Users of the PS4 coupon system should pay attention to this!!

I've been working with PS4 for a few days more that a couple of weeks now and for the past several days I've turned my attention to the coupon system. I believe I've found some serious errors in the way it's working. Anyone using PS4 coupons should take a serious look at this before using coupons.

Basically, I've found a number of areas where I think the coupon system falls short of what it should be, but today after running some tests I found some severe problems. After creating two products and two coupons I noticed first that it's only possible to enter one coupon per order. PS4 can't distinguish between multiple coupons. Then I noticed that even after logging out and back in to a user account it maintains the wrong coupon code associated with building a new cart. Then I noticed through testing that removing a coupon and logging out and then back in and building a new cart, it actually was applying a coupon code incorrectly when the coupon code had been removed.

I think it's clear that this could cause some serious problems for a store owner and serious customer service problems. If my tests are correct as I believe they are this needs to be cleared up as soon as possible and everyone using coupons needs to understand the risks involved with using coupons if they do. There's no excuse for a coupon title showing up on the on screen invoice after it's been removed from the system. It also looks as though it's entirely possible for the PS4 coupon system to apply the wrong coupon code to an item. This as well could have serious repercussions to both the purchaser and the store owner.

Personally, I need the coupon system to work!! I'm very disappointed at how weakly it's implemented. I'd like others needing to use the coupon system to please do some further testing of how your installation is reacting to different circumstances and provide some feedback. If this is as bad as it looks it's needs to be addressed immediately before it starts to cause problems.

For those of you using coupons or thinking of using coupons you should know that the coupon code "title" shows up on the screen purchase invoice, but there is nothing on the emailed invoice. The screen invoice states at the top that the purchaser should print out the screen invoice and an email invoice will be mailed to them but the invoices do not reflect the same information entirely. I think this is a flaw and the emailed invoice should appear identical to the screen invoice. Don't see a reason for them to be different.

The other issue I see with the coupon system is the fact that it never actually clears the data row from the coupon table. When a coupon is removed from the system you get a message that it will be deleted and you won't be able to use it again, but the record of it remains in the SQL table. I guess for historical reasons it might make sense to retain the coupon record in the table to compare against old orders but in reality since there is no way to administer the data table from the store manager other than to remove the coupon it means that coupon records continue to collect forever for no reason. Unless you go into the data table with other tools and delete the rows of coupon data manually the table just grows without limits. That however, isn't true with the order table. When you remove an order from the system it actually removes the record from the table.

I need someone from Webassist to take a look at this to see what can be done. I warning any other users of this product as well to test it carefully and make sure you know how it works and what exactly it does and doesn't do. It could potentially really cause problems for a store owner if not worked around carefully.

Would appreciate the utmost of due diligence here. I think this may be a real problem with the code.

Thanks,

~Kim

I am still in the development stage of working on the Power Store 4 solution pack for a client and had not gotten to the point of creating coupons and testing how they are applied.

One of the features that my client has requested is the ability to create different coupons and sales dates for them for different categories of products.

It is also critical for me for this functionality to work with no bugs.

you also have another thread on this same subject that touches on many of the points you raise here.

Please limit yourself to one thread on the subject to limit confusion on the matter.

the coupon system was implemented as a means of offering discounts.

You are correct that any one discount can be applied at any given time.

If you would like to suggest other improvements that you would like to see implemented in the coupon code system, please post to the wishlist forum.

In you other thread, you talk about the coupon name showing incorrectly, the power store files out of the box do not have any code in place to show the coupon name at all. If you see my replay there, i give you code changes to implement to get the coupon code showing in all of the order detail pages as well as the order receipt. I think the issue you are having with the coupon name not showing correctly are coming from changes you have made to get the name showing, the changes i suggest in the other thread do the trick for showing the correct coupon code.


To address your next point on the coupons not being deleted from the coupon table: If they are deleted from the coupon table, the order history pages will not be able to show the coupon used or the discount amount. That information can only be returned if the coupon record is left in the coupon table even though it is not associated with any products.

I think the problem then with the current implementation is the view cart function. Everytime you add a product that is coupon enabled (maybe even not coupon enabled and this is where I think there may be a big problem with the code) it shows an input box for coupon code. It leads one to believe that you can use multiple coupon codes during checkout. Yesterday, I actually logged out as user/purchaser, used storemanager to remove a coupon associated with a product, logged back in as user/purchaser, added the product with no coupon associated and it applied a discount and showed the coupon title on the checkout screen. That's a problem.

~kim

I think the real problem is that the coupon amount is stored in a session variable.

When testing something like coupons where values are stored in sessions, you need to be careful to make sure the session is cleared between tests.


the coupon doe not get cleared when the the user logs out, it gets cleared either when the order goes through or the browser is completely closed.

That's what I was thinking as well. It's beginning to look like that...