eliminate "create account" from checkout process

[angst]

version 1.38 with CherryZen template. I plan on using using Paypal Website Payments Standard.

I have searched in earnest but perhaps don't even know enough yet to use the right search terms.
Ive gotten as far as creating some products and testing how it works and hit what I hope is not a big snag.
How do you eliminate the checkout step that requires the customer to create an account?
I think a lot of my customers would be annoyed by the extra step and abandon their purchase, and I will never organized enough to send newsletters or use the created customer list in any way.

Is the customer login/create an account feature specific to the particular template Ive chosen? I don't see any values in admin/configuration/customerDetails that seem to relate to turning the step off.

[gjh42]

The customer account is an integral feature of the cart structure, and cannot be deleted; thus, no admin switches. It can be bypassed or concealed by using a "checkout without account" mod. Look in Free Addons and the wiki for information.

The customer information can and should be pared down to no more than is essential for billing and delivering the product, and this info has to be collected anyway. Are you intending for Paypal to handle all of this? What about customers who don't have a PP account?

[angst]

Doh!
I hope to goodness there is a workaround. Surely there are others that have looked to do the same before.
Is this the module you are talking about? The limitless login module.
http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...oducts_id=1204
The screen shot in there looks like it might do the trick.



There was a module I saw which I can't seem to find again called something like "one page checkout" but I couldn't tell from the details what it did exactly.



Regarding paypal Yes I was intending to use the shipping address and list of items from paypal that I get with the payment details. Are there features of the cart that help you automate filling your orders better? If Im prompting a customer to fill out address and such won't they just be doing that again when they go to pay on paypal?
I am confused about what you said about the customer being able to pay by CC with Paypal. Ive got the basic merchant account with them. When the customer is ready to pay won't they see this?

[gjh42]

Limitless Logins is a new mod which I haven't learned anything about yet.
There is a "One Page Checkout" mod which is reputed to be very buggy and may mess up your site; "Fast & Easy Checkout" by numinix is supposed to be good.

Paypal's shipping and order totalling functions overlap and probably interfere with Zen Cart's native functions. If you use the PP functions, you probably need to eliminate all ZC shipping and tax calculating; I'm not sure how the return info from PP meshes with the ZC account info in this case.
I didn't say anything about credit cards...

[mamasylvia]

I have instructions on my home page to the customers who want to bypass creating an account -- check out my site to see it. AFAIK it works, no customers have told me differently.

[gjh42]

Yes, Paypal Express Checkout should allow customers to go straight to Paypal instead of filling out info on the Zen Cart account page. I have heard that Paypal will then send the account info back to the Zen Cart database, as well as routing the customer back when the transaction is finished.

[angst]

There are some awesome people here. Learning all this is slow but I feel like Im in good hands.
Am I barking up the wrong tree using PayPal for payments?
Right now while testing the cart there are three pages of checkout before you even get to the page to pay with paypal, and then the "pay with credit card" link that comes up on the paypal generated page is teeny tiny.


And then there are even more pages to go once you get to paypal. It all seems like a chance for the order to be abandoned every step of the way. Am I going about it all wrong?

[gjh42]

I believe the Website Payments Standard doesn't involve Paypal until the final payment selection page. Paypal Express is what gives the out from the start.

As for the layout of the Paypal pages, you'll have to take that up with them. There's nothing anyone here can do.

[daneh]

I had an issue with that tiny "pay with CC" link too. I ended up changing/adding wording during the checkout process explaining how the whole process works, and to look for the tiny link. I also explained that they DO NOT need a paypal account to use a credit card.

[awhfy99]

Since this is the only thread that mentioned the Limitless Logins, I thought that I would let everyone know what I have found so far.

This seems to work great with everything I tested except Captcha. The one I use is captcha_using_ttf__gd__telephone_not_required_on_signup_v2-8_28-04-2007Captchav1-0TelephoneHide

Not sure if the script for the phone causes a conflict but the sql says that it skips that one, so I wouldn't think so.

I did a clean install of 1.3.8a to see what killed my captcha, and the Limitless Logins was the culprit. Captcha stopped working on the create acct but seems to work elsewhere.

I ran the uninstall script and put it back as before but create acct still did not work. Possibly changed something in the db that the uninstall script didn't put back, but I wouldn't know what to look for there.

I put LL back and then reinstalled captcha and it looked like it was OK, but looks are deceiving. The options are all there for the choosing and captcha works, the only problem is that the options have no effect on the create acct screen.

Right now, it looks like it's one or the other, but I would like both. Guess I'm going to have to decide which I can live without, the captcha or the shortened signup screen.

Not really great with winmerge but I will give it a try anyway.

If anyone has any ideas as to what may be causing the conflict, I would love to know! Also noticed that captcha has no effect on the testimonials manager, so I will play with that one as well.