Customers sometimes can't order, even with manual processing

[elliven11]

Starting around Oct. 31st my order volume dropped quite drastically, despite increasing traffic. At first I thought it was a seasonal trend, but then I started getting several inquiries a day from customers who weren't able to order.

They would add their items to the cart, enter all their information, then press 'submit' only to find it takes them straight back to the homepage.

Anyone else experiencing something like this? This happens to coincide with Shopesite's 9.0 release, but I'm skeptical it has anything to do with that.

I'm using manual processing, so any valid credit card should pass through with no problem. I've successfully placed test orders time and time again on my end, but customers are still having difficulty placing their orders.

Scratching head,
-Neville
www.HouseOfRave.com

[loren_d_c]

This happens to coincide with Shopesite's 9.0 release, but I'm skeptical it has anything to do with that.

Since you are using v8.1.0, not v9.0, then it definitely wouldn't have anything to do with v9.0. I haven't heard of this particular problem lately, but there were a couple of additional maintenance releases for v8.1x after v8.1.0 (not to mention 3 additional new versions with new features etc), see:

http://support.shopsite.com/kbase/view_answer.php?questionID=S5516
http://support.shopsite.com/kbase/view_answer.php?questionID=S5518

I don't see your particular issue listed in either of these kbase articles, but there may be other things that may effect you that you should upgrade to resolve anyway.

-Loren

[Jeff]

I just placed a test order on your nice site and it appeared to work fine. I always wanted disco balls, btw.

Perhaps they were hitting the Google checkout instead of the SS button
I almost did that.

GL

[elliven11]

Thanks for the quick attention Loren, I'll definitely install the release patches.

Thanks for placing a test order Jeff. I've spoken to 3 customers directly who said when they pressed submit, it took them back to the homepage without any confirmation number or receipt sent to their email.

Perhaps it might be a particular product I've somehow messed up on? Anyhow, I've restarted my server for good measure and will install the patches. Hopefully the holiday season will go off without a hitch!

-Neville
-HouseOfRave.com

[Jeff]

I don't like the arrangement of the SS buttons in the stock cart. Perhaps they hit "Continue Shopping?" I've done that with our own site by mistake when testing checkout.

One itsy bitsy thing I just did was to make the all-important "Checkout" button slightly larger than the other three. I've noticed that several highly customized SS stores have rearranged the 4 buttons and have made "Checkout" more prominent.

We're now using 9.0 Pro and love the new features... free-shipping coupon and cross sell. I think "search" works just a bit better too.

[elliven11]

I called a couple of customers back to see what the problem was, and (whew) there's nothing wrong with taking regular CC orders, but PayPal is being a bit finicky.

So whenever a customer selects PayPal as payment and proceeds, it just shoots them back to the homepage. I'm guess I defaulted my PayPal error URL as my homepage a while ago.

I'll look more into it. I don't have any bars or disbutes on my PayPal account so this is a little puzzling.

-Neville