Here is what I'm trying to accomplish:
Three different products-- each one consists of online content, housed within a unique folder.
The customer purchases one of the three products, and receives a username/password (or it could be some sort of dynamic link that expires) for that product.
I am not a programmer, but I know enough to get myself in trouble. I thought I could find a simple script where I would just have to change a couple of parameters and be good to go. Surely this has been done before, right?
I need something that will somehow send the info to a payment processor (PayPal is preferable, but Google Checkout could be an option too), generate a unique password or code and email it to the buyer, and of course communicate to the folder where the product lives so that the password/code will work.
Am I crazy? Is this something that I need advanced development skills to pull off? I have been looking at open-source shopping carts to see if one of them has this functionality built in, but haven't been able to find anything.
There is a PayPal script that is supposed to do this, but I have tried working with it before and it is a real pain...I'm not even sure ultimately that it will work the way I want it too.
Any suggestions are most welcome!
From your description it looks like you are trying to sell digital content.
Both Google Checkout and Paypal have frameworks in place that allow you to securely sell and deliver digital goods.
Please have a look at the doc below for Google Checkout Digital Delivery:
http://code.google.com/apis/checkout/developer/Google_Checkout_Digital_Delivery.html
Related
I'm a fairly new web developer and I have an ecommerce website that integrates EasyPost to create and print shipping labels.
EasyPost has an API. Also, in each shipping label, I see a JavaScript object (I think) that displays buyer_address... "email": "example#gmail.com",, which tells me that the email information is there.
My question is somewhat general in scope: What steps would I need to take to go about creating this automation? The website is built in Webflow, so I don't really have a "codebase" or "repository" to store whatever code is needed to build the automation.
Since the buyer email is making it into EasyPost with integrations already in place, I feel that I could create a simple program that emails the tracking number to the buyer email every time a label is generated, or perhaps when package is shipped, without the program needing to interact with Webflow or other integrations.
I attempted using Zapier, as well as Make.com. Neither worked, and OrderDesk doesn't have a way to send tracking number emails.
It looks like Webflow has some kind of support for Webhooks (https://webflow.com/feature/create-webhooks-from-project-settings). EasyPost offers webhooks for free as an add-on service. Basically, with webhooks, EasyPost would send tracking events to Webflow proactively, but Webflow (or you) would need to manage the logic for what to do with those tracking events after they are delivered.
EasyPost Webhook Guide
I'm unaware of any off the shelf products that could do this for you without writing any code. We have a guide that details how you might accomplish this with Ruby (you could then follow this as an example for any other language): https://www.easypost.com/email-tracking-tutorial
A few suggestions:
Integrate something into Webflow if possible (I'm unfamiliar with the platform so couldn't say).
Build a simple script that runs on a schedule (cronjob) that retrieves your trackers from EasyPost and sends an email to customers if they have not yet received one. To your point, this approach wouldn't require interacting with Webflow at all and could be done with some local code running on a server and just your EasyPost API key.
I've created a simple UI for EasyPost: https://github.com/Justintime50/easypost-tools-ui, it could be interesting to add this particular use-case as a feature to that project. If you're interested, feel free to open an issue on GitHub for the repo listed here and I'd consider it.
You'd use easypost's API webhooks, to detect when shipment tracking information is provided, or package information is updated.
https://www.easypost.com/docs/api#trackers
It looks like it has a lot of states, so you can keep the client updated regarding the package status from the moment the tracking # is assigned;
EZ1000000001 pre_transit
EZ2000000002 in_transit
EZ3000000003 out_for_delivery
EZ4000000004 delivered
EZ5000000005 return_to_sender
EZ6000000006 failure
EZ7000000007 unknown
You can install webhooks from these docs.
To send the email, you can use an automation service e.g. Make to capture those webhook events, and then compose and send an email to that customer. I like MailJet for that purpose, because it has excellent template support and you can send from your own company domain. But there are many email-sending options.
A bigger challenge, maybe, is getting the email address to send to. I didn't spot it glancing through the Trackers or Shipments data structures, and I am primarily seeing physical address info.
