Table of Contents

Checkout Process

In this chapter we will discuss the details of the checkout process, including localization, Taxes, Shipping Methods, and Payment Methods. But before describing each aspect of the checkout process in depth, let’s take a moment to discuss the checkout process as a whole, along with some of the basic checkout configuration settings. This way, you will have a better understanding of how localization, Taxes, Shipping, and Payment fit into the checkout process, giving each section a bit more context.

The process first begins when your customer adds a product to their cart. They can be redirected to the cart each time they add a product, or remain on the product page, only to be directed to the cart if they click one of the various shopping cart links. You can configure this setting by navigating to System > Configuration, clicking on the Checkout tab in the left column, and choose your preference from the After adding a product redirect to shopping cart drop-down. Magento automatically saves the contents of your customers’ shopping carts, but you can limit the amount of time a product will remain in the cart by entering the limit, in days, in the Quote Lifetime field. If your customer continues shopping, they will have a quick view of the shopping cart in the right column of all category, product and CMS pages that include the right column (which you can specify in the design settings for each page individually).

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At the top of the cart view will be a summary of the quantity of items in the cart. This can display either the number of different products (line items) or the total quantity of each line item. You can specify this setting in the Display Cart Summary drop-down.

When your customers arrive to the shopping cart, they will see each product listed in a separate row. Each product here is referred to as a line item. For each line item, your customers have the option to add quantity to it, or remove it from the cart altogether, and this can be done at any time. The image that displays for each line item is the Thumbnail image that you selected for each product. For Grouped and Configurable products, however, you have the option to use the Thumbnail of the Grouped or Configurable product, or the Thumbnail of the associated Simple Product. This is designated in the Grouped product image and Configurable product image drop-downs, respectively. To use the Thumbnail of the Grouped/Configurable Product, select Parent Product Thumbnail. To use the Thumbnail of the associated Simple Product, select Product Thumbnail itself. In the cart there is also a link to Continue Shopping, so that your customers can add more products to the cart. If they have a coupon code which will offer them a discount, they must enter it in the Shopping Cart, in the Discount Codes field (there is more information about Shopping Cart Price Rules in Chapter 5: Promotions, Marketing and Content Pages), in order for it to be applied during Checkout.

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When they click the Apply Coupon button, the coupon will be applied to the cart and appear in the checkout totals in the bottom right corner. Your customers can also receive Shipping and Tax estimates prior to the checkout process. They must enter their Country, State/Province, and Zip/Postal Code in the Estimate Shipping and Tax field, and click Get a Quote. The available shipping rates will appear directly below.

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Your customers can then click the Update Total button, and the selected shipping rate, along with the tax (if applicable) will add to the checkout totals in the bottom right corner. Your customers can change shipping rates at any time, and refresh the checkout totals by clicking the Update Total button again. The checkout totals includes the Subtotal, Discount, Shipping, Tax, and Grand Total.

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You can configure the order of these amounts by navigating to System > Configuration, clicking on the Sales tab in the left column, and entering the sort orders in the Checkout totals sort order section.

The tax will vary depending on the tax settings you specify. Navigate to System > Configuration, and click on the Sales tab in the left column. Here, you can designate whether to Apply Tax after Discount. If you select Yes, the tax will calculate as a percentage of the discounted price rather than the Subtotal. You can also choose the Tax Class for Shipping, if you want to charge tax on the shipping costs (more on this in the Taxes section below). Lastly, you can calculate the Tax Based On the customers’ billing or shipping address, or the shipping origin (the address of your store or warehouse, which you can define in the Shipping Settings tab). If you choose to base tax on the shipping origin, which is a fixed address that you must configure, your tax rates will be fixed, and you will then have the option to set Catalog prices include tax to Yes. If you do, Magento will subtract sales tax from the product price you entered in the catalog. For example, you have a product listed for $110.00, and the tax rate is 10%. Instead of the customer being charged 10% on top of the $110.00, and paying $121.00 total, they will only pay $110.00 total. The actual product price will therefore be $100.00, and the other $10.00 will be used as the sales tax ($10.00 is 10% of $100.00). The $100.00 price will be shown in the shopping cart as the Unit Price (Excl. Tax), or the price excluding tax, so your customers can see that the tax was already included in the catalog price they saw in your site.

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Tax not included in catalog price

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Tax included in catalog price

When your customers have added all the items they want to purchase to the cart, they will click the Proceed to Checkout button in the cart. There is also a Checkout button in the Shopping Cart quick view, and a Checkout link in the page header at all times (if you have PayPal or Google Checkout enabled, separate checkout buttons will appear for these options). If they are not already logged in, they will have three options: Checkout as Guest, Register, and LOGIN.

