Opinions on the checkout process, anyone?

[eluser]slowgary[/eluser]
Hi folks,

I'm putting together an online shop and would love to get your feedback on the flow of the checkout process. The cart uses paypal and currently you'd add items to the cart, click on the link to view the cart, then click the paypal button to be whisked away for payment.

What I've aimed for was to make the process as straightforward as possible, but I don't want to miss anything important. I can get all the customer info from the PayPal IPN, I just wonder if there's a reason to have the customer create an account, like so many sites do. I understand a lot of the sites I speak of probably use a gateway and process payments on their own, but not in all cases.

So I guess my question is... is there any good reason to have the customer provide any information before pushing them to Paypal? I could see that for legal reasons I might want to have the customer sign up and agree to some terms, instead of just getting their info from the paypal transaction, but couldn't I just have a tiny 'terms & conditions' link at the bottom of the page? I really like the idea of having only 1 screen for the checkout process (plus paypal).

Thanks for reading.

[eluser]Jondolar[/eluser]
IPN will pass the shipping data back to you:
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_...TVariables
Yes, you can have a "checkout" button that posts to a page on your website and verifies the "t & c". Then, display a form to the user with all of the info to pass to PayPal and use javascript to submit automatically (with a submit button to click if not redirected).

You might also want to consider just using PayPal's cart if you haven't already.

Good luck with your project.

[eluser]Dam1an[/eluser]
Seeing as you won't be processing anny of the payment information yourself, you have no need to remember any of it, so no account needed for that.
The only other real reason for an account is if you plan to make suggestions based on past purchases (like amazon does)

I think a simple message like "By proceeding with payment you agree with our T&Cs;" (With a link, obviously)
If you want to be a bit more sure, a checkbox which enables the proceed to paypal button

[eluser]slowgary[/eluser]
I plan to store the user's information from paypal IPN either way, as I'd like to be able to send promo emails or postcards, plus if I ever need to reference an order.

I probably won't make suggestions because I won't require an account or login, so while a user is shopping I won't know of their past purchases. The 'Agree with Ts & Cs' is a good idea. I just don't know if I should take it a step further. Maybe people would like to be able to recall their own orders?

I prefer to not have to 'sign up' for every site I buy something from, but at the same time I like the ability to recall past orders. Just not sure which route to take.