FAQ
Miscellaneous and Technical
ALL TECHNICAL QUERIES PLEASE use the message link in
your control panel or if not a vendor yet please CLICK HERE
My secure order forms appear to have no padlock.
Credit card images not displaying correctly.
Display keycode or download link on order completion page.
Setting default currency when I place a order always gives me the same currency.
Upselling or cross-selling.
I need a token for a "Continue Shopping" link.
Why is there no padlock appearing on the secure page using Intermediate Level?
I want the customer to order in his own language.
I want the customer to click a link after paying to return to my website.
How does SWREG handle variable pricing.
I have uploaded custom templates and images but the images do not display.
I try various links and they do not work - I am using the GBP system.
I want to offer Coupons for discounted pricing.
I want to see examples of the emails received by myself and my customers.
Bundling of programs and automatically dividing the proceeds of a sale
How do I make up my own bundles?
Suppling multiple copies of a product with only a single delivery charge?
What is the "Call Authorization Error"?
Viewing the contents of shopping carts before order completion?
Customers want the software on CD but for various reasons I cannot supply it that way.
Customer clicks on the Order button in the storefront and gets a system error.
I want customers to see all my programs and all the variations for programs.
I want to only charge a single shipping charge per order.
I am getting an error saying my product is not for sale yet.
I seem to be displaying double the price for my program.
The shopping cart shows my program name twice.
I find that I am asked for my preferred currency three times.
I need to ask my customer a question before he orders.
Different question for each delivery method always returns the last question.
I keep getting people telling me the server says their downloads have timed out.
None of my downloads are working.
My secure order forms appear to have no padlock.
First of all make sure you are not displaying our page in a frame. If not then you may be pointing to external images or files like filename.css or favicon.ico. Remove the external links and see if that fixes things.
The credit card images do not display or if I access them directly they give an Apache error.
You can not view this image other than within a web page served by SWREG. Too many unauthorized people were linking to it.
How do I display information like the keycode or download link on screen after a customer has paid.
We will display the contents of the Long Text field in the e-mail editing page after payment provided the tick box is still set. You can imbed the keycode and/or download link in there if you have elected for us to serve them. Please read the How to Edit E-mail section for information on imbedding variables.
I have set a default currency but when I place a test order it always gives me the same currency.
It is over-ridden by your own IP settings. If you have an IP setting that would imply your native currency is any one of GBP, USD or EURO we will over-ride whatever default currency you set.
Remember a customer can change the currency in the shopping basket if he does not like what appears but that is unlikely under the circumstances.
The amount displayed in Euro or GBP or USD (and shortly CAD) will 99% of the time be the exact amount charged on the customer's credit card to the penny. Other currencies are for guidance only.
I want to upsell or cross-sell to other products We do not need automatic upselling but there is no need to as we offer greater flexibility.
Why not upsell by having multiple shopping cart templates and creating upsells in the shopping carts. You have full control that way.
- Customer clicks to purchase product A.
- Customer sees shopping basket with product A so you advertise product B at a special price in the shopping basket.
- Customer clicks the link which brings up both product A and product B at a special price.
You can have as many different shopping basket templates as you like - this was done originally for baskets in different languages but no reason not to adapt for this purpose.
Read the documentation on Templates inside your control panel.
I need a token for a "Continue Shopping" link.
No you don't! Just create your own link using html in the template? In fact we do provide suitable token if you prefer to do it that way - see http://usd.swreg.org/cgi-bin/tmpl-refguide.cgi
Why is there no padlock appearing on the secure page using Intermediate Level?
There are two possible reasons.
- That you have our page in a frame. In which case please remove it from your frame.
- That you are pointing to images on your own computer instead of ours. Please go to "edit your look and feel templates" and click the "Manage Images" link at the top of the page. Read the documentation to understand how to link to images uploaded to SWREG.
I want the customer to order in his own language.
You can use either Advanced level linking where you have full control or Intermediate Level linking where you can create as many templates in any language in the word that you like and call the correct template up as and when required.
To read the current instructions log in to your account and click on Edit Your Templates | Documentation | FAQ then search for "Language"
I want the customer to click a link after paying to return to my website.
In Intermediate level you can put whatever html you like on the final page by editing the template. That html code can include a link to return to a page on your website
How does SWREG handle variable pricing.
If you wish to sell a program with no fixed price please use the variable pricing token in Intermediate level.
My customers say there is no padlock in the browser when ordering
Look at these possibilities:
- You have our web page in a frame.
- They clicked the non-secure link in the SWREG shopping cart.
- You are pointing to a CSS file (or other file) on your own website instead of ours.
I have uploaded custom templates and images but the images do not display.
For images to be recognized, they *must* be encased in single or double quotes. Eg foo.jpg will not be recognized, 'foo.jpg' will.
I try various links and they do not work - I am using the GBP system.
Replace all http://usd.swreg.org/.. URLs with http://gbp.swreg.org/..
I want to offer Coupons for discounted pricing.
