Hide Calculate Shipping/Tax button

[biomedware]

None of our products require shipping, but they do require an address. Following the guide to set shipping to zero for all products, the "Calculate Shipping/Tax" button remains on the cart.

Since clicking the button has no effect, we'd like to hide the button.

Following an older forum post, it appears there used to be a way to hook into the cart shown event

Minicart

The basic pattern is the above link, as well as a few other posts, is to use hook into the e-junkie cart:

function EJEJC_config() { 
    EJEJC_POSTCALL=true 
}

function EJEJC_shown() { 
    // do stuff 
}

After a bit of testing, it appears these entry points are no longer provided. Is there a new method of wiring up to the cart shown event?

[E-junkie_Guru]

The customization code you referenced was from our classic cart, which was deprecated several years ago when we rolled out our current cart.

When any item(s) that require tax and/or a buyer's shipping address are in a buyer's cart, the cart will require them to specify their country and postal code for tax/shipping calculation.

There is no way to override that requirement, but you can at least customize the text label on the Calculate Tax / Shipping button to say something else like, say, Set your location.

That can be done in your E-junkie Dashboard under Manage Cart & Shop > Cart Preferences, or you could do it with our current cart-customization javascript in your own sales page, as documented here:

Customizing E-junkie Shopping Cart

As another alternative, you might use our Buy Now buttons which skip the cart to take buyers directly to instant checkout for a single item. As such, Buy Nows can't use any features that depend on the cart such as tax/shipping calculation, but they will still trigger collection of a shipping address during checkout for items that require one.

[biomedware]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I've read through the docs and understand the country/postal code requirement when requiring addresses. The underlying UX issue is clicking the button has zero effect, unless I'm missing something?

With the ability to programmatically get the cart quantity, it seems like we should also have the ability to access the cart's dom.

I've been asked several times by our team why we have to even display that button, even if we change the text. Is there something I'm not quite understanding about what occurs if you click the button?

[E-junkie_Guru]

Clicking the Calculate Tax / Shipping button sets browser cookies to store the buyer's stated country and postal code, and runs any tax/shipping calculation you may have set up -- in your case, you should see a new line appear in the cart for Shipping with an amount of 0.00. You can also customize that Shipping text label in Cart Preferences if you wish.

The cart DOM is not directly accessible by any client-side scripting in your page because the cart is rendered as a separate page embedded into yours via an IFRAME element. This approach is for the sake of security and also to prevent any CSS/JS in your page from inadvertently messing up the cart layout (something which had increasingly become a problem in our original cart which appended itself to the sales page's DOM directly).

[biomedware]

I just tested; cleared out all cookies, first.

1. Added an item to the cart, the zip field was empty.
2. Clicked check-out and was prompted to fill in the zip.
3. Filled in the zip and clicked check out again (did not click shipping/tax)
4. The cart then moved to the check-out view.

Given I was able to checkout without having to click the "shipping/tax" button, I'm still not sure what the purpose is for a zero-dollar transaction. We have already changed the text on the button, but it would a much cleaner user experience if the button sas able to be hidden.

The changes e-junkie made to the cart to prevent a site's styling/scripting from effecting the e-junkie cart makes sense. As e-junkie already allows access to some of the e-junkie JS objects, it would be a nice addition to expose the DOM via a child of the already exposed e-junkie JS objects.

As always, appreciate the replies and detailed information. Thanks!

[E-junkie_Guru]

1. Added an item to the cart, the zip field was empty.
2. Clicked check-out and was prompted to fill in the zip.
3. Filled in the zip and clicked check out again (did not click shipping/tax)
4. The cart then moved to the check-out view.

Hm, I tried reproducing those steps, even with a 0.00 item price and shipping charge (since you mentioned a zero-dollar transaction), but after typing the ZIP code and clicking the Free Checkout button, I was not taken directly to checkout; rather, the cart updated to show Shipping of 0.00, and then I was able to proceed to checkout.

Note that clicking the Calculate Tax / Shipping button is not the only way to apply the buyer's specified country and postal code. Entering a postal code and then hitting Return/Enter, or hitting Tab, or clicking anywhere outside the postal code field, will also apply the country/postal, display any calculated Shipping/Tax accordingly, and allow the buyer to proceed to checkout.

[biomedware]

Thank you for the follow up. From a user experience, I think it could be improved by simply eliminating the button for this use-case. Cheers!