[ic] One/Two Step Purchase?

[Orko Sines]

First off, let me get this out of the way:

One week into installing and trying out Interchange 4.8.2 ( and just 
yesterday I installed 4.8.3 ) I have to say, anyone in on the development 
process of this project has my utmost respect.  There was obviously a metric 
*ton* of work involved in designing this product to be not only compatible 
with the major players in the UNIX WebDev industry ( Perl, Javascript, and 
MySQL ), but to be fully customizable as well!  Not to mention all the time 
involved on documentation ( BTW, anyone that is complaining about lack of 
documentation... have you actually seen how many Docs there are?  Try 
printing them out sometime :) )

Okay, now that I've got the 'butt-shark' award from some of the developers, 
let's get on to my question... ;-)

I'm involved in integrating a shopping cart system into a corporation's 
subscription site that has live traffic coursing through it's veins as we 
speak.  The purpose of it is to provide a way for our users to be one submit 
away from purchasing a subscription to continue using our software.  
Conversion from a freetrial to a paid user is critical, and we've been in 
the conversion business for a long time now ( remember the banner days? Ugh. 
).  Needless to say, Our CEO is very intent on making sure that the site 
meets certain criteria.  Three of the basic requirements are namely:

a) fast.  Not sluggish.  As few pages as possible to get to a conversion 
without confusing the user.
b) safe. Security we can promise to our users.
c) easy. Simple to use/navigate.  Easy to return and be recognized as a 
returning user.
d) Flexible enough to be changed at any moment.  Yeah, this is four things, 
but this is always there in any project ;)

Interchange seems to fill all of these requirements, except that I'm having 
trouble in a single area: fast.

You see, the existing site has exactly two user pages in a succesful 
conversion for CC transactions.  The initial page accepts CGI parameters to 
produce the correct sales pitch for the correct level of subscription for 
the user ( there are several levels you can be at, depending on how much 
you're willing to pay ).  This same page has the form elements for user 
information, credit card data, basically everything to fill the order.  This 
page posts to itself, performing all of the error-checking and posting 
through PayFlowPro to Verisign, and also displaying the receipt and mailing 
one off.  All of this, and also interacting with a central MySQL DB to 
adjust account status and credits on their account for the software.

It's quite ugly, viewing it from the backend, and error prone.  We are 
losing transactions due to it's 'Frankenstein' design model.  Two many 
cooks, and not enough spoons.

So...I'm looking at Interchange.  I have all of our subscription plans in 
the products database, and have our skeleton template working in the 
interchange model.  My question is this:

No inventory control, two page subscription.  Is this possible with IC?  If 
so, where could I find an example of the proper variables to post to fill 
the user's cart and checkout in the same POST?

Thank you for your time.  I promise my future posts won't be nearly as wordy 
;-)

-- orko

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