Customer Profile and Addressfield questions
Several things are missing from the ordering forms for customers.
Shipping requires ways for people to be specific about locations for shipment.
Customers expect computerized assistance.
The USPS has a widget popup form to assist people to find zipcodes by address, which is good. I'm not sure about Canada and other countries having similar tools from their postal systems, This is very efficient tool and the information the user receives it competent for using in shipments.
Phone Numbers are important, UPS,USPS,FedEx and almost all shippers want phone numbers. Phone number verify/validation is important, just assurance of a working phone number is generally enough.
Email addresses are important for seller, buyer and recipient, Often, people cannot be reached on a timely basis and email is a great help to provide information needed.
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I spent the day yesterday trying to resolve some of these issues associated with the above requirements. No solution, in fact, I concluded by just removing and reinstalling kickstart2. Yes, part of the problem was poorly documented modules I tried. The billing profile got corrupted and I couldn't find a fix.
Now, I've concluded to share with others and hopefully get information to handle the above requirements. I am sure there are probably solutions, possibly with some workarounds.
If you have solutions for one or more of the above I would appreciate to read them.
Comments
At the risk of poking a sleeping bear, I thought a reply might go a long way in explaining our thinking at Commerce Guys. I really like to use analogies because they skip over emotions and typically get straight to the point. Here it goes:
No one blames Lego for not giving them enough blocks to build their very custom one of a kind idea.
What we've built with Drupal Commerce is not only free, it's open source. We want it to be legitimately flexible, which means unopinionated and in many cases a framework to build upon, not a complete out of the box solution full of stringent workflows. Could we improve it? YES. We are constantly looking at and accepting community-supplied patches and ideas over on drupal.org.
Contact us directly if you have more ideas on how we might be able to keep our flexibility but also "streamline" the workflows that matter to you. Ultimately, we want to encourage store builders to create a backend for their merchants that is as customized as the front end is for the customers.