[thelist] Let's Discuss Ecommerce Enabled Sites...

[Warden, Matt]

> I really like this article, and most things mentioned in it seem to make
> sense.
>
> [tip author=Mishka type="Best Practices for Designing Shopping Cart and
> Checkout Interfaces"]
> http://www.dack.com/web/shopping_cart.html
> [/tip]

Nope. Rudy beat you to that a long time ago. He added that to the tip archive
on 11/2/00. I still have the email (it's one of a few that I keep in my email
client). I suppose it bears repeating  =P

> A question that is missing from this article.  When to calculate taxes?

It depends. Most of the time, you'll need to know the state of the customer
before calculating the taxes.

> And, this can be extended, when to calculate shipping charges based on
> destination.

I usually do this at the preview order stage. However, in cases where I have
an uneditable "mini-cart" in the margin during the shipping/billing info input
stage. In those cases, I'll display the shipping charges tacked on once the
customer has supplied state information.

> The other scenario will be more complicated, but again the tax and shipping
> information will depend on the destination.  In this case, provincial tax
> will be applied for all Ontario residents, federal tax for all Canadian
> residents, and shipping will be very much different if within Canada or the
> U.S (and within Canada itself, many thanks to Canada Post).  Showing a
> complete invoice, before gathering the necessary shipping info, isn't going
> to be possible.  But, at the same time I find numerous potential customers
> email us to find out what it will cost to ship before they want to place an
> order.  (Keep in mind this site doesn't have an automated ecommerce system
> in place, yet.)

Well, assuming that you ARE making an automated calculation system, let the
user know (if needed) that they will have the ability to review shipping
charges and tax BEFORE actually placing the order. Yes, they might be miffed
about entering all that info before even knowing the final total, but...
well... if you see an alternative, go for it  =)

> Anyway, based on the fact that customers WANT to know the final cost before
> committing any personal information, how do others best deal with this?  Ask
> the information on the shopping cart page, in simple terms, i.e. are you in
> Ontario, are you in Canada, etc.?

You *could* ask for general location near the cart stage, however that seems a
little odd to me... and it might confuse the user.

> Actually, this brings up another question for the fellow Canadian developers
> out there.  Anyone figured out a logical way to calculate shipping between
> two postal codes, with Canada Post?  Any scripts available that will do this
> online in real time?

There is a UPS tool that I believe is free to use commercially (though, you
probably want to check on that. It is only a price checking tool. Here's an
example:

<wrap>
http://www.ups.com/using/services/rave/qcostcgi.cgi?accept_UPS_license_agreeme
nt=yes&10_action=3&13_product=2DA&15_origPostal=19116&19_destPostal=18966&22_d
estCountry=US&23_weight=120&24_value=500
</wrap>

It returns a delimited string of values that include time-to-ship, shipping
price, insurance cost (if desired), and some other goodies (and one or two
things you won't need... like the fist number).

I do not know if it works with canadaian zip codes. You would want to look
into that.


HTH,


--
mattwarden
mattwarden.com