- Why does everything look fine with the setup of my pages in the shopping cart, but when the order is emailed to me, nothing is in the order?
You must make sure the SID_PUT_SID_HERE tag is included in every URL in your shopping cart pages. The SID is used to keep track of what the customer has ordered and if you forget to include it, then the cart has no idea what has been ordered. Also make sure the mail=1 tag is include the in the form action
of the customer data page.
- How can I make the cart stay on the same page when a customer orders an item?
You use the page= argument to control where the cart goes after an item is ordered. (or at any time for that matter) Usually shop.html is the page in the demo setup that the PUT_SHOPPING_LIST_HERE tag. So, in this example, you would change the URL from /cgi-bin/shop.pl/page=shop.html/SID=PUT_SID_HERE/item=1/buy=1 to
/cgi-bin/shop.pl/page=newpage.html/SID=PUT_SID_HERE/item=1/buy=1
Putting the PUT_BUY_INFO_HERE on the destination page will help the
customer of your store get some feedback that the buy link they just
clicked on actually worked.
- Why can't I get the Shopping Cart to work with the size/color options?
Your ISP has an old version of the shopping cart. Request they upgrade their version.
- How do I set the administrative email address?
Answer: In the shop.cfg file, modify the line that says $admin = 'your_email_address';
Eg. $admin = 'hassan@irata.com'
- How do I set the return address on the email receipt to my customer?
Answer: The $admin variable in the shop.cfg file controls this. Note you must have version 1.0 of the Shopping Cart for this to work.
- My pages inside the cart are showing up with broken images. What's wrong?
Answer: Use the absolute path to the images. i.e. instead of ../test.gif use /test.gif.
- How do I set the return address on the email receipt to my customer?
Answer: The $admin variable in the shop.cfg file controls this. Note you must have version 1.0 of the Shopping Cart for this to work.
- I have a subweb at domain.com/subdir. I am trying to get the cart to load domain.com/subdir/page.html. When I try and send the cart there it says: Error opening HTML file /domain/shop/page.html. What's going on?
Answer: All shopping cart pages must be in the shop directory (or whatever you called the cart directory)
- How do I make the cart work with English £'s
Answer: Modify these variables in the shop.cfg file to read:
$email_currency_symbol = '£';
$currency_symbol = '£';
$char_set = 'iso-8859-1';
- How do I use anchors inside the cart pages?
Answer: Construct your links like this:
<A HREF="/cgi-local/shop.pl/page=chpsdce.htm/SID=PUT_SID_HERE/#topic">My Anchor</A>
- Why are my pages are loading twice inside the the shopping cart? Items are also being bought twice. You are most likely using Microsoft Frontpage.
Answer: Remove <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN"> from the first line of all your HTML pages.
- All my customers are getting their orders combined, what is causing this?
Answer: Make sure each new customer is being assigned a new SID (Shopper ID) everytime they enter your online store. This means the first link into the cart will NOT have the SID in the url and every link after that should. The SID should NEVER be equal to PUT_SID_HERE, this means you have your web pages setup incorrectly. Also the SID should be a different number for each customer, if it isn't you have your cart setup incorrectly.
- Is there a limit to how many products can be in the product database?
Answer:
The limit is 1000 items. Beyond that the cart uses too much CPU usage since it uses a flat file database. (If you use the add-on MySQL module you can
have almost unlimited items)
- How do I setup my website properly with frames with the Shopping Cart?
Answer:
For an example of this go to here
- I just upgraded to a later version of the cart and I am getting an error when I try buy an item. The error message is "Error looking up item ???" What is the problem?
Answer:
The newer versions of the cart have been upgraded to allow any character, not just numerals, in the Product ID. So this means if you have any extra spaces between the beginning of the line and the pipe symbol, you will get an error.
- A certain tag or feature like like PUT_BUY_INFO HERE, MY_URL, the discount feature, etc.. does not work. Why is that?
Answer:
The documentation is always for the latest version of the cart, so not all features may work with your version. Please upgrade to the latest version of the cart if you wish to use all the features.
- When I have the customer go outside the shopping_root directory all items they have purchased are lost. What can I do?
Answer:
If you use frames, you can have your menu bar be a page inside the cart and give them no way to go tp other pages when you display a non-shopping_root page. This way the SID will be preserved in the menu frame.
If you do not use frames, then all pages linked from cart pages must be inside the shopping_root directory and displayed by the cart.
- Can I use Server Side Includes or other CGI programs with the Shopping Cart?
Answer:
No, you cannot.
- Can HTML pages be put within subdirectories in the $shopping_root
directory?
Answer:
No, you cannot.
- I am getting an error looking up an item # that I know is in the database, why is that?
Answer:
You may have extra spaces in the database around the item #, which is illegal.
- Will the Cybercash Module work with Cybercash 3.x?
Answer:
No. But the Cybercash Express module will.
- I am having a problem with a email form variable coming through on the email receipt, what is going on here? (For example company)
Answer:
You need to make sure you are running the latest version of the cart, this could be your problem.
- I cannot get the search function to work no matter what I do. What is going on?
Answer:
You need to make sure you are running the latest version of the cart, this could be your problem. (You need at least version 1.18 to use the search function.)
- Is your cart software compatible with Microsoft Frontpage? (98 and 2000)
Answer:
Yes.
- How do I upgrade the shopping cart software?
Answer: Replace the shop.pl and shop.cfg files in your cgi directory
with the latest ones. Make sure you configure the shop.cfg file correctly
for your setup.
- I need the newest version of the cart. Where do I get it?
Answer: If you purchased the cart from Hassan Consulting you can request it from
support@irata.com. Make sure you include your customer number in the
subject of the email.
If you are using the cart with a hosting company that provides the cart with
their service, you must get the new version from them, not from
Hassan Consulting. Hassan Consulting will not provide upgrades to
site license customers.
- What does the credit card checking algorithm do?
This algorithm, which can be turned off and on in the shop.cfg file,
checks the credit card number that a customer enters in the email
form with a mod10 check. This basically means that the credit card number
is checked to make sure it is a possible valid card #. This algorithm also
check the expiration date of the credit card.
- Should all cart related HTML pages be placed in the /shop ($shopping_root) directory?
Yes. The cart needs them there so when you call the shop.pl program it
can display those HTML pages.
- Should I use only one page as the start page to enter my
shopping cart site?
No you do not have to. Just once the customer is in your
shopping cart site do not let them leave otherwise they will
lose their SID which means the cart will lose track of what they
have purchased.
Back to Hassan Consulting's Product page
Maintainer: hassan@irata.com
Last Modified: 3/24/99