If EasyPost is not tracking the customer's email with the shipment, you may have some challenge in that you'd need to capture the client info through Webflow's order webhooks, and then associate that with EasyPost's shipmentid, and store those in a reference table.
Many automation services offer database-like functionality for this purpose, or you could use e.g. google sheets ( columns webflow OrderID, easypost ShipmentID, customer Email ) or airtable for that purpose.
But you'd have to look into the Easypost integration as well, and you may need to make that integration manual so that you can acquire all 3 of those pieces of information at the same point in your business data flow.
Kindly please suggest me the best way to single page checkout for Shopify store. As Shopify doesn't support any customization to the checkout page. Our requirement is to create a single page checkout. let me know how it is achievable.
Basic Shopify does not support customization in the checkout page. It is only available to Shopify plus Customer. Please visit here for more information.
You want a single page checkout you may need to create your own checkout process which will again require your store to be a Shopify Plus store. However, there are many Apps which can help you with single page checkout. You may want to use one of them if you don't want to build the whole functionality. You may want to check the below conversation - Link
You should not use Shopify if you want to make your own Checkout. Shopify is a hosted platform and they no longer want to let people play with the cash register themselves.
Of the few Apps that remain that do offer checkout outside of Shopify, you can see the hassles involved for customers. Why not just roll your own? If you can do your own checkout, hook up to an open source system instead where you can do that easier.
This is easy enough to do if you have the skills. Basically create an app that has a proxy page and change the theme's links replacing the paths to the checkout with paths to your proxied checkout.
There are a number of ways to collect payment info if you do this including using the draft_orders api to send the customer back to Shopify for final payment (not applicable for single page checkout but sometimes works well with the business reason that justifies a custom checkout in the first place)
You can also create a sales channel app that works much like the proxied app concept but has some more api capabilities.
However you really need a good business reason for doing this. Single page checkout was fashionable a few years ago but I've had as many customers go away from it as go towards it. Shopify has done quite a lot of work on their checkout and it works well (i.e. is fast and efficient) on all their supported platforms. Creating a custom checkout means your stuck maintaining it and are potentially increasing your liability if you take credit cards but have not received PCI certification.
My clients need to send me a file that we will edit and send back to them (ideally through a client page). Is Shopify a good platform for this kind of business? I know it is well suited for digital goods but I haven't seen anything that would allow uploading a custom file to an order during fulfillment.
EDIT
ok for file uploads that was easy enough to find, but how to provide a link to a different file for each client that bought the same product? After the file has been edited ideally we would put the file somewhere (dropbox?) and have a link available on the client account page and in a fulfillment confirmation email.
the only thing I have found so far would be through metafields and custom fields added to each order. Its a bit annoying to have to use chrome plugin to show the custom fields on the order dashboard. It would be nice if a customfield would be added automatically to each order. Then a link to the file in dropbox could be added to the order using an ipad and the clients would have instant access.
Why the two down votes? I have searched a long time and the only workaround I can find is hardly satisfactory. I'm open to suggestions.
You can definitely let your customers upload files when they buy from your Shopify store. Check out this tutorial for more information on how to set this up with line item properties: https://help.shopify.com/themes/customization/products/get-customization-information-for-products#allow-file-uploads
Is it possible to use Mailchimp API to subscribe emails to the lists of MY USERS' Mailchimp Accounts and not my own?
Basically I have a web app, and users collect emails of various subscribers through this app. I then want them to be able to click a button and subscribe all those emails to their lists.
I've looked at Mailchimp's API - particularly the /lists/subscribe and the /lists/batch-subscribe methods. However so far it appears that these will only work for your own Mailchimp account and not for remote users' accounts.
Can someone please tell me whether what I'm trying to achieve is possible with Mailchimp's API?
You would need to execute the api-calls with your users' api-key, which would mean that you execute the calls with their credentials.
There are three different ways to get their api keys, with different practicality levels.
You guess. They look like guids without dashes, and some information about which datacenter it is associated with. Some easy (and somewhat bad) calculations indicate that there are 2^128 api keys in every datacenter, so this will consume both cpu- and network-resources, and invoke the rage of the Mailchimp. The linked image shows him on a good day. He won't be as pleasant if you choose this alternative. Dont do this.