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If they choose to Checkout as Guest, they will enter all of the necessary order information, however an account will not be created for them when the checkout is complete. You can disable guest checkout by navigating to System > Configuration, clicking the Checkout tab in the left column, and selecting No from the Allow Guest Checkout drop-down. If they choose to Register, they will enter all of the necessary order information, including a password, and an account will be created simultaneously when the checkout is complete. If they choose to LOGIN, they must first enter their Email Address and Password, which will retrieve all of their account information, and they will only be required to enter the necessary order information which is not currently saved (for example, if they do not already have any addresses saved to their account).

Regardless of which of these three options they choose, they will checkout using Magento’s one-page checkout platform. This makes the checkout process easier than ever, with all the checkout information conveniently located on the same page, divided into separate tabs for better organization. The first tab includes the Billing Information (as well as name, email, and password, if needed), and the ability to select from different addresses and create new addresses. The second tab includes the Shipping Information, as well as the ability to change or add addresses. In the first tab, your customers have the option to specify that the shipping address will be the same as the billing address, in which case the second tab will be skipped altogether. The third tab will include the available shipping methods, as well as the option to add gift messages, if they are enabled. Gift messages can be applied to the order as a whole, or individually to each product. You can configure this by navigating to System > Configuration, and clicking the Sales tab in the left column. The Allow Gift Messages on Order Level drop-down controls whether one gift message can be placed for the whole order, and the Allow Gift Messages for Order Items drop-down controls whether one gift message can be placed for each product. You can choose to enable both, or just one. In the Shipping Method tab, the Order Level gift message will have a From field, To field and a Message field. The Item Level gift message(s) will have the same fields, as well as an indication as to which product the gift message is associated. The From and To fields will autopopulate with the billing address name and shipping address name, respectively. The fourth tab will include the Payment Information. The fifth tab will include the Order Review, and the Place Order button, which completes the order.

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As your customers proceed through checkout, the information from each tab will be update in the Your Checkout Progress menu in the right column.

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If you wish, Magento will automatically notify you via RSS Feed of the creation of all new Orders, whether created in front-end the or the admin. In order to use this RSS feed, navigate to Sales > Orders, and click the New Order RSS link at the top of the page. You will be prompted to enter your User Name and Password. These are the same that you use to access the Magento admin panel. You will be redirected to the RSS page, where you can select which reader you would like to use for receiving this feed. This concludes the checkout process. Now, let’s a more detailed look at some of the aspects of the checkout process.

Localization Settings

When you first installed Magento, you were required to select your localization settings. This includes you Locale, Timezone, and Default Currency. Just because these were configured during installation doesn’t meant you don’t have access to them any time you want. These can be reconfigured at any time.

Locale Settings

You can reconfigure your Timezone and Locale settings by navigating to System > Configuration, and clicking on the General tab. This page also contains other very important configuration settings, so let’s take this opportunity to discuss them along with the discussion of the localization settings.

Countries options
Locale options

Currency

The other localization setting – Currency – can be reconfigured in a different location. In addition to merely being able to select which currency will be your default currency, there are many other currency settings that you can configure at this time as well.

Currency Configuration

To configure the currency settings, navigate to System > Configuration, and select the Currency Setup tab in the left column.

Currencies Options

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Import Settings

This section is to set up automatic updates of currency rates through an external currency rate provider. You can manually update the currency rates using an external currency rate provider in the Manage Currency page (covered below).

Currency Rates

These can be configured by navigating to System > Manage Currency Rates. This page contains a table of Base Currencies and Allowed Currencies, with the relative value of each compared to the Base Currency. Each Base Currency will have its own row, and each Allowed Currency will have its own column. When the row value and column value for a cell are the same (for example, where the US Dollars Base Currency and Allowed Currency intersect), the rate will be 1.0000. All other rates in the same row will be a ratio of this. You can enter the rates of the other currencies manually, or import them from an external currency rate provider in the Import Service drop-down. By default, Magento is configured to import rates from Webservicex. Select this from the drop-down, and click Import. The Allowed Currencies will populate with the most current conversion rates. If you had rates previously entered, they will now display underneath the field, as the Old rate. You can revert to these old rates by clicking Reset. When your currency rates are configured correctly, click Save Currency Rates.

