Various Questions

[jason]

I'm looking more for a resource but if you have answers instead of pointing me to answers, that's fine too. I'm struggling to find anything in the docs on the site:

1. I need to be able to modify the shopping cart page for specific products, how do I do this?
2. How do I clear the shopping cart for a user from an external page? Or, how do I see if an item is already in their cart and not add another?

Any direction to tutorials or good FAQs is appreciated.

[Jim]

Please explain what you are trying to do in more detail.

[jason]

Please explain what you are trying to do in more detail.

Sorry. I'm trying to change this customer's current cart to not prompt for shipping methods. They sale shippable items as well as tuition-type items now. On the latter, I don't want to offer shipping options.

As for the other item, we have stand-alone pages that will add an item to the cart and put the user in their cart. If someone hits a link a second time, I'd like to not add the item if it's already there. Alternatively, is there a URL I can hit to always clear a cart and then redirect them to the same link that adds an item?

Hope that helps.

[jason]

I guess I just need some resources on how to interact with the cart from a third-party page.

1. How do I add a product to a cart from a non-cart page
2. How do I clear a cart from a non-cart page
3. How do I modify the available options (like remove shipping options) based on product

Help please

[Jim]

1. How do I add a product to a cart from a non-cart page

Use OrderAnywhere links that you can get from Merchandising > Order Anywhere

How do I clear a cart from a non-cart page

You don't. The cart can only be cleared from the shopping cart screen using the Empty Cart option.

How do I modify the available options (like remove shipping options) based on product

You cannot modify shipping options based on a particular product. You can say whether a product has shipping charged on it but you can't specify different options based on what the product is. In ShopSite Pro there is the ability to have a custom shipping module that returns shipping costs to the cart. You might be able to do something with that to exclude some shipping options if a particular product is added to the cart but it would affect the shipping options for the entire order (all products in the cart) and not a specific one. Using the shipping api you have to provide all shipping options and do the calculations for them in the api. Sample code can be found in the online help, but unless you are an experienced programmer, or are willing to hire someone to do it that is, it might be a little complex for most merchants.

[jason]

Thanks for your help. I think I'm close.

Is there a way to pass in customer first, last, and shipping details to the cart?

[Jim]

Once a shopper has placed an order a cookie will be kept on their computer to keep name and address info. Since each order can have separate kinds of shipping available that information is not kept So when they come back to shop again that information will be displayed for them.

But there is no way that a merchant can send that kind of information to the cart.

[jason]

Awesome help. Thank you very much.