0

Checkout multiple items

Brad Carson

April 30, 2012 20:44

None

Follow

Unfortunately, according to the API docs there's not an easy way to purchase multiple items (i.e. shopping cart style): "

Multiple orders may be passed in a single request, but each request is transactional, so if an error occurs while creating one order, the remaining orders will be rolled back.

At this time, only a single item may be included in an order. Any additional items passed to this endpoint will be ignored without notification. "

Yet some sites do feature shopping carts, allowing for purchase of multiple items.  I'm wondering how is this handled?  Create multiple orders (resulting in multiple client credit card charges)?  What about shipping and taxes - only apply to first order?  Split them?  

Your advice is very much appreciated.  Thanks.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

4 comments

• 0
  
  Brad Carson April 30, 2012 21:31

  The docs have now changed in the last hour:  "Only one order may be passed in a single request."

  Still wondering from a process point of view how a majority of ticketing sites on the TEVO are successfully implementing this. (e.g. goldentickets.com)

• 0
  
  Permanently deleted user April 30, 2012 23:00

  I can't speak for how others are handling it but I can tell you what I would suggest…

  If you allow customers to order multiple items I would suggest that you create a new order for each item. You can use the client/address/phone number/email address/credit card IDs created on the first order when you create the second order. If you plan to only charge one shipping charge regardless of how many items they order then choose if you want to add that onto a single item and then charge $0 the others or maybe divide the shipping cost across the multiple items.

  (I don't suggest charging a single shipping charge regardless of the number of items ordered because those items could come from multiple vendors requiring you to ship multiple packages. We used to to do this and I once had someone order 10 parking passes from 7 different vendors and the customer was only charged $15 for shipping. Ended up losing money on the order due to the extra shipping costs.)

  The catch-22 here is trying to visually explain to the buyer why they have to pay 4 shipping charges for 4 separate items because they don't know or care that they're all shipping form different sources. I have noticed that many sites including StubHub have switched to a single-item-per-order methodology in order to combat this.

   

  Another reason to make each item an order is in case any one item has an issue (tickets not available, show canceled, etc) you likely don't want that affecting the rest of the order.

• 0
  
  Brad Carson May 01, 2012 15:08

  You make some excellent points.  Thank you.  Fortunately, for my client the multiple shipping packages isn't a significant concern.  One of our worries about submitting each item per order is that the payment processor will reject the transaction as duplicate - especially if the order totals happens to the be same.   

  What about this idea?  Disable payment processing on the TEVO side, submitting orders (one item per) as "offline".  Then, submitting one "aggregate" order directly to the payment processor (Samurai)?    

• 0
  
  Permanently deleted user May 01, 2012 16:39

  You could certainly pass your orders in with payment_method=offline and then handle the single charge separately. You cannot charge a card without an order through the TEvo API, but you could directly integrate with Samurai for that. Shouldn't be too hard.