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There are 2 base currencies (1 per Website) and 8 display currencies

Taxes

Tax Rates

Magento allows full control over your store’s Tax Rates, from a single statewide rate to rates per zip code. The proper term Tax Rate, as defined in Magento, is used to describe a set of up to five individual tax rates, which will be applied to different combinations of Customer Tax Classes and Product Tax Classes when you create your Tax Rules. These tax features will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter. To define Tax Rates, navigate to Sales > Tax > Manage Tax Rates and select Add New Tax Rate.

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If you navigate to Sales > Tax > Import / Export Tax Rates, you can create a batch of new Tax Rates. You can upload a .csv file containing a column for Country, State, Zip/Postal Code, and a column for each Rate. First, you must Browse for the file, and then click Import Tax Rates. This is especially useful if you have many different regions for which you must create different Tax Rates, because this is much more efficient than creating each Tax Rate individually. In this page, you can also Export Tax Rates, which will create a .csv listing all saved Tax Rates. This is useful when first creating Tax Rates, because you can export a blank .csv template, enter your rates manually, save, and then import this same .csv file.

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Tax Classes

Combined with Tax Rates, Tax Classes define Tax Rules. There are two kinds of Tax Classes: Customer and Product. Each type of class can be created simply by entering a name. The Customer Tax Classes will then be assigned to individual customers, and the Product Tax Classes will be assigned to individual products. Magento will determine which tax rate (1-5) to apply to an each item in an Order based on the combination of the customer’s Customer Tax Class and each item’s Product Tax Class in the Tax Rules.

Customer Tax Classes

Customer Tax Classes are associated to Customers by assigning them to Customer Groups, which are then assigned to Customers. By default, Magento will include one Customer Tax Class: Retail Customer. This Tax Class will be assigned to the two default Customer Groups: General and Not Logged In. You will learn how to change the Tax Class associated to these Customer Groups, create new Customer Groups, and associate Customer Groups to Customers in Chapter 6: Customers. If you have different Tax Rules that will apply to Wholesale customers, you will want to create a new Customer Tax Class.

  1. To define the Customer Tax Classes, navigate to Sales > Tax > Customer Tax Classes.
  2. Click Add New in the top right of the page.
  3. Enter the Class Name (in this case, Wholesale Customer).
  4. Click Save Class.

Product Tax Classes

Product Tax Classes are associated to Products. By default, Magento will include one Product Tax Class: Taxable Goods. If you have different Tax Rules that will apply to Apparel, you will want to create a new Product Tax Class. You can configure all new products to default to your preferred Product Tax Class by navigating to System > Configuration, selecting the Catalog tab, and choosing that Product Tax Class from the Default Tax Class drop-down.

  1. To define the Product Tax Classes, navigate to Sales > Tax > Product Tax Classes.
  2. Click Add New in the top right of the page.
  3. Enter the Class Name (in this case, Apparel).
  4. Click Save Class.

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Note: If you wish to charge tax on shipping, you may want to create a Product Tax Class that will be used solely to configure the shipping tax. Magento approaches shipping as another item in the Order, so it must be associated to a Product Tax Class. You can associate it to one of the same Tax Classes that you use for your products, or create a separate one that is unique for shipping tax. This can be done by navigating to System > Configuration, clicking the Sales tab, and selecting the Tax Class from the Tax Class for Shipping drop-down. If you select None, shipping will not be taxed. If do you choose to tax shipping, the rates will be calculated based on your Tax Rules, just as with any item in an Order.

Tax Rules

Now that you have established Your Tax Rates and Classes, you are ready to define your Tax Rules. If you need to have different tax rates for your different combinations of Customer Tax Classes and Product Tax Classes, you can define a Tax Rule for each scenario. Let’s first define the most common scenario: Retail Customers purchasing Taxable Goods. This is what Rate 1 is designated for.

  1. Navigate to Sales > Tax > Manage Tax Rules.
  2. Click Add New Tax Rule in the top right of the page.
  3. Select the Customer Tax Class from the drop-down (in this case, Retail Customer).
  4. Select the Product Tax Class (in this case, Taxable Goods).
  5. Select the Tax Rate (in this case, Rate 1).
  6. Click Save Rule.

Now, whenever a Retail Customer purchases a Taxable Goods product, they will be taxed the rate defined in Rate 1. Customers in the 90064 zip code will be charged 9% of the item price. Customers in the rest of the state of California will be charged 8% of the item price.

