X-Cart forums

[xsurf]

I would like to upsell some products, with the products appearing in the shopping cart page, below the shopping cart. I have looked at existing modules that upsell and here is what I see (please anyone, correct me if I am wrong):

1. Ezupsell:
a. creates an additional step (I would like the products to appear below the customer's shopping cart, not on another page or on a page that only shows the last added product)
b. As far as I could tell from pics (though I may be wrong) the upsold products don't have an "add to cart" button nor any place for product description (?)

2. Ezrecommends:
a. Is in the checkout process, after login (would like it to be in cart)
b. Contrary to ezupsell though, products have description and an "add to cart" button (good for me)
c. Is on its own, separate page (not good, would like it to appear below cart).


My question is to anyone familiar with either of the above - which of the above modules (if any) could without too much difficulty be modified (e.g. copy and paste sections) so any shopping cart will display at its bottom recommended products (based on xcart admin's upselling links), with "buy now" buttons and preferably also short descriptions for these products?


Thanks,
Miri

[pcparts]

hi Xsurf
I used to use Featured Product Manager for that http://www.firetanksoftware.com/fts/customer/Featured-Product-Manager-for-x-cart-pid-146.html
before i brought one page check out.
Its a very good Mod when you get the hang of using it.
oops didn't see "based on xcart admin's upselling links" didn't see that sorry with this you can either go random or pick certain products only.

[xsurf]

Thanks for the reply pcparts! You are right though, being able to provide a different (custom) upsell depending on the products in the cart is important to me, otherwise it looks like Featured Products Manager would have been a good fit.

Basically what I need is the ezrecommends output appearing under the shopping cart (in cart.php), and I wonder if buying that mod I could just cut and paste the output page code (with a smal alteration here and there) into cart.tpl and make it work...

Or alter the Featured Products Manager to work with the upsell links , but I believe that would be too difficult to do by myself

[BCSE]

You may want to look at this module we developed. You can add the upselling items to your cart directly from the *product* page with this module:

http://www.bcsengineering.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=152&cat=0&page=1

Also, we personally use ( and sell) and like the ezUpsell module. If you add this product to your cart on our site you will see the ezUpsell in action (http://www.bcsengineering.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=76&cat=0&page=) We feel the ezUpsell is a great way to clearly show to the customer that you have added a particular product to your cart and gives options of *more* stuff to buy as well as provides a clear path to checkout if desired.

Hope that helps!

Carrie

[xsurf]

Thanks for the reply Carrie, but you missed the parts in my post where I mention that the upsell must be from the cart page itself, and why ezupsell is also not a good fit (as it is now) .

I absolutely need the upseel to occur from my Shopping Cart page - not from the products page, and not from a page that is not the Shopping Cart page...

What I was hoping was that someone familiar with the code of EZupsell or EZrecmmmends would come up and say that I could buy EZrecommends or EZupsell and relativley easily make some cut and paste changes that will make these work from my shopping cart page instead of from the pages they have been created to work on, but given that there are no such responses, that may not be the case.

I wanted to avoid it in this case, but I guess I may just have to go the custom job way.

[BCSE]

Yes sounds like what you need, needs to be custom. I can't think quickly how to modify either to do what you want without really dig into code.

Good luck!

Carrie

[carpeperdiem]

Miri,

What makes ez-upsell a valuable product to me, is that the BEST place to upsell is IMMEDIATELY after a customer added a product -- and ez-up allows you to hand-pick the suggested items per-product. We sell makeup -- the perfect upsells for a makeup product are the brushes that match the product... ez-up basically adds a page pre-cart and offers the upsell...

I HEAR WHAT YOU ARE WANTING -- but in my opinion, once the customer is IN the cart, you want to do ONE THING and ONE THING ONLY -- get the money as fast as possible. IN my opinion, up-sell, should not take place during checkout. This is why I do not like Ez-recommends. Too much, too late.

PS -- ez-up CAN have descriptions and a buy-now if you customize it. I think ez-up is one of the best $40 investments you can make. Then spend a bit more customizing it. I wouldn't open a store without it.

PPS -- THNINK ABOUT why you want to upsell in the cart... if you really think your customers can handle this, then Ez-recommendscan be your ticket, but I am more likely to abandon a cart that does this to me. Just my $.02

[xsurf]

Carpeperdiem, I also am of the opinion that the current location of ezrecommends is not good for customer retention. But our opinion differs on the shopping cart page. Maybe I should mention that I have already modified my shopping cart page so it doesn't contain any long description for each item, it just contains a very small thumbnail + minimum necessary details (e.g. name and variants) for each product in it, just one line per product.

Consider this: someone goes to my site (which by the way is not xcart based, only the actual shopping cart part is) and clicks on "add to cart".
Scenario 1: they get to my shopping cart page, and at the bottom (below prominent continue shopping and continue to checkout buttons) are offered upsells based on what they selected, with add to cart buttons. If they click on some "add to cart" the cart refreshes, if they click on "Checkout" they go to my "one page checkout" page. This is what I want.
Scenario 2: they get to the ezupsell page that tells them what they just added,has prominent continue shopping and continue to checkout buttons, and below that upsell suggestions. Now suppose they click on "Continue to checkout" - they arrive to the shopping cart page. Now they need to click again on Checkout, and only then they get to my "one page checkout" page. This is what I understand you suggest.

I highly respect your opinion, but as far as I can see there are no advantages to scenario no. 2, only disadvantages when compared to scenario no. 1 (?)

Thanks,
Miri

[carpeperdiem]

Yes, scenario 2 is what I do... I have re-invented the ez-upsell template, so that the continue shopping/checkout now buttons are "mine" (with some text that's appropriate to my store). The upsell items have thumbnails and short descriptions.

This requires ONE EXTRA CLICK from the customer -- "are you ready to checkout now" -- we hijacked their experience with ez-up, but I think the process really helps the customer:

1. add to cart
2. ez-up (add an upsell item/continue chopping/proceed to checkout)
3. cart page (summary of items in cart) - "checkout now"
4. Checkout One

In my opinion, scenario 1 risks losing the customer, since once they choose "ok, let's pay and get out of here", many ecom experts say "take the money as fast as you can".

Only you know your customer - so my $.02 doesn't really matter!

[xsurf]

ok, call me dense, but as I understand it, after having clicked on "add to cart" in the site, in both scenarios 1 and 2 the customer is in the same state of mind (?) Only in scenario 1, in whatever state of mind they are, they are presented with a display of all they chose + some upsells, and in scenario 2 they are presented with the ezupsell mod, only difference at this stage being that in ezupsell (scenario 2) they see the last thing they chose while in scenario 1 they see all that they chose (?) But the state of mind is the same (?)
Not trying to argue, I just don't understand why after clicking on add to cart someone would arrive with one state of mind to ezupsell and with another state of mind to "ezupsellcart", the only difference between the 2 being that in the second it says somewhere "shopping cart" and the display is of several items chosen (if more than one item was chosen) (?)