Future proofing checkout mods

-- HikaShop version -- : 2.33
-- Joomla version -- : 3.3.6
-- PHP version -- : 5.4.35
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Chrome Mac

Hi everybody,

I have a few things that I want to do in the future after the site is upgraded to J3 and Hikashop and life. I would like to do the initial setup with future modifications in mind. I would greatly appreciate a few thoughts and advice on these future mods:

A: Shopping cart with upsell features similar to my attached mock-up.
The shopping cart module creates too many UX issues on mobile devices so my preferred setup is that any add to cart takes the customer right to a cart. There the customer is not only presented with the cart but also with upsell options. I would also like to see a shipping selector here that grabs the minimum required information (postcode, state, country) for the shipping modules to calculate shipping options costs before checkout. Bonus would be to save that information for the address during the checkout.
Another nice thing would be to have the coupon field here to so that the customer is presented with a total before going through the entire checkout.

Would it make more sense to modify the 1st checkout page to have all the bells and whistles? Or would it be better to create a separate page, insert the cart as module and write code to pass the information to the checkout?


B: Check of shipping address
I would love to have a check of the shipping address as the use of postcodes and corresponding suburb names in Australia is quite "liberal".
Would it make sense to modify the Hikashop setup? Or would it make sense to create a custom page that passes the complete address to the Hikashop checkout?


C: Account creation as an option after completion
I increased checkout conversion rate dramatically on my old site by disabling account creation during checkout. My customers don't seem to be into accounts upfront. With Hikashop and Acymailing integration I like the fact that you can assign a customer to user groups depending on what products he bought. Makes it super easy to nail aftersales support.

I am thinking of using the guest checkout process and asking the customer on the confirmation page if he would like to setup an account. Would it still be possible to set the user groups of the customer based on the products he ordered or is that information lost at that stage?



D: Using guest checkout even with existing account
Most of my customers have forgotten the password by the time they come back. They often also have different addresses,,... I would like them to use the guest checkout for convenience but I noticed that you can only use an email once even with guest checkout.

Is it possible to allow guest checkout even if an account exists and ask the customer on the confirmation page if he like to add that order to his account (and if he like his password to be reset or his details updated with the current order details). I find this important also in regards to Paypal Express checkouts or Google Checkouts.
Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Edward

Hi Jerome,

Thanks for the detailed answer.

In regards to B: I'm talking about cross checking the address when entering it so that the combination of Street, Town and postcodes exists. Currently I do this manually with Google Search. Having the wrong postcode can make an order take weeks to arrive.

C: Good to hear that it is possible.

D: I understand.

Wow! Nice, Nicolas.
Thanks for doing some research here. I'll get the website up and running, make sure that everything runs smooth and then I'll get that done.
Is there anything you would like to see implemented so that it fits your development roadmap?

Regards,

Edward