[thelist] asp carts and sessions

[Keith]

At 02:18 AM Thursday 5/16/02, Simon wrote:


>2.If the user never actually checks out, how can i remove
>the data from the db as this could build up after some time?
>(i cannnot access the server schedular to run a script each day
>to remove the data, which is what i would do)


Two ways to look at this.

1) Do you really want to throw away the evidence that sales are being lost
by cleaning up abandoned shopping carts with a cron job? This is valuable
data. A properly run e-tailing site wants to know the ratio of
abandonments, the amount of lost money in those carts, the last item placed
in the cart, the last step of the process. Something made the consumer bail
out, it has a cause every single time and that cause can always be fixed,
if you can figure out what it was. Don't throw away the only clues you
have. The "greeter" at WalMart, her real job in the beginning was to ask,
"did you get what you wanted?" WalMart built layout and flow on those
answeres. Website layout and flow can always use that kind of help too.

2) If you really do not want that data, consider not keeping a user cart on
the server. Since your unique ID would be stored in a cookie, keep the item
numbers and quanities per item stored there instead and recalc a cart from
inventory on each request.



keith

cache at dowebscentral.com