Customer Checkout Issue: entering addresses
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:56 am
Disclaimer: Any plain-language solutions you can give me would be great, as my handle on backend web development is shaky at best; I've just started learning .NET and I still get slightly lost in regards to my website's layout when trying to manage it through the Dashboard. If at all possible, please treat me like a layman; I appreciate your patience.
The problem as a customer related it to me: when placing an order to drop-ship to a new location, the customer opted to have the order treated as a gift, and was taken to the gift options page to select wrapping. After completing that step and proceeding to the order placement page, the shipping address defaulted to the billing address, and not noticing, he placed the order. He was unhappy to have it arrive at his house the next week.
How I replicated it:
I first proceeded through the checkout process as an existing user who has placed orders in the past. After clicking checkout from the shopping cart, the first step is to enter a shipping address. Completing that form, the new address is added to the user's "address book" page, and it must be reselected to ship to that address. The next page is choosing shipping options and a link to gift options; I select the gift page and add options to replicate my customer's process. After that is the payment page. I notice that my shipping address is the new address I chose, and my billing address had been saved from a previous order. ---Thus, this is somewhat a deadend, the ship-to address did not change to my existing billing address at any point.
I then created a new user account independent of the checkout process, with no existing address information. I added an item to the cart and proceeded to check out. As before, the first prompt is to enter the ship-to address. I do so, and proceed through the steps to the payment page. Here, I notice that the billing address is the same as the ship-to address; I click "change" under the billing address area, and edit the address to reflect my actual billing address, and submit. Back on the payment page, I notice that my ship-to address has now changed as well; I imagine many people wouldn't have bothered to recheck the ship-to at this point, however, and proceed with placing the order. I was able to change the ship-to address via the payment page, which took me through the "adding a new address to the 'address book' and reselecting it" process.
The whole address entry process is not intuitive or easy for new OR existing customers; it's very confusing. Comparatively, the not-logged-in single page checkout process is very simple, and clearly provides the option to ship to an address other than the billing address in an easy-to-understand way.
I would prefer to do away with the whole "address book" business entirely, as a field a user needs to interact with for every order; I've never seen anything like it on other ecommerce sites, at least not in the manner. Generally, existing users can have their preferred billing information saved (as a simple check-off box when they enter the address in checkout), and they can enter a different ship-to address or opt to have it be the same as their billing. The "address book" interface would be something they manage via their account page, not something they're faced with in the middle of placing an order.
Barring a solution that makes the above happen (because the technicality of it may be beyond me at this time), I'd like to be able to use the single-page checkout as the default checkout process for all users, regardless if they are logged in, new or existing users, or anonymous. Is there a simple way to do this?
If it's useful, our website is RhinoGift.com
Thanks for your help! - Emily
The problem as a customer related it to me: when placing an order to drop-ship to a new location, the customer opted to have the order treated as a gift, and was taken to the gift options page to select wrapping. After completing that step and proceeding to the order placement page, the shipping address defaulted to the billing address, and not noticing, he placed the order. He was unhappy to have it arrive at his house the next week.
How I replicated it:
I first proceeded through the checkout process as an existing user who has placed orders in the past. After clicking checkout from the shopping cart, the first step is to enter a shipping address. Completing that form, the new address is added to the user's "address book" page, and it must be reselected to ship to that address. The next page is choosing shipping options and a link to gift options; I select the gift page and add options to replicate my customer's process. After that is the payment page. I notice that my shipping address is the new address I chose, and my billing address had been saved from a previous order. ---Thus, this is somewhat a deadend, the ship-to address did not change to my existing billing address at any point.
I then created a new user account independent of the checkout process, with no existing address information. I added an item to the cart and proceeded to check out. As before, the first prompt is to enter the ship-to address. I do so, and proceed through the steps to the payment page. Here, I notice that the billing address is the same as the ship-to address; I click "change" under the billing address area, and edit the address to reflect my actual billing address, and submit. Back on the payment page, I notice that my ship-to address has now changed as well; I imagine many people wouldn't have bothered to recheck the ship-to at this point, however, and proceed with placing the order. I was able to change the ship-to address via the payment page, which took me through the "adding a new address to the 'address book' and reselecting it" process.
The whole address entry process is not intuitive or easy for new OR existing customers; it's very confusing. Comparatively, the not-logged-in single page checkout process is very simple, and clearly provides the option to ship to an address other than the billing address in an easy-to-understand way.
I would prefer to do away with the whole "address book" business entirely, as a field a user needs to interact with for every order; I've never seen anything like it on other ecommerce sites, at least not in the manner. Generally, existing users can have their preferred billing information saved (as a simple check-off box when they enter the address in checkout), and they can enter a different ship-to address or opt to have it be the same as their billing. The "address book" interface would be something they manage via their account page, not something they're faced with in the middle of placing an order.
Barring a solution that makes the above happen (because the technicality of it may be beyond me at this time), I'd like to be able to use the single-page checkout as the default checkout process for all users, regardless if they are logged in, new or existing users, or anonymous. Is there a simple way to do this?
If it's useful, our website is RhinoGift.com
Thanks for your help! - Emily