Please test: Buy digital market threads without logging in

In the past, you had to be logged in to permies if you want to buy something from the digital market. But from today, anyone can buy stuff from our digital market and they don't have to have a permies account.

Well, technically, you'd still need a permies account, but only after you make the payment on paypal. In other words, if you are not logged in to permies, you can go to any digital market thread and continue to buy access. It takes you to Paypal and processes funds. Then it will take you back to permies, at which point you will be asked to sign up or log in to permies. When you sign up for a new account (or log in with your existing account), it will automatically set your account up with the stuff that you purchased.

After you make the payment on Paypal, you will have one hour to sign up or log in. But if your browser crashes or you want to sign up later, still no problem - it will automatically send a unique link to the email associated with your paypal account, and you can follow that link to create your account whenever you want.

So, simply put, instead of first requiring to log in and then taking you to paypal (as we used to do), the new software now takes you to paypal first and will then require you to log in / sign up.

I think this would need a lot of testing to see if this is working properly.  Who wants to help us with testing this?

I set the "rocket mass heater care and feeding microdoc" to $1 for testing this.

https://permies.com/wiki/51811

There are two big tests for this:


TEST 1:

Start from being not logged in.  Buy the item and then log in.  Did everything go smoothly?



TEST 2:

Pretend that you have never had a permies.com account before.   Buy the item and then create a new account.   Note that to create a new account you will need a different email address.  Did everything go smoothly?



When you have done the test, please tell us all the details of how it went in this thread.

Success and smooth enough.

From email>Sept.23 post in Please Test: Buy Without Log In>Clicked on link/51811>Nov.26, 2015 post Care and Feeding of...>PayPal option>From PayPal clicked "continue">Asked me to Log in or Sign up to Permies>Logged in>Checked messages: #1Permies: You made a purchase in guest mode. To complete log in or Sign up (I already had). Msg#2: PayPal receipt. Msg#3: Gir bot loves me. Here's my purchase. "I love you too Gir."

Hope that helps.

Both purchases done with paypal and they both went very smoothly.  The receipt and notifications were sent promptly and the video was available in both tests.

I did test #1. Clicked the link to buy with PayPal. Bought with PayPal. Was returned to a permies.com "Please log in or join Permies to complete this transaction" page. Clicked login and logged in. Thereupon was a bit of a glitch in my humble opinion, it dumped me onto the main forum page rather than back to the page with the video I (the hypothetical innocent customer) wanted. Since I been aroun the block a time or two I deftly managed to navigate back to the page I wanted, which was not too hard as it was number 3 or 4 on the main forum page at the time. But if I had arrived from an external link and was not familiar with permies.com and its structure, I might be totally lost and perhaps royally pissed. Anyway, once I found my way back to the page I was able to play the lovely video with no probs.

Another small fix I might recommend. I detest streaming and download everything. I see there is a download option you set to $4.00. I would have appreciated being beaten over the head with the fact that what I was paying for was a streaming option, which I would have turned up my nose at, and being given, right then and there at decision-to-purchase time, a really really blunt-instrument-to-the-forehead obvious choice of getting the download option, which I would have gone for.

Hope this helps dominate the world.

Done, same result as Dave, as taken to main permies page after paypal purchase and then signing in, went into 'my stuff' to see purchase history. And there it is. Would also have prefered to buy download rather than live stream, well maybe i will learn to read before leaping in
I went with the first link 1 rather than the gifting option link 1. Just because. Booyah
Also, i got an email, with a link to watch the purchased vid, into my permies account linked email, not in my paypal linked email, so thats a winner. Though i did get one into paypal email too, asking me to sign up to watch...

I clicked the link in the email. Then clicked the link in the thread. That made PayPal do it's work then brought me back to the forum page. I clicked on Login. It took me to the login page. I didn't find the video in My Stuff. Maybe I was too early. I don't much care for clicking and pecking around (and around). I went back to the email and followed the link. The video showed up no need to log in again. I watched it. I started this reply.
Step 2.
I clicked the link in the email. I tried to play the video. PayPal did it's thing and took me back to the forum thread asking me to login or sign up. I signed up. It asked me to use a different name since mine was already in use. I made up some Daffy thing. I had to wait for an activation email. That brought me to a page about me. I didn't see a link to the thing I just bought. I didn't