We do not directly support coupons but try this elegant solution:
- Customer clicks Buy Now button on your website,
- You display a page that invites them to enter a discount coupon number,
- The customer enters a valid coupon number so you link them to SWREG so they can buy for the correct price for that coupon,
- The customer enters an invalid coupon number so you just present a link with the default price for the product.
Note that any discounted prices will need to be created on a different product page that is hidden from our storefront to stop people trying different variation codes and striking lucky.
I want to see examples of the emails received by myself and my customers.
Use the Test Purchase button on every product description page.
How do two vendors bundle their programs and automatically divide the proceeds of a sale?
Try the following logic when linking to us:
<img src='http://usd.swreg.org/cgi-bin/s.cgi?s=BLAH1&p=BLAH1&v=BLAH1&d=BLAH1&q=BLAH1'
width=1 height=1>
<a href='http://usd.swreg.org/cgi-bin/s.cgi?s=BLAH2&p=BLAH2&v=BLAH2&d=BLAH2&q=BLAH2'>Click
here 2 buy from 2 stores</a>
The idea is that you each set up your respective products on SWREG at the price agreed. You then have vendor (a) use the first link and vendor (b) the second link. We will automatically credit the correct vendor with the correct monies.
How do I make up my own bundles?
One easy way is to use the variations fields/
0: Single user thingy
1: Thingy + Wotsit bundle
2: Thingy + Wotsit + oojah bundle
How do I supply multiple copies of a product (not a single multiuser copy) with only a single delivery charge?
In practice we have not had many orders of multiple copies of anything other than a single multiuser license.
However the answer to this question is that at Basic Level our system cannot handle it because our shopping cart is global for the whole SWREG system and therefore a customer could wander around and in theory buy from different vendors on a single order and we would not want any delivery charges to be dropped in that situation.
There are various workarounds but they involve using Intermediate or Advanced Level.
You create two product records on our system for the same program.
Product one is as normal with a delivery charge added for each variation.
Product two is identical but with no delivery charges.
A customer orders one copy and that is easy - you send him to Product 1 to order.
A customer orders, say, 4 copies. You create a string as follows:
http://usd.swreg.org/cgi-bin/s.cgi?s=123&p=123prod1:123prod2&q=1:2
What this statement says is supply 1 copy of product 1 (which has a delivery charge) and 3 copies of product 2 which has none. Please read the "Multiple Products on Single Order" for more information on creating an order with multiple items.
You will need to either very clear in your wording on your web page or more likely use a small cgi to calculate that if a customer asks for 4 copies then this is the string you will link with.
What is the "Call Authorization Error"?
The customer's bank will for reasons of their own require that we phone our bank up manually to get an authorization for the transaction. The most common cause is that the customer has failed to enter a correct expiry date. The customer sees a screen explaining we have been asked to phone the bank and that the main reason is due to wrong expiry date being given. He is invited to either (a) try again with correct expiry date or (b) click a link that triggers an alarm to our staff to call the authorization centre. An acknowledgment page is displayed saying it can take 1 or 2 working days to process the order. If we get an authorization we just process the order as usual, if we get problems we email the customer and make a note in the foot of the orders page for that order in your administration area.
Vendors linking via Advanced Level will need to simulate the above - instructions are given at Services pages
How do people get to view the contents of their shopping cart if they have gone back to my site before completing their order?
You need to use a formula similar to http://usd.swreg.org/cgi-bin/s.cgi?s=921&r=1
My customers want the software on CD but for various reasons I cannot supply it that way.
Some people prefer to receive their files on CDROM as they are worried about backups or the files are too big, etc. However you may not be in a position to supply on CDROM.We can now offer the ability to burn your software onto CDROM for you each time someone makes an order for your software as an option. Please click here to read more.
My customer clicks on the Order button in the storefront and gets a system error.
You have edited your program title. (Maybe the version number) and failed to do a Publish. That makes the static web page inconsistent with the database and so the system fails to work the way expected. Unfortunately that is a downside of static web pages and also we cannot force a Publish due to the way browsers work (ie., you can just wander off somewhere else after editing a change and we have no way of knowing.) We will look at doing a global publish which will resolve this issue to a great degree.
If you have clicked on Publish but it still does not help it may be that one of your other products is not set up correctly. Go to each product's Edit screen and click Update button and see if there is an error report. If there is then act to correct the error - usually a delivery method needs to be set.
IF YOU UPLOAD A GRAPHICS IMAGE YOU ALSO NEED TO ENTER THE FILENAME IN THE IMAGE NAME FIELD. Capitalization is important. Only .JPG or .GIF please, no .ICO or .BMP.
See also the next question which has relevancy. When I load my program description page I get a window pop up asking if I want to load insecure items. Our web page is a secure page for technical reasons (partly to do with the currency cookies) but you have graphics on your page that come from a non-secure server. Here are some solutions:
- Upload a graphic instead to our server from your product editing page. Either a single graphic in the Image field (no path required) or multiple graphics in the Long Description - the path must be /soft_shop/images/<store number>/<image name with correct capitalization>
- Make your graphic URL via your own secure server.