You ask, in an evil way, for their username/password. This is bad since it will give you to all accounts those credentials works with. This would also give you access to stuff that aren't available using api calls (like payment stuff). This wont work at all if your user is intelligent administrators that are using AlterEgo, the two-factory security alternative. This alternative is less bad than blindly guessing, but still provides too much access, if it works at all.
You ask, in a user-friendly way (with perhaps some quick tutorials), for the user to generate an api-key in mailchimp to provide to you. This is the Good Alternative (tm).
You may choose any implementation as long as you choose number three.
This has been something I have been trying to work on for a good long time. It first started with Prestashop as an integration with other scripts or pieces of the puzzle I needed to make for an overall website. I am currently still using Prestashop as my webstore but have since switched to Magento.
I switched to Magento because of it's complex flexibility and because overall I think it is the best solution, best backing and best overall eCommerce script to go with.
That being said, the same issues I was having with Prestashop appear to be the same I will continue to have any in aspect that I try to integrate things together in perfect harmony.
I have Magento setup, as the main portion of the website, and inside Magento in sub folders I have Wordpress installed in a folder called "articles" and I have also went with FluxBB as my message forums because of it's simplicity in not having a crap load of bloated extra features that I could care less about and that is in a sub folder called "forums".
From this point, we know that Magento, Wordpress and FluxBB all have their own way of managing users; creating, managing, and tracking them.
What I am wanting to do is find the best way to fit these three and more together for my website to make the experience for the customer as smooth and as functional as possible. After emailing the ever talented and helpful Alan Storm, he told me the best solution he was aware of working was to make a third party user management that they all point to and it manages the customers authentication. I do believe his thoughts may be the best but I wanted to put this out there here on StackOverFlow and I may post this on Magento as well to get the broad scrope of magento developers and smart guys that like challenges.
I have several thoughts, none may work, some may work half ass, or one may just be something workable. But first let me tell you what I have accomplished so far. I have done the necessary steps to integrate my overall design for the header and footer, so essentially Wordpress and FluxBB are wrapped and are contained inside Magento's outer design layer. So with that being said I have also made it where Magento will check the session to see if the user is logged in to Magento or not by saying "Hello Guest" or "Hello User". This is where I have hit a stopping point because I am out of my depth and would like assistance, whether it is something we create together out of pure challengeness or someone says if I pay them they will help me, either way I would like this accomplished. If and when I get the code figured out whether by means of paying for assistance of a group effort I would like to make it freely available for others to use the concept for their own projects.
Brain Fart #1:
Adjust the user tables for both Wordpress and FluxBB to conform more to the structure of Magento, as for the password and username/email login portion. The rest of the fields can respectively stay as they are for post counts, and etc.
From there, I would like to figure out which class in Magento does the actual input into the database when a customer is created out of registration. When I find that code, I would like to extend upon it the ability to copy the user credentials into the other two tables in the database for Wordpress and FluxBB. If necessary it can just be an added couple of fields to Wordpress and FluxBB if that seems like a better idea and yes I do mean the actual encrypted password that Magento creates, I want this to be secure as well.
From there, when we know that a customer registers with Magento the data is copied over to the other two tables then we at least have made progress, whether this progress will actually work, is still to be determined.
We then disable the login/logout and registration links in any way that we can from Wordpress and FluxBB because they will no longer be needed because we want the user to register, login and logout through one location which is Magento.
Then comes the fun part in my eyes, keep the damn session going throughout the entire website as they order products, review wordpress articles and possibly leave comments, send to friends and etc.... as well as post topics, replies and etc in the FluxBB capacity.
To me this is where the creating the fields or adding the data from Magento's customer registration comes into play, I can make it check to see if they are logged into Magento already and from there we may be able to have it validate itself. This may be over kill or this may just be how it needs to be done. But to me if the credentials are located in all three databases then they should be able to be validated by changing the code in Wordpress and FluxBB or adding code. And Yes I am aware that we will also have to do something about Profile Editing and Password Editing if a customer so desires to change their information.
But that is my first thought on this whether it is the right decision or not, I would like hear from the vast knowledge of people here who have more experience and knowledge than I get with Magento, PHP and everything else.
