Is there a way for customers to share carts?

Hello,

I think it would be a really cool and useful feature for customers to save their carts and be able to e-mail/share carts with other customers.

Is there a module or program that does this? Thanks in advance for your time. :)

brillarmory:

Hello,

I think it would be a really cool and useful feature for customers to save their carts and be able to e-mail/share carts with other customers.

Why on earth would you want to do that?

Anyway, to answer the question, yes this is technically possible, and in fact there are situations where this has been done by accident by sharing a site link that contains the the customers 'unique' ZenID.

However it is a situation that is best avoided at all costs, because not only will it allow the cart contents to be shared, but also all the other user info. You'd be just as well served by sharing the customers login information and password.

brillarmory:

Is there a module or program that does this? Thanks in advance for your time. :)

Not really, BUT, I seem to recall that there is a 'wish list' module available that will allow a customer to add products to said list and then share the list with others. This is probably going to be more suitable for most needs anyway.

I think it was this one:
http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1072

Cheers
RodG

RodG:

Why on earth would you want to do that?

Anyway, to answer the question, yes this is technically possible, and in fact there are situations where this has been done by accident by sharing a site link that contains the the customers 'unique' ZenID.

However it is a situation that is best avoided at all costs, because not only will it allow the cart contents to be shared, but also all the other user info. You'd be just as well served by sharing the customers login information and password.
Rod, I'm 100% sure that's not at all what they meant, and IMO that answer only serves to confuse and scare.

The wishlist mod suggestion is potentially helpful though.

DrByte:

Rod, I'm 100% sure that's not at all what they meant,

I certainly hope you are right.

DrByte:

and IMO that answer only serves to confuse and scare.

Good. It was my intention to scare (not so much to confuse). We both know that sharing links with the ZenID can have dire consequences, and indeed almost any form of "*share carts with other customers" *simply has to be a security risk.

I tried to figure out if there was an alternative meaning to this request, but came up empty. I can only assume that you have thought of another meaning??

DrByte:

The wishlist mod suggestion is potentially helpful though.

I do try to be as helpful as I am critical. ;-)

Cheers
RodG

I'm sure they didn't mean to share their login session, which is what the zenid comment would have implied.

Instead ...

Dell Computers has (or at one time had) a feature where you can build up your cart, save it, and then get a link to share with others to look at what you're thinking of buying. I presume one could also use that to create one's own cart to buy the same thing. It's a handy way to help people shop ... ie: the person who knows what to buy (the tech person) can build a cart, then give that saved cart's bookmark/link/id/whatever to the actual buyer (gramma), and let them make the purchase directly.

I'm pretty sure it's this concept that brillarmory was asking about.

Or maybe it's just the desire to save multiple separate "named baskets", just for the customer to be able to consider multiple different future purchases.

And the answer, at the present time, is that that's not a built-in feature right now.
In addition to the wishlist idea, I think there's an addon named "Saved Cart", and then there's swguy's Save For Later. I don't think either of those give exactly the functionality I described, but may be worth looking at.

RodG:

I certainly hope you are right.

Good. It was my intention to scare (not so much to confuse). We both know that sharing links with the ZenID can have dire consequences, and indeed almost any form of "*share carts with other customers" *simply has to be a security risk.

I tried to figure out if there was an alternative meaning to this request, but came up empty. I can only assume that you have thought of another meaning??

I do try to be as helpful as I am critical. ;-)

Cheers
RodG

I too was concerned with the zenID aspect. My thoughts initial interpretation of how to share a cart was something along the lines of hey friends I'm going to get this, or I want to get this we should all get this together or something similar from a "social" perspective not from the technical perspective of having all of the data.

I think/thought that there was like a facebook related addon that would allow sharing what had been purchased, if that is/was a route desired. It's after the fact rather than planning, but...

DrByte:

I'm sure they didn't mean to share their login session, which is what the zenid comment would have implied.

Indeed.

DrByte:

Instead ...

Dell Computers has (or at one time had) a feature where you can build up your cart, save it, and then get a link to share with others to look at what you're thinking of buying. I presume one could also use that to create one's own cart to buy the same thing. It's a handy way to help people shop ... ie: the person who knows what to buy (the tech person) can build a cart, then give that saved cart's bookmark/link/id/whatever to the actual buyer (gramma), and let them make the purchase directly.

