problems with shopping / checkout / tax

[creatorofstuff]

Oh dear. I’m having problems. I am testing the shopping experience on my site, and am concerned with what is happening. Maybe some of this is WooCommerce, but I’m not sure. I hope not because I think I’ve exhausted all of the options with WooCommerce. (I think.)

1. I am in California. Therefore, sales tax is only applicable in California. Everywhere else no sales tax is charged. However, when someone begins shopping, the cart shows sales tax being charged no matter where the person lives. Although this is resolved in the checkout process, it is misleading and makes one think they are being charged sales tax when they should not be. (this can be seen in the screenshot for question 3) I’ve never seen this on an e-commerce website (where I have shopped) and would consider the merchant unprofessional if I did, and so I need to fix it. If I get it to show no tax (before checkout), then it doesn’t charge the tax it is supposed to charge on checkout. the documentation for WooCommerce is not clear. If you can’t help me can you direct me to some better documentation? Nowhere do they describe setting up a hierarchy of taxes.

2. Relating to question one, I don’t want the sales tax to show in the cart regardless of whether it will be charged or not. I only want this to show at checkout. Because only at checkout can it be determined whether the customer will need to pay tax.

3. Everywhere that tax is shown, it is bundled into the price of the products. I DEFINITELY DO NOT WANT THIS. I want the product prices to show separately from the tax being charged, just like it is in any other transaction anywhere in the USA. (see screenshot – it shows the shopping bag on the left with the prices of the items, and the items in the shop on the right, with the actual prices) In case it is relevant, I have checked the setting in the WooCommerce section that says “I will enter prices exclusive of tax”.

4. On the checkout page, things look jumbled. The alignment is off. (see screenshot) On the shipping section, the word shipping seems to be floating vertically between the two options. (If I could eliminate the flat rate option when free shipping is an option, I would love to do that.) Also, the button called “update shopping bag” looks like its alignment is off because it has a white background. Finally, the bottom line looks downright messy, where it says $16.75 (includes $1.01 Tax, $0 Tax).

What I would like to see is something like this (obviously with better formatting):

item – $1.00
item – $2.00
order subtotal $3.00
—————
sales tax $.70
shipping $0.00
————–
TOTAL – $3.70

Note that the tax is listed separately from the items. I am including a screenshot of a paypal receipt which shows the way I would like this to work.

5. The term Shopping Bag and Cart seem to be used interchangeably, which is inconsistent. Is there an easy way to have it one way or the other?

6. Through my testing process I have intermittently encountered this error message (see screenshot with red warning). The error box does not go away, even when it allows the sale to continue.

Sorry this list is so long. I hope someone can help me because I love this beautiful theme and I’m almost there.

[creatorofstuff]

Update: Disregard question #3. I think I have this one figured out. Sorry!!!

[creatorofstuff]

Please just disregard everything above and I will start again.

I can’t believe it but I believe I have solved some of this mess. SO sorry for the confusion and my haste in asking. I had already spent so many hours I didn’t think I could do it, but I did. Yay!

So here are my questions:

1. On the checkout page, the alignment seems off. (see screenshot) On the shipping section, the word shipping seems to be floating vertically between the two options. (If I could eliminate the flat rate option when free shipping is an option, I would love to do that. Is that possible?)

Also, the button called “update shopping bag” appears like its alignment is off because it has a white background.

2. The term Shopping Bag and Cart seem to be used interchangeably, which is inconsistent. Is there an easy way to have it one way or the other?

3. Through my testing process I have intermittently encountered this error message (see screenshot with red warning). The error box does not go away. Sometimes it still allows the sale to go through. Either way, you can’t get rid of the box. I have attached an image of the page where the buyer is stuck. You can’t close the box and there is no place to enter the required information. Is this how it is intended to work?

Thank you very, very much. 🙂

[Swift Ideas – Ed]

Apologies this hasn’t been answered sooner.

1) Can you provide a link to this, I’ll help out with some custom css.

2) If you edit /language/en_US.po with PO Edit, you can update any strings you want to change.

3) That error only should show when those fields aren’t filled out, can you confirm?

– Ed

[creatorofstuff]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Swift Ideas – Ed]

1) Ok found it, try the following custom css:

.woocommerce .cart_totals table tr.shipping th {
vertical-align: top;
padding-top: 13px;
}

3) We’re re-designing the checkout process for the next update, which will make it much slicker – probably best to wait for this rather than re-work what you have, if that’s ok?

– Ed

[creatorofstuff]

1. Oh yes! That did the trick. Thank you so very much.

3. Of course, absolutely, I will wait. I’m happy to hear you are re-working the checkout process. Fantastic. Thank you. I love your support. It’s excellent! 🙂

[Melanie – SUPPORT]

Awesome! I’m glad we could help 🙂 If you are happy with the theme and the support, a five star rating for the theme on themeforest would show us your love! You can rate the theme in your Download section. Thank you so much!

Thank you Ed!

[Swift Ideas – Ed]

@creatorofstuff – sending this update off now 🙂

– Ed