a custom field. Then, before the order is created, use the onOrderBeforeCreate and set up a function that makes use of the Shop_CheckoutData::get_custom_field('x_password') to retrieve the password. This password can then be used with the Shop_Customer-class to add a new customer. All other customer values like first_name, etc can be retrieved from the Shop_CheckoutData::get_billing_info().

Best regards
Hauke

This post has been edited by h.ziehm: 27 July 2010 - 05:48 AM

[Aleksey]

Hi, guys!

Thank you for your ideas and for the discussion. As ecmark mentioned, LemonStand can register customers automatically when they place their first order. We only need to add the ability for customers to enter the password during the checkout. We can do that.

How would the checkout process work then? For example, on the first checkout page you can ask whether the visitor is a new customer, or registered. If the visitor is a new customer, the first checkout step will have the password field and the customer will be automatically registered after placing the order. If the visitor is an existing customer, he will be offered to log in using his email and password before the checkout. Is this scenario suitable for you?

Thank you

[ecmark]

That sounds ideal. As long as a new user can enter a password as part of their first checkout which automatically registers them and logs them in, then that works well for customers I think.

It means that registering is no more work than checking out as a guest (other than entering a password), and when they hopefully come back to the store they can log straight in with their normal password. Nice and easy for customers.

Thanks
Mark

[Aleksey]

Hi, Mark!

Great. I added the task to the to-do list. This is not a difficult task to implement, but we have many other requests above this tasks in the list. Do not hesitate to begin building your store. We can switch to this task and implement it when you need.

Thank you

[Aleksey]

Hi, guys!

The automatic customer registration feature is published: http://lemonstandapp...r_registration/

Thanks

[Aleksey]

Hi, guys!

The automatic customer registration feature is published: http://lemonstandapp...r_registration/

Thanks