Brain Fart #2
This illogical idea seems like an outside stretch entirely to me because of the complexity of Magento and how it is overall setup.
But the idea is to remove/edit the Wordpress and FluxBB (and any other third party software) to pretty much ignore it's own method of registration, login, logout, edit and look to Magento for it's credentials and establishing new customers. Essentially making them an oversized module of Magento.
I just know that the way Magento is setup is to be modulerized and its complexity seems like it would take a lot more coding and troubleshooting to do this.
Brain Fart #3
Dump both Wordpress and FluxBB and look towards modules in the Magento Connection Store that pretty much has all of the functionality that I need and can add to them what is missing and not mess with trying to integrate third party software.
I love Wordpress, I think replicating it with a module, at least after the hours I have spent looking at all of the modules available that are CMS/News related is a tough call. FluxBB I could take it or leave it, if someone had an already viable solution to use phpBB or vBulletin or SimpleMachines I would go with them. I rather it be free open source software, not because I am a cheap skate but just because I support open source as much as I can.
Brain Fart #4
Can this be a cookie this, but would only be effective if they allow cookies, or could somehow addon to the session to allow things to pass through but Magento sets up different sessions or allows you too so they things to crash against each other so this may not at all be an idea or may be one as well.
I know I am not giving examples of things I have tried, files I have looked at or anything related to that and I apologize, I provide some links related but nothing specifically found so far that matches what I am trying to accomplish. And I have tried to merge things together with some fun disastrous results.
Link Examples?:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/doc/webservices-api/api/customer#customer.create
http://www.magentogarden.com/blog/how-are-passwords-encrypted-in-magento.html
http://www.nicksays.co.uk/magento_events_cheat_sheet/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/5_-_modules_and_development/customers_and_accounts/registration_fields
How to access Magento customer's session from outside Magento?
Any assistance with this would be nice, I am trying to work on several parts of the website at once and this one is troublesome and I would say that everyone is going to find it hard or have found it hard. Anyone like challenges? :)
--------- EDIT:
I have got Magento and Wordpress to work perfectly together with James Kemp's module found on CodeCanyon's website (Single Sign-On for Magento and Wordpress) and I am going to adapt it to work for FluxBB or anything else I do.
Just passing along the information... I see this was edited, don't know what was edited and don't care. Just passing along information I have since found since posting this.
I am managing/customizing a combo of magento+vanilla forums+a custom app made in Yii framework. The users are "shared" between the apps. None of the two links are good. As Alan already replied to you, the correct SSO will be with an external user database/manager. But well, not everyone is up to recoding three apps just to get 1 post a week forum and 1 article a month blog to work with magento. So we are left with less options. First of all, if you don't want (most probably not) to rewrite a good portion of already written open source project that is being updated and maintained and then maintain your changes against periodical updates (you want them), then you have to duplicate the user data over three databases. Unless the project you adapt has some way to manage users data as plugin or external module. AFAIK both of your choice don't.
So, how to implement it? Assuming you choose Magento as mother-of-all, you need it to export an API for authentication, which may work over browser using cookies and javascript but this is rather tricky, or you can use it's frontend cookie to validate the sessions doing server-server API requests from children apps. This is a preferred option as far as "classical" SSO goes. Technically, what should happen when your users open forum or blog, the respective apps detect magento's cookie and check if the session is valid and who is the user. If the user is found, his data is copied to the blog or forum tables. Then you need to start an authenticated session on blog or forum app using the newly created user record.
So far so good, but yet some work. you need to disable the user profiles management in the children apps or modify it so the data held in Magento is always the correct one and you need to invent something to synchronize the Magento's representation of user profile down to the children. This is better to be hooked up on Magento's events so every time a user changes his profile the data is updated in the children app. But there is another but too. You probably want to keep some data app specific, a display name on the forum is not necessary the FirstName+LastName from the Magento and some would like to keep it private.
The above is just what I can recall as interesting facts about keeping it running. There are certainly many other things I've left out, more or less specific. But hopefully my comment can help your brain farting.
We've tried to evaluate other options but anything without duplicate data seems to be too expensive to implement or to maintain. Maybe later. With budget and time.