I'm pretty sure it's this concept that brillarmory was asking about.

OK, that does kinda make sense. As tech person it's not the kind of thing I'd want to do though, I'd rather make the purchase myself, add a little bit of markup and then bill the actual buyer.

DrByte:

Or maybe it's just the desire to save multiple separate "named baskets", just for the customer to be able to consider multiple different future purchases.

This is exactly what the wish list does though. Or perhaps I'm still missing some small point?

DrByte:

And the answer, at the present time, is that that's not a built-in feature right now.

In my personal opinion, I seriously doubt that enough people would make use of a feature like this to even consider making it a 'built in' feature. It is far more suited as being an add-on.

DrByte:

In addition to the wishlist idea, I think there's an addon named "Saved Cart", and then there's swguy's Save For Later. I don't think either of those give exactly the functionality I described, but may be worth looking at.

I had considered those, but as far as I'm aware neither of these allow the saved data to be shared, but the wish lists can be, IOW, although not exactly what the OP is asking for, the wishlist does have all the functionality needed. In fact I reckon it would take very little effort to modify this module so that it does work as a save/share cart function rather than save/share wishlist function. It's really little more than a matter of terminology rather than functionality.

At least that's the way I'm currently seeing things.

Cheers
RodG

I'm getting a little off topic here...

mc12345678:

I think/thought that there was like a facebook related addon that would allow sharing what had been purchased, if that is/was a route desired. It's after the fact rather than planning, but...

I don't know about that, but along the same lines of sharing what had been purchased, several weeks ago my wife did some shopping from a ZenCart based store, and after she'd received the order confirmation email she noted that there was no easy way to share what she'd purchased with her friends, or more specifically, the emails didn't contain any links to the items that were purchased.
As I just happen to do development work for this particular store this was discussed with the owner, who agreed it was a great idea to have the product links in the emails, and I have since modified the emails so this it does now include them.
Wife was very happy, she can now share the order confirmation email (with links), and she also has an easy way to copy and send just the individual links if needed. The code changes were pretty minor, but the benefits worthwhile.

Perhaps I should consider sharing this change especially if enough people speak up asking for it (my only reluctance is because over the years the customers email templates have been so heavily modified (not all in a good way) that I couldn't really supply the code 'as is' - I'd need to either just supply the relevant changes so that people can patch their own code or else I'd need to obtain virgin files, make the changes, and upload them as a drop in replacement.

Thoughts? Anyone?

Cheers
RodG

RodG:

I'm getting a little off topic here...

I don't know about that, but along the same lines of sharing what had been purchased, several weeks ago my wife did some shopping from a ZenCart based store, and after she'd received the order confirmation email she noted that there was no easy way to share what she'd purchased with her friends, or more specifically, the emails didn't contain any links to the items that were purchased.
As I just happen to do development work for this particular store this was discussed with the owner, who agreed it was a great idea to have the product links in the emails, and I have since modified the emails so this it does now include them.
Wife was very happy, she can now share the order confirmation email (with links), and she also has an easy way to copy and send just the individual links if needed. The code changes were pretty minor, but the benefits worthwhile.

Perhaps I should consider sharing this change especially if enough people speak up asking for it (my only reluctance is because over the years the customers email templates have been so heavily modified (not all in a good way) that I couldn't really supply the code 'as is' - I'd need to either just supply the relevant changes so that people can patch their own code or else I'd need to obtain virgin files, make the changes, and upload them as a drop in replacement.

Thoughts? Anyone?

Cheers
RodG

Yes, I think that some form of reference (other than site name) could be beneficial. One site owner who has also been reverse supporting the non-profit org I volunteer with had seen the facebook post what I bought option somewhere else and thought it a wonderful way to pass the info on. I guess I do kind of wonder where the appropriate place to put such info is, when considering the order confirmation email contains much more than just what was ordered, but also details of who and where... Ahh, sigh, makes the most sense though rather than more checkboxes for the customer and additional emails, though perhaps could add something similar to the my orders area.. Still an extra click, but...

I think it's a good idea, though also doesn't necessarily apply to everyone/every "product"...

Hi everyone.

Thanks for your replies and for the discussion. I find your posts to be helpful.

Yeah, what I'd like is a wish list that people can save and send to each other without posing a security risk to me or my customers.