Wholesale Customers, however, are only required to pay half the tax of Retail Customers. Therefore, you would create a new Tax Rule. Select Wholesale Customer in the Customer Tax Class drop-down, and Rate 2 (which is half the amount of Rate 1) in the Tax Rate drop-down. Now, whenever a Wholesale Customer purchases a Taxable Goods product, they will be taxed the rate defined in Rate 2. Customers in the 90064 zip code will be charged 4.5% of the item price. Customers in the rest of the state of California will be charged 4% of the item price.

Again, there is another exception to the scenario defined in the first Tax Rule. Apparel is taxed at half the rate as other Taxable Goods. Therefore, you would create another new Tax Rule. Leave the Customer Tax Class as Retail Customer, but select Apparel in the Product Tax Class drop-down, and Rate 2 (which is half the amount of Rate 1) in the Tax Rate drop-down. Now, whenever a Retail Customer purchases an Apparel product, they will be taxed the rate defined in Rate 2. Customers in the 90064 zip code will be charged 4.5% of the item price. Customers in the rest of the state of California will be charged 4% of the item price.

But what if a Wholesale Customer purchases an Apparel item? They should be taxed at half the rate defined in second or third scenarios, which is a quarter the rate defined in the first scenario. Create a new Tax Rule. Select Wholesale Customer in the Customer Tax Class drop-down, Apparel in the Product Tax Class drop-down, and Rate 3 (which is a quarter the amount of Rate 1) in the Tax Rate drop-down. Now, whenever a Wholesale Customer purchases an Apparel product, they will be taxed the rate defined in Rate 3. Customers in the 90064 zip code will be charged 2.25% of the item price. Customers in the rest of the state of California will be charged 2% of the item price.

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Shipping Options

Shipping Settings

Configure the Shipping Settings by navigating to System > Configuration and selecting the Shipping Settings tab in the left column.

Origin

Enter the Country, Region/State, ZIP/Postal Code, and City from where the shipments will be sent (i.e. the location of your company and/or warehouse). This value will be one half of the equation used to calculate the shipping rates for the external shipping gateways (UPS, USPS, FedEx and DHL). The customer’s shipping address will be the other half of the equation. Additionally, if you choose to calculate the tax in an Order based on the Shipping origin (which you can configure in the Sales tab), Magento will use the address from these Origin fields.

Options

When an Order with multiple shipping addresses is completed, it will split into multiple Orders. There will be one Order for each unique shipping address, and your customer will receive separate email notifications for each shipping address as well. This is because in the admin, there can only be one shipping address per order. Because the Order is split, each Order in the admin is fulfilled the exact same way as a regular Order. For more information on managing Orders and Order fulfillment, refer to Chapter 8: Managing Orders.

Shipping Methods

Configure the Shipping Methods by navigating to System > Configuration and selecting the Shipping Methods tab in the left column.

Flat Rate

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Table Rates

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Free Shipping
UPS

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USPS
FedEx
DHL

Accepting Money

Overview of set up and front-end functionality of gateways - Magento offers you many different options for accepting payments from customers. There are both offline payment methods, and online payment methods. For the online methods, Magento supports integration with several third party payment gateways, so that customer credit card information will automatically sent through the gateway (as either an authorization, or an authorization and charge) upon completion of an order. To configure your payment settings, navigate to System > Configuration, and click Payment Methods in the left column. Each payment method will have its own section which can be configured. There are several PayPal methods. Because some of these methods share account information, there is a separate tab in the left column called PayPal Accounts, in which you can enter the account information for the corresponding PayPal method(s) which you have enabled from the Payment Methods tab. Google Checkout is entirely contained within a separate tab, called Google API, so that there are no settings for Google Checkout in the Payment Methods tab.

Payment Methods and PayPal Accounts

Saved CC

If you do not have a payment gateway, but still want to accept Credit Cards for processing offline, you can capture the credit card information using the Saved Credit Card payment method.

Setup

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Functionality on Front-End and Back-End

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Zero Subtotal Checkout

If a customer places an order and the subtotal is equal to zero, you can offer them this payment method, whereby they will not be required to enter any payment information. Unlike the other payment methods, for which you can set order amount filters, this method contains an intrinsic order amount filter, so that the method will not display unless the subtotal is equal to zero.

Setup
Functionality on Front-End and Back-End

Check/Money Order

Setup
Functionality on Front-End and Back-End

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Purchase Order

Setup
Functionality on Front-End and Back-End

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Authorize.net

Setup
Functionality on Front-End and Back-End

PayflowPro

Setup

Magento is configured to support Tender type C.

Functionality on Front-End and Back-End
PayPal Express

Paypal Express is not compatible with Checkout with Multiple Addresses.

Setup
Functionality on Front-End and Back-End