Digital Goods and Anonymous Users

[rpb3]

This seems like an obvious question but I couldn't find it anywhere in the forums.

How is the process supposed to go if an anonymous user tries to buy a digital good?

I admit, I have not done a lot of digging and testing myself. I thought I would post this here before I spin my wheels.

I have a site that is pretty heavily customized and apparently it allows anonymous users to purchase the digital goods that my client is posting in their catalog. The obvious problem there is that an anonymous user can't log in to their account to download digital goods.

Is that normal or is my site somehow not behaving correctly? Is there supposed to be a check somewhere that would not allow an anonymous user to buy digital goods? Is there a super secret way for anonymous users to get back into download their digital good?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[mskurnik]

I too would like to know this. My client just requested this of their site.

[rpb3]

mskurnik -

I did not receive any replies so I had to handle this myself. Basically I had to modify the controls (like BuyProductDialog) to check and see if the user is logged in and then change the control to show a login link rather than add to cart.

Let me know if you want more info. But this is how I changed "BuyProductDialog" and you have to change others like the category grid pages, top sellers, etc. as well.

in the ascx file...

Code: Select all

<asp:Panel ID="LoginPanel" runat="server" Visible="false" >
<p style="font-weight:bold; color:#009DDC; ">To Buy <asp:Image ID="Image1" ImageUrl="~/images/Cart_icon.gif" runat="server" CssClass="cart_icon" Height="28px"/>
</p>
<br />
<p>You need a web account to buy and use this product.</p>
<br />
<p>If you already have an account, please <asp:LinkButton ID="LogInButton" runat="server" SkinID="orangeButton" Visible="true" OnClick="LogInButton_Click" Text="click here to Log In now" EnableViewState="false" CausesValidation="false"></asp:LinkButton></p>
<br />
<p>If you do not have an account, please <asp:LinkButton ID="RegisterButton" runat="server" SkinID="RedButton" Visible="true" OnClick="RegisterButton_Click" EnableViewState="false" CausesValidation="false">click here to Register now</asp:LinkButton>
</p>
                    

in Page.Init

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        if (Token.Instance.User.IsAnonymous)
        {
          if (_Product.DigitalGoods.Count > 0)
          {
            LoginPanel.Visible = true;
            BuyProductPanel.Visible = false;
          }
          //LoginLink.NavigateUrl = "~/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=" + Page.ResolveUrl( _Product.NavigateUrl);
        }

and

Code: Select all

    protected void LogInButton_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
    {
      Response.Redirect(Page.ResolveUrl("~/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=" + Page.ResolveUrl( _Product.NavigateUrl)));
    }

    protected void RegisterButton_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
    {
      Response.Redirect(Page.ResolveUrl("~/Register.aspx?ReturnUrl=" + Page.ResolveUrl(_Product.NavigateUrl)));
    }

[Raheel]

Hi,

This is a crucial issue, can anyone from AbleCommerce tech team reply to this topic?

I too have an issue where a customer ordered digital product as anonymous user. He didn't download instantly, but when tried later he wasn't able to do it. [I am using AbleCommerce 7.0.7.]

[jmestep]

That is the way that it is. The link to download the digital good is in the member folder, based on the member id and when the customer downloads it at time of purchase, they are still logged in as that user. If they checked out as an anonymous user and then come back to the site, they are created as another anonymous user. Hence the digital goods, previous order records are not available to them. Those are the drawbacks of letting them check out as an anonymous user. We have a client who has hundreds of digital goods and is having that problem, but they don't want to turn off allow anonymous checkout, so we put a warning in red on the checkout page where the customer is invited to create an account that if they don't create an account, they will not be able to come back and download the goods.

[Raheel]

That is the way that it is. The link to download the digital good is in the member folder, based on the member id and when the customer downloads it at time of purchase, they are still logged in as that user. If they checked out as an anonymous user and then come back to the site, they are created as another anonymous user. Hence the digital goods, previous order records are not available to them. Those are the drawbacks of letting them check out as an anonymous user. We have a client who has hundreds of digital goods and is having that problem, but they don't want to turn off allow anonymous checkout, so we put a warning in red on the checkout page where the customer is invited to create an account that if they don't create an account, they will not be able to come back and download the goods.

Thanks for the reply, that's a serious drawback for anonymous checkout. I guess it should be made available to users indefinitely through a complex link in email, thanks.

[jmestep]

I have been toying with the idea of getting around the anonymous checkout issue by setting a new username and password behind the scenes so that customers wouldn't have to fill that in, but they would still have an account. Even though they might want to check out anonymously,some of them want to see their orders under one account and they can't because they have checked out as anonymous user!

[Logan Rhodehamel]

When anonymous users check out a temporary account is created for them for the purposes of the session. Judy, if you wanted to make the account more permanent you could do it pretty easily. On the receipt page you could check the current user. If the username begins with zz_anonymous then it was done with anonymous checkout. From there you can update the username as you wish. The zz users are treated as anonymous for purposes of maintenance but once they are renamed they will be full-fledged accounts.

Anonymous checkout and post-order access is a weird thing. The customer has indicated they don't want an account, but without an account you can't provide secure access. Making a complex magic link is only as secure as the method of transmitting the link and the trust that the recipient will not share it. As soon as the link is shared the digital good is accessible to any recipient and that isn't something we can have happen.

Another approach that might be possible is to intercept on the checkout page. Where the option to choose anonymous checkout is made the contents of the basket could be checked. If the basket contained digital goods, a warning could be generated or the user could be prevented from checking out anonymously or something.

These are all business decisions so it would be hard for us to pick one as the "right" way. The choice to offer anonymous checkout and digital goods at the same time poses challenges and each company might have a different idea on how to solve it.

[jmestep]

Logan, thanks for the info on the username- I think I have circumvented that on a different project, but don't remember. I need to experiment some more to get around the issue that the customer's username/email address might have been used before, but they don't remember.

Another approach that might be possible is to intercept on the checkout page. Where the option to choose anonymous checkout is made the contents of the basket could be checked. If the basket contained digital goods, a warning could be generated or the user could be prevented from checking out anonymously or something.

I did do the above on a site that sells a lot of digital goods- loop thru the basket and show the warning conditionally.