Adding customers to database

[willem]

G'day guys,

I have recently converted my business - www.AussieSheepskin.com - to Zen-cart. I need to add all my customers from my previous website to the ZC database so that I can include them in my mail-outs. Is there any way to do this, either by importing a database of manually? I haven't been able to find an answer to this in the forums yet - though I'll keep looking.

Thanks,

Willem

[yellow1912]

Which cart software your previously used?

[kaneibert]

I am also looking to find out how to manually add customers. I've found a couple of mentions about a Add Customer Admin download. Is this the only option for manually adding customers?

Thanks!

Kristin

[vmmeup]

There is a win32 app called Magentic One that can be use to add and import customers....works pretty well.

[willem]

Which cart software your previously used?

G'day yellow1912,

My previous website was an HTML website using PayPal. I have kept all the details of previous customers and that seems to me to be an ideal group to market to. If I could enter them in as customers on the Zen-cart database it would make life a lot easier. Also, some customers order and pay by phone. I'd like to enter them too. This is true also of my other website www.BlankLabels.com.au

So ideally it would be adding customers manually, rather than through a database import, because this will an ongoing thing because there are always new customers who purchase over the phone.

thanks,

Willem

[yellow1912]

There is one thing: even if you import your customers into ZC, how would you import the passwords? Did they have to use passwords on your old site? If they did, were the passwords stored in the old site encrypted?

[vmmeup]

I would create any new customers in to ZEN before you place there order and use ZEN to take the order. I know you can import customer into ZEN using the the magneticone store manager. It's actually a very nice app. I'm unsure of how it handles the passwords, I do know it allows you to assign them when you create a user. I will test and see how well it does.

[willem]

Actually, I wonder if we are making the problem too hard. Would a simple solution be to go to the website and enter their details as if I were the customer. that is, I enter their details that I have obtained through a previous transaction with them. The customer would then receive an email with all their details - passwords etc - and I could send them an email explaining what I had done and why, with the usual disclaimer giving them the opportunity to unsubscribe etc.

What do you reckon?

Willem.

[vmmeup]

You could do that. There are a few things to keep in mind.

ZenCart will email them a welcome letter, but not their password. You could probably tweak the welcome letter to include it though

The other option is to follow up with an additional email explaining why they had received the previous email and instructions on how to use your lost password feature to obtain their password and to login and reset it.

I'm currently working on a script for a customer that will be used after they import all of their users from a previous database system. The script will allow the customer to set a password for their account, but they will have to verify their previous customer number with the company, their zipcode, and the amount of their last order placed. After they are answered properly they have the oppurtonity to change their email if needed and set a password. Not sure if this would be usefull, once it is complete I will be adding to the contribs directory

[willem]

>>ZenCart will email them a welcome letter, but not their password. You could probably tweak the welcome letter to include it though

The other option is to follow up with an additional email explaining why they had received the previous email and instructions on how to use your lost password feature to obtain their password and to login and reset it. <<

But if we are entering the customers manually we will be creating our own password, which we can then send to the customer in the explanatory email, together with a 're-introductory' offer. We should, of course, encourage them to change their password as soon as possible.

Willem