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I'm new to this Agora shopping cart - please can someone tell me, how does the customer track their order?


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Sal

Sal,
There isn't feature for the customer to be able to track their order status after placing an order.
I have heard of 3rd party hacks for AgoraCart that will allow for that, they are not free, though.

HTH!


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Bonnie - AgoraCart Moderator

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if you're asking about shipping tracking then agora cannot administer that.
you have no idea what the tracking code is at the time of purchase. this id is assigned only at the time the parcel is actually shipped. if one could be determined at the time of purchase then the store could be hacked to track progress.
check with your shipping agent(s). they may have a script you can install on your site which will display progress.
the process would be...
order is made.
product shipped and tracking code is assigned.
email your customer with a link to your site or the agent's site with the tracking code.
they can follow the link, enter the code then determine the latest progress for the package.
dan

What they mean is a way for the customer to log-in to the cart and check to see when or if the order has shipped. A way for the shop owner to log-in and update such information, and add any shipper tracking numbers. This greatly reduces email and telephone inquires as to where is my order?

I have heard that there was a 3rd Party hack to do that, but I believe it was about $150.00 just for that hack...


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Bonnie - AgoraCart Moderator

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Im aware of that Scottie. Thanks. I observed your earlier post.
$150 is ridiculous for that kind of application.

send the client a followup email when the tracking number is known. include a link in the email to the carrier's website where the client can enter the tracking code to see the current status.
to automate something like this would indeed take a lot of coding and 150 bucks is cheap if it's truly an automated tracking feature.
dan

It really isn't fully automated... You still need to go into the admin & enter the tracking info...

When I ship by USPS or UPS, I have it set up to automatically send a shipment notification email to the customer with the tracking info.
I use Stamps.com for USPS & UPS' Worldship software.

HTH!


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Bonnie - AgoraCart Moderator

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Im sorry for any misunderstanding. Please allow me to clarify. First of all my assertion that $150.00 was too much was based on the fact that if someone offered an add-on for $35 where customers could register and login to view their order status, then it would sell like crazy to every Agoracart user on this planet. Logging in to add a ups tracking number and date shipped is not a turn-off. Its expected. My hope is for a programmer, who's profession I have the greatest respect for, believe me, may see this and go to work and quite possibly make a tidy sum in the process. Sending an email with a tracking number upon shipment doesnt stop the phone calls that always come asking status during processing. The idea is to reduce those calls by having the customer check themselves. Many of the new generation carts now have this feature already built in.

hey. no problem. i didn't misunderstand you.
you would think that everyone would buy it at 35 bucks. but that just isn't the case. 150 bucks or 35 there are tons of cost hacks out there that many feel no one can do without and they just don't sell. it's just a fact of life. a free program with cool cost hacks is an oxymoron. agoracart.com and 3rd party hacks just don't pay.
maybe if you put a note in the thankyou page or the customer's email concerning shipping. such as, "your product will be shipped within 2 working days of placing your order. as soon as we can ascertain a tracking number we will send you a follow-up email so you can monitor the progress of the shipment".
that should inform them that information is coming and most will wait for the follow-up email.
happy new year
dan

The phone calls still come even if you have a note about when an order will ship... Some people are just that way and no matter what you do or provide, they will still call...
I have had some people that I put the delivery time of 5-10 business days in the order form, on the email receipts, etc.. Still, 1-2 days later, I get a call, "Has it shipped, yet?"...
However, we, as shop owners & webmasters still want to provide as much info to the customer, at their fingertips, as we can...
Anyway.... just my 2 cents....

HTH!


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Bonnie - AgoraCart Moderator

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Ok, let me put it this way. Im aware of the pay and free hacks out there for Agoracart. I based my sales prediction of a order status functionality module on the timing and usefulness. This is a feature customers are asking for more than anything else now. They want to reduce their employee workload in answering these customer inquiries. Also I cant agree that the phone calls still come. I have several customers that use this feature supplied by other carts and all say its made a tremendous difference in reducing customer inquiries over their previous carts. Again, I have a great respect for developers of Agoragcart. Its a wonderful application that allows for creativity and has been very enjoyable to learn. My two cents is that I hope this feature comes in the next generation of development, and or someone has the ability or information to address the need, which work-arounds does not do.
Happy & Safe New Year - Dusty (that's my real name, parents had a sense of humor)