- Don't point people to our storefront page but instead point them straight to the shopping cart (see below for the formula how to do this). I have added extra variations to an existing program - how comes they do not appear on the storefront? Please click any Publish link to rewrite the storefront pages. My notification email looks a bit of a mess You need to set a fixed font (ie., Courier New) and it will align correctly. This format apparently makes it easier to parse emails automatically!
If you mean by "a mess" you do not like the general layout please read about editing email layouts.
I want customers to see all my programs and all the variations for programs.
You could point them to http://usd.swreg.org/soft_shop/<store number>/ but that is not the most elegant way - to see how it really should be done look at http://www.x-word.com/ordering.html or http://www.evidence-eliminator.com/register.shtml or www.techsmith.com
For the Perl script used at x-word.com please click here. You are welcome to use it. Click here for a zipped version that will format better when extracted.Look at http://www.x-word.com/ordering.html This page gives full control over the ordering process to the author. He uses the Perl script above to collect the information and generate a command line string (PUT statement) to send the customer to our server and automatically populate the basket.
The Techsmith webmaster has set up unique "product" in his store on our server just for shipping charges so he can add a single shipping charge on a per order basis rather than a per product one.
I want to only charge a single shipping charge per order.
Our system is designed for electronic delivery but there is a solution. See the illustration in the paragraph immediately above for one way of doing this.
In theory you would be charged an extra $1 per order but we are happy to review your historic sales after three months, calculate an average proportion of shipping against other sales, adjust your discount rate accordingly thereafter, repay any overpayments since you started selling a "shipping" product so that the end result is that it costs you no more to have a separate shipping product.
I am getting the words "Sorry but the author has not made this product available for sale yet" on my program page in the store front and there is no order button.
That is possibly because you have not set any delivery methods. Quite logical really (if there is no delivery method you cannot sell it) but not to us humans so we have set a trap to stop you updating before setting at least one delivery method for each variation so this error usually applies to people who migrated from the old store and have yet to set delivery methods.
Another cause is that you may have started to enter a program variation and changed your mind and instead of backspacing the characters you had typed you overwrote the text with spaces. Simply "Remove" the first variation to apparently have no text in and do a Publish and the problem should go away.
I seem to be displaying double the price for my program.
You have charged once for the program and the same again for the shipping method. Set the shipping method to the true price (perhaps zero).
The shopping cart shows my program name twice.
Don't enter the program name in the variations field - use words like "Single User" instead.
I find that I am asked for my preferred currency three times.
This will apply to Basic Level-linking only. You need to set cookies to "ON". In IE5 there are two types of cookies so make sure both are set to on. We have identified problems with certain firewalls not passing our cookies - once we find out why we will fix it. You are in the storefront. Because you should be sending people to the shopping cart directly your customers should not be at the storefront pages anyway!
Please note that we are having to ignore cookies for Internet Explorer for Mac due to incompatibility issues. It does not stop a customer ordering but our system will not remember currency changes. The keycode program tester keeps telling me it cannot be connected to my keycode generator. There are two possible reasons. (a) that you have not set permissions correctly on your server - they should be CHMOD 755 on a Linux server. or (b) that you are sending plain text back to us (with a print statement) instead of as per the examples listed here which require the plain text to be formatted within a web page between <softshop></softshop> statements. Trying calling your generator from a web browser address line and then look at the source code returned.
I need to ask my customer a question before he orders.
In Basic level make sure a value is entered into the "Question" field in the delivery methods area (the same page you enter keycodes or uploads). A question will appear on the ordering page after you have Published. It is not a required field so the customer may fail to respond. If you need a required field you should use Intermediate Level or higher.
In Intermediate or Advanced levels you can ask one or more questions on your own website or within your program before linking to us. You add the resulting answer to the command line URL as t=<the information you want to send us> and we send back to you in two ways: (a) in the sales notification email and (b) in the string we optionally send to your keycode generator - the variable is called user_text. Also see next FAQ below for multiple questions.
I need to ask the customer questions but need more than one field of information returned to me.
On the customer name and address form we have a space for Comments so perhaps that is the best place for that information.
However you may wish to have several questions requested in conjunction with the command line so see below:
To set multiple questions:
- Set some form of question in the questions field (any text, except a period, will force it to work).
- Ask any questions you need on your own website.
- Join the responses into a string in such a way you can split them later.
- Add to the end of the command line linking to our shopping cart the variable t="this is some text" and it will be sent back to you in the email or by receiving it in a "keycode generator" string as the variable user_text.
I have a different question for each delivery method but always the last question I enter appears.
Sorry but due to a misunderstanding on specifications that is what happens. Of course if you create the questionnaire on your own website you have far more flexibility. (see above).
I keep getting people telling me the server says their downloads have timed out.
You should allow more days before the download expires. Some people seem to wait until the weekend before downloading.
None of my downloads are working - customers are complaining despite them copying the whole of the download link to the browser.
We use UNIX where capitalization is meaningful. You must ensure the file name matches what is entered in the field. For instance Myfile.zip is not the same file as myFile.zip to UNIX therefore it will not find the file.