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Shopping Software Training - The Shopping Cart

Home » Shopping Software Training» The Shopping Cart

How do I increase the amount of time that the cart page stays on the screen before it bounces back to the catalogue?

The time, in seconds, can be set in Design | Design Options | Bounce Page Delay

I'm looking for a way to add a product to the shopping cart from anywhere on the site.

The following URL shows you the format to follow to add a product to the cart from anywhere.

http://your.URL/cgi-bin/ca000001.pl?SID=3&PAGE=PRODUCT&Q_7=5

The SID parameter should be the section ID of the section where the product can be found. You can figure out the exact SID by inserting the 'SectionID' variable somewhere in your store pages and see what it becomes in the previewed page.

The Q_ parameter informs the script about the product reference and the quantity. The product reference is the (CGI encoded) string prefixed by Q_ while the quantity is the parameter value (prod ref is 7, qty is 5 in the above example).

If you are adding from outside the 'acatalog' folder, then ensure you add
ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://your.URL/acatalog/
onto the end of the URL.

Obviously this works only for products where components, attributes, date or other info prompts are not used. However these more complex products can also be added to the cart on similar way but more parameters are required (check the HTML source of your product page for hidden input parameters to see what else required in these cases).

The result of this script call may vary depending on the "Shopping mode" setting of the section where the product is located. E.g. if your product is located in a section where "Quantity on Product Page" shopping mode is used then using this link the product will be added to the cart and a bounce page will drop you back to the last used shop page, but if the shopping mode is "Quantity in Shopping Cart" then the cart will be displayed clicking on the link.

Note that this solution is not supported by Actinic Software therefore you should use this at your own risk.

Can I take customers straight to the checkout from a specific section that uses a single add to cart button?.

Yes, this solution will take customers straight to the checkout after adding product to the cart from a page with a shopping mode of 'Quantity on Product Page' with a single add to cart button per page. This is set in the 'Page Settings' tab of the section.

To begin, you need to create a new user-definable variable called 'GoDirectToCheckout' which you can use to control which sections will take the customer directly to the checkout after adding to cart.

1. Go to 'Design | Library | Variables'.

2. Right-click on the 'Section' group and select 'New Variable'.

3. Give it a name of 'GoDirectToCheckout'.

4. Give it a prompt of 'Take Customer Directly To Checkout?'.

5. Under 'Place Of Setting' select 'Section'.

6. De-select 'Allow <Use Parent> as an Option'.

7. Under 'Type' select 'True/False'.

8. Set 'Initial Value' and 'Top Level Value' both to 'False'.

9. Click 'OK' and close the library.

10. You are now ready to include the code in your design.

11. Set up a section with a 'Shopping Mode' of 'Single Add To Cart Button' where you want to take customers directly to the checkout after adding to cart.

12. Change to the 'Design' tab.

13. Click on the single 'add to cart button' in the design.

In the layout code for the single 'add to cart' button, copy and paste the following code:
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22GoDirectToCheckout%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20true">
<input type="hidden" name="ACTION" value="<actinic:variable name="CheckoutButton" />">
<input type="hidden" name="CHECKOUTURL" value="<actinic:variable name="OrderLinkText" />" target="_self">
</actinic:block>

Now for any section where you want to take your customers directly to the shopping cart after adding to cart, go to the 'Properties' tab of the section and set 'Take Customer Directly To The Checkout?' to 'True'.

Update the site and test.

Why do my images not appear when I view the cart?

This can occur if the Catalog URL in Web | Network Setup does not have a trailing '/'.

Why might the Cart Summary always show zero after adding items to the cart?

This can occur if the time setting of the server is incorrect. You will need to ask your ISP to verify that the time setting is correct for the server time zone.

In my 'view cart' page online, I can see buttons to save and retrieve my shopping list. Can I disable these buttons in any way?

Yes. You can un-tick the 'Enable Repeat Orders...' box in 'Business Settings | Ordering' to remove these features.

Products in a particular section when ordered have no cost associated when you view the shopping cart .

This is normally where the products are entered as attributes or components and the pricing model is incorrectly set up.

Why is there is no text in the shopping cart or checkout pages?

The text has been made the same colour as the background. Go into 'Design | Themes | Advanced Themes Configuration' and click on the button 'Color Scheme' and change as appropriate.

Why does the Cart Summary still show zeros after adding a product to the cart?

This can occur if the server time is not set correctly.

The Cart Summary uses a cookie with an expiry time. The browser will ignore the cookie if it has already expired which could be the case if the server time is not correct.

You will need to contact the server administrator, usually your ISP, to have the server time corrected.

How can I change the 'cookie denied' error message Actinic generates online.

Go 'Design | Text' click 'Go To' and search for the prompt with an ID of '52'. So a right click and select 'Zoom' to expand this into a full window..

My customers can only buy one product at a time.

Go to 'Settings | Business Settings | Orders' and untick 'Order Quantity Always 1'

When I try to add an item to the checkout I get the message "A general script error occurred - error: could not locate the product reference"

There can be a conflict between the default '"Add to Cart" Button Label:' and the 'Button' field in the 'Product Details' box of each product, if the same text is used for both (e.g. Add to Cart is typed in both). To remedy this go to 'Settings | Site Options | General' and change the default 'Text for Cart Button' Label:' to something else (e.g. 'Purchase).'

On adding items to the cart I get CGI Timeout error.'The specified CGI application exceeded the allowed time for processing. The server has deleted the process.'

This is usually a problem when the script is not allowed enough memory by the server. This is a server setting that can be altered by the web host.

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