How to customize the purchase and checkout experience in CYPHER Learning

How to customize e-commerce purchase and checkout

Overview

E-commerce allows you to turn your platform into a digital storefront and sell your learning products online. 

Visitors and users can browse your course catalog, add learning items to their shopping cart, and purchase them through the checkout process using a supported payment gateway. This article walks you through the customer experience and explains how to customize the purchase and checkout experience.

To learn how to enable E-commerce on your platform, visit the E-commerce article.

The visitor shopping and checkout experience

When visitors access your portal, they can browse items for sale by clicking the Catalog button from the top menu.
Info
To learn more about setting up your portal and enabling the Catalog menu item, access the Visitor view section of the Portal knowledge base article.

Visitor home page with Catalog highlighted in the top menu

The Catalog displays your published categories and courses. 
  1. Visitors click Category tiles to view courses and items within each category.
  2. Visitors click Item tiles (such as courses) to view more details about the item.
Info
To learn more about setting up categories in the catalog, visit the Course and class catalog article.

Visitor view, Catalog, Communication for leaders category

When visitors click an item tile, the Item details page displays. A course details page is shown in the example below.
  1. Visitors can add the course, digital media, bundle, or subscription to their shopping cart by clicking the Purchase button. 

Visitor view, Catalog, Course details page with the Purchase button highlighted


After a visitor clicks the Purchase button, the item is added to their shopping cart.
  1. If a visitor wants to keep shopping, they can click the back arrow or the Catalog button to continue adding items to their shopping cart.
  2. If a visitor has a coupon they want to apply to the shopping cart, they click Apply Coupon.
If a customer clicks Apply coupon, the Apply coupon pop-up displays.
  1. The visitor enters their coupon code.
  2. If they have more than one code, they can click Add another coupon code and enter the additional code. 
  3. The visitor clicks Apply.
Visitor view, Catalog, Checkout page with the Apply coupon button highlighted, and the Apply coupon pop-up displayed with the Apply button highlighted

The amount of the discount will be displayed in the cart. If more than one coupon was added, the platform automatically selects the best discount for the user.

Next, the visitor must enter Account details. 
  1. If the visitor already has an account, they can click Log in to finish the checkout process.
  2. If the visitor doesn't have an account, they must complete the required Account fields to create a learner account.
The visitor then proceeds to the Payment section. The payment options displayed depend on the payment gateway(s) configured for your portal. For example, if PayPal is configured, the visitor selects PayPal to enter their payment details.

If multiple payment gateways are configured, all available options are displayed for the visitor to choose from (as shown in the example below).

Visitor view, Catalog, Checkout page with the coupon discount and Payment options highlighted

After a visitor completes the payment process, the purchase is complete. The visitor can log-in to the platform and access their purchased items. To access purchased items, the user:
  1. Logs in to the platform.
  2. Clicks their profile picture in the upper-right top menu.
  3. Clicks Purchases from the profile secondary menu.
The user's purchased items will display.
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Please note that purchasing an item such as a course does not automatically enroll the learner in the course. They must click Enroll to enroll in the course.

Learner profile, Purchases page with the Purchases button highlighted on the profile menu

Customize

The platform allows you to customize multiple parts of the shopping, purchase, and checkout experience. To begin customizing the e-commerce experience:
  1. Hover over Admin on the primary navigation menu.
  2. Click E-commerce from the fly-out menu.
  3. Click Customizations in the Configurations section.
Admin, E-commerce page with the Customizations link highlighted in the Configuration section

The Customize tab allows you to configure multiple settings related to the purchase and shopping experience. The first two sections allow you to customize the introduction for the shopping Cart and Purchases area.
  1. Click Add in the Cart section to add a custom shopping cart introduction. The introduction will display at the top of the Checkout screen.
  2. Click Add in the Purchases section to add custom text for the Purchases page. The introduction will display at the top of a user's Purchases page when they are accessing items they have purchased.

Admin, E-commerce, Customize tab with the Add button highlighted in the Cart and Purchases sections

The screenshot below is an example of text that was added as a custom cart introduction. It displays at the top of the customer's shopping cart Checkout page.

Visitor view, Catalog, Checkout page with the cart introduction text highlighted

The platform also allows you to select from two built-in Invoice templates, or create your own.
  1. By default, the Standard invoice w/o tax template is selected. To preview the invoice template, click the preview preview icon icon.
  2. If you have taxes enabled on your platform and want to use a built-in template, select the Standard invoice w/ Tax template. To preview the invoice template, click the preview  icon.
  3. To add your own custom PDF invoice to the site, click Add custom.

Admin, E-commerce, Customize tab with the Invoice template section highlighted

The Invoice template page displays the list of fields you can include in your custom PDF invoice template.

  1. Click Upload to upload your custom PDF invoice template.
    1. Note that custom fields can also be included on your custom PDF invoice template.
  2. When the upload is finished, click Save.
Admin, E-commerce, Invoice template page

Mobile app

The E-commerce Customize tab also allows you to enable or disable e-commerce on the Mobile app. To adjust the mobile app e-commerce feature:
  1. Hover over Admin from the primary navigation menu.
  2. Click E-commerce from the fly-out menu.
  3. Click Customizations from the Configuration section.
  4. Click Enable e-commerce in the Mobile app section to enable e-commerce on the mobile app.
    1. Click Disable e-commerce in the Mobile app section to disable e-commerce on the mobile app.
Admin, E-commerce, Customize tab with the Enable e-commerce button highlighted in the Mobile app section

UTM Tags

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) tags are short text parameters added to the end of a URL to track the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns.

The platform can store UTM tag data associated with orders. This allows external systems (such a Salesforce or HubSpot) to attribute orders to specific campaigns.

To enable UTM tag storage:
  1. Hover over Admin from the primary navigation menu.
  2. Click E-commerce from the fly-out menu.
  3. Click Customizations from the Configuration section.
  4. Select the Store UTM tags for orders? checkbox. 
A few things to note:
  1. The platform stores UTM tag data, but does not display it in the interface.
  2. UTM tags can only be added via the API.

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