Fastlane versus old Anonymous checkout question
 

I have a version of X-cart running the 4.0 branch of the code. I currently have anonymous checkout enabled for my customers. I see that the 4.1 branch has something called "fastlane" checkout--is this a better designed version of the anonymous checkout from the 4.0x version? I tried looking on the x-cart demo site, but it seems to be set to not allow fastlane to work (it asked me to create an account right off, which I don't want my customers to have to do).

Basically what I want to know is is the workflow of fastlane simply a user selects their items, goes to checkout, gets a confirmation of their costs, then fills out the payment form and submits payment? What I want is the user to know the entire amount and then be able to simply fill out a payment form after this, not before this, with the option to make an account at that point. Making a user make an account before they see their costs for the items (including shipping and tax) is just a barrier to getting someone to buy my stuff. I'd love to move to a better system than the regular anonymous system in the 4.0x branch, but can't tell if "fastlane" is really better.

Re: Fastlane versus old Anonymous checkout question
 

Fast Lane is turned on in the demo version. What you are seeing is the way it works. The customer has to enter some sort of info (anon or not) to be able to see shipping charges. The 'create account' text is misleading, you don't have to create an account, you can leave the user/pass off.

Re: Fastlane versus old Anonymous checkout question
 

How can you quote shipping and tax without a ship-to location?

You don't need me to tell you that there's nothing ANONYMOUS about an internet transaction, if the customer is going to pay with a credit card. You need lots of personal information.

FLC in 4.1 will total the sale and depending on how you've set it up, a shipping estimate... but it can't calculate taxes or exact shipping until the customer enters some information.

In New York, we have 83 different tax zones. How can I guesstimate this? I can't -- so I tell the customer that we will add appropriate sales tax on the next page, afetr they enter their ship-to address.

NOW -- I agree that a shipping estimator would be a great thing to add to FLC... has anyone shopped www.uline.com? I like how they do it. But they don't have a shipping costs line on the pre-checkout info either... until your location is known (logged in), how is anyone to know. SO -- if the customer is so-called "anonymous" - the computer will never know until a shipping address is provided.

Is there a better way? It could easily be programmed if it can be flow charted. Someone suggest something better.

Re: Fastlane versus old Anonymous checkout question
 

Actually, What I was suggesting is a combination of the zipcode shipping estimator, along with a summary of total costs before the user has to enter their personal information. What I don't want is to hit the customer with a fill out this information page before they see the totals and such that they might have to pay. If it's on the same page that's not too bad, but I really like the idea of having an estimator also.