....with 447 items totaling $1400 before tax and shipping. Before I could proceed It said I needed log in. In the course of completing the order I at first was going to PayPal. Then I decided to just use my credit card so I hit the back button. My cart was empty. Then I tried hitting the link in the email I got last week that asked me complete my order. I'm thinking Open Builds doesn't want my order. I spent 3 or 4 hours putting the cart together, changed around a few things because of questions I asked in the forum, etc. This is crap!
That's nonsense. You have apparently identified a bug in the cart system though. You might contact the parts store at http://support.openbuilds.com/support/home to see it the order was held in a buffer somewhere. If you're in a hurry though, it's quicker to reorder as email turnaround is generally around 48 hours (which is something that really needs improved upon).
I have a good memory and can remember things i have done and people i know from 50 years ago but i am in no way going to remember exactly how many of what items I had in my cart to total up to 444 items is something i cannot do instantaneously. Since to place the order I needed to log in as soon as i did so it should have been stored somewhere. If Amazon can do that then I see no reason why Openbuilds cannot. Luckily I just got to work and navigated to the OpenBuilds Part Store with the browser on my work PC and luckily the cart was saved in a buffer with this browser on this PC. I was able to place the order. I would have been annoyed if I had to go through the process of building another cart.
I was putting together an order over a several day period once, and I lost it when I left it sit for a few days. What I do now is put the items in my wish list. Then move them to the cart when I am ready to purchase. I have started doing this on all sites I do not order from frequently. I do a similar thing at work. If I have a long report, I type it in Notepad then copy and paste it into the final doc on the proprietary software. I have been burned too many times with software crashes.
That has happened to me on several sites when trying to "back out"of paypal screen. If the cache is cleared, then the cart is as well. Option to Save Cart to your account is high on the feature requests.
Would it be possible to create a “wish list” or some way to save your cart items to a list tied to your login kind of like amazon has?
I realized I was short on a few things so I put together another cart and went through the whole process of paying for my items and I got emails saying that...and one more email telling me my order is waiting to be filled...or do something like that. I was very impressed with how quickly my first order was processed and delivered..all within a 5 day timeframe or less. This time I'm still waiting for the horse to leave the starting gate.
Create a spreadsheet of everything you need instead of a shopping cart. That way, you can make visible count changes as you work on the design. When it's time to purchase, you won't have any confusion. It will also work as redundancy. All online shopping carts are based on cookies, which are also affected by being logged in or certain processes in the checkout process. Hitting "back" has never been and never will be an assurance that everything will remain the same.
You're really not supposed to use the "back" button ever for normal navigation! also: amazon has a whole lot more server power and a very much bigger budget than openbuilds so a feature comparison is rather unfair.
