How do you simplfy the checkout process?

[Hurricane Bob]

MIVA Gurus,

Help! I'm in over my head.

I agreed to design a website for a friend (www.pediatricadvice.net (http://www.pediatricadvice.net)) but I have no experience adding the ability to accept credit cards.

The site doesn't really need an extensive shopping cart like MIVA. There are only two products! One for 20.00 and one for 30.00. That's it!

The hosting plan they selected comes with MIVA Merchant, and an included "Rodopi Payment Gateway" (RPG) included in the monthly cost of the hosting plan.

I started to setup a MIVA store, but it wants to force the buyer to select a category, then a product, then add to cart, then create a user account, (or buy without an account), then checkout, then select the payment type, then enter Credit card info.....

It takes a million clicks to get through it all (which would be fine if I had hundeds of items and options). What I'm looking for is the simplest way possible to select item A or item B, enter the cc info and an email address to reply to, and submit. I'd like to do it all on one page if possible.

No "add to cart", no create an account, no shipping, just pick one and pay me.

Does anyone know if this type of simple page can be created in MIVA?

Are there any samples like this available to view?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated?

Thank you in advance for your speedy replies.

Hurricane Bob

[dotCOM_host]

Bob,

It sounds like MIVA Merchant may be a bit overkill for your needs, but then again, if you had to build the credit card processing part by hand, it may be much more expensive than just using MIVA Merchant and streamlining it to do the basic work for you. You certainly do NOT have to use the default categories and other features in MIVA Merchant, which are geared for a bit bigger stores. You can strip all that down, disable it, and provide direct links to your two products - even on your own simple HTML pages. Add the "ORDER NOW" buttons to your pages and when clicked on, the checkout process will start immediately, without any more pages to click on or visit.

If you have never built a MIVA Merchant site before, have a look at the docs on MIVA's web site, in particular the one that deals with "integrating your existing HTML site with MIVA Merchant", which has info and instructions on how you can design your own HTML pages and simply insert the BUY NOW & CHECKOUT links on these pages for creating an extremely simple shopping cart. All the info you need is available at http://smallbusiness.miva.com/support/docs/ - click on MIVA Merchant 4 (yes, I know you are using v5) and then open up the Build The Store -> Getting Started -> Integrate MIVA Merchant into and Existing Web site. All info there applies equally well to v4 as well as v5.

Good luck!

[Hurricane Bob]

I was able to strip down the pages quite a bit. Thanks for the info.

I'm at the point where the user can select one of the two items and begin checkout. They need to enter an email address on the first screen (which is fine), the next screen the only thing they do is choose which type of credit card (Visa, MC etc...) then the next page they enter the cc number, name etc...

Do you know if there is any way of placing the CC type selection and the cc number info on the same page, or do these things have to remain on seperate pages.

Thanks again,

HB

[Julie Wilber]

Hi Bob,

You also might want to see if the Web host is offering MIVA Merchant Fast Track. It is a streamlined version of MIVA Merchant 4 and 5, and might actually be a better solution in the long run since it is designed for the smaller businesses.

Drop me a private message and let me know who the host is.

Thanks!

[dotCOM_host]

Bob,

Julie just posted a good alternative for your particular needs - and as luck would have it, we do offer MIVA Merchant FastTrack. If you are interested in this option for your needs - feel free to contact us directly at 888-321-6239 or via email at sales@dotcomhost.com

[jason - jmh web services]

I was able to strip down the pages quite a bit. Thanks for the info.

I'm at the point where the user can select one of the two items and begin checkout. They need to enter an email address on the first screen (which is fine), the next screen the only thing they do is choose which type of credit card (Visa, MC etc...) then the next page they enter the cc number, name etc...

Do you know if there is any way of placing the CC type selection and the cc number info on the same page, or do these things have to remain on seperate pages.

Thanks again,

HB

Yes, you can put both of those things on the same screen and more. You just need to view source and combine hidden form fields to add the appropriate actions.

jason

[immy79]

MIVA Merchant Fast Track may not actually be the best solution for his specific needs. True, it is a stripped down version of MIVA Merchant, but a lot of the customization functionality, such as removing pages and playing with the templates to move fields, is not accesible within that version.

The only possible way to do this in MIVA Merchant Fast Track is with the MIVA Merchant Designer extension for Dreamweaver, but you will obviously need Dreamweaver to make it useful.

I'd say, stick to MIVA Merchant 5 since it will give you more flexiblility and if they want more features in the future, as they grow, you'll have more options.

[Hurricane Bob]

Yes, you can put both of those things on the same screen and more. You just need to view source and combine hidden form fields to add the appropriate actions.

jason


How does one go about doing this with MIVA 4.24?

Can I edit the individual page code by accessing the MIVA files via ftp?

Where do I start?

Please elaborate.

HB

[Vic - WolfPaw Computers]

No you cannot edit the screens via FTP as they are generated dynamically from the MIVA .mvc scripts themselves.

You will need Viking Coders Other Page Templates (http://www.vikingcoders.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=VC&Product_Code=BROK_PAGETEMPLATES&Affiliate=WPCOMP) and OpenUI to accomplish this.

For more information, post to the Merchant 4 forums and a few people will chime in with more "how to" info.

[jason - jmh web services]

How does one go about doing this with MIVA 4.24?

Can I edit the individual page code by accessing the MIVA files via ftp?

Where do I start?

Please elaborate.

HB

This is the store morph technology forum for v5. Post over at the v4 forum. Vic is correct about viking templates.