Here's one way you could make order tracking possible:

First of all, my goal was not to allow customers to track orders, but rather to allow myself to track orders. The simple log file (view orders in the store manager) was just not enough for me. But now that I have it set up, I think it would only require a bit of tweaking to allow customers to track their own orders. Here's my approach:

1. I changed the offline-order_lib.pl file so that it would create the order log file in the form of a flat text database file. So now each order in the order log file looks something like this: 223234354|Bob Smith|123 Main Street|25 widgets|$100| | | |

2. Then I got a script from the internet called DBman (http://www.gossamer-threads.com/). This is a database cgi script.

3. I installed DBman and configured it to read the myorders.log file that my agoracart creates and updates whenever a new order is placed.

4. Now, when I log into DBman, i can see all the orders in the log file (i.e. all the orders placed to date), and can do nice things like sort them or even update certain pieces of info. For example, I left some blank spaces in the order log and i setup the database to use these spaces as places to store info about whether the order is shipped yet, shipping tracking number, etc. I can easily enter this stuff into each order via the DBman modify command.

In the end, I have an order tracking script running on the internet that shows all orders and their status to date. It's cool to have this on the internet since now it is accesible by anyone in my office. Also, I can give people different passwords with different levels of access/modification rights.

That is how far I have gotten so far, but now I am thinking that I could also have a different password automatically generated for each customer. This password would only allow them access to view their own order (this is possible to do in DBman). So then they could simply login to my order tracking database and see what the status of their order is.

I know the above is not the greatest explanation, but I assume you script expert guys will be able to figure out what I mean and maybe put something like this in use too.

Cheers!

Thomas (sorry, not much real knowledge about scripting, but love to hack around with this stuff)

Be careful that you DO NOT get any sensitive personal information into the logs... This would pose a serious security risk.


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Bonnie - AgoraCart Moderator

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I am just putting basic stuff like order number, buyer name and address, and then some housekeeping stuff like shipping date, tracking number, etc. I guess the only thing that could be slightly sensitive is the buyer name and address, but I don't think that is such a worry in these days of massive mailing lists available to anyone.

All my payment stuff is totally offline, and in fact, never comes into my website in any way. It is all handled offline by the payment processors here in China via their own websites. Further, most people here choose "COD" as their preferred payment method.

Thanks for the reminder, though!

Howdy,

I assume yer all using the v4 series. V5.0 and above is more suited to such applications. However, for the sake of getting the new version out, I skipped the customer veiwer so that I could get the darn thing out (it was over 4 years since the last major release). the manager side allow syou to update the order status and such. However, I wanted to review security before allowing customers access. But it's possible to do it now with the addition of a template parser (very much like the current manager does for invoices and packing slips in v5).

So coming versions based on v5 and above will see more of these features and at a faster rate with the ability to update a file version or install a new feature with a click of a button. Some will be available to PRo version members only. The customer viewer will be part of that package since it will be one feature that will have a constant cycle of refinement.


Mister Ed


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Does anyone have a link to the hack for order tracking?

If it's Mark's code it works well, I have it now, I'm just afraid of losing it if I upgrade. I think I could make an Access Database to take the log file & put it in a form I could add tracking numbers and send them via a Mail Merge from Outlook, but that's more work than I want to do right now.

So I'm between a rock & hard place. I want to upgrade my store, but don't want to lose the order tracking ability (Send customer their order status via email, including tracking#)

Some of my orders I ship myself & when I do I set up the auto tracking send from the carrier (I do also have an Access database that'll massage the names & let me import into USPS, and I'm going to expand to work for FedEx too), but some of my stuff is drop shipped and that's where I need the ability to auto send them out.

I would imagine Mark is done selling that hack, he's developed his own cart and while it's nice it's also very pricey so he's probably not interested in selling that thing for $150 anymore. I'm just hoping someone knows of something that'll work.

If only I'd taken some programming classes instead of dumb old Calculus & Physics & stuff

have you tried emailing mark to see if he has an update for the current version of agoracart? he's a good guy and will do what he can... if he's willing.
d

I haven't. I'm not sure I even have a good email address for him. I know he's a good guy, but I'm betting he'll want to convert it to his cart for 3k.

since you already bought it i bet if he has time he will adapt for a small fee. give him a shout. doesn't hurt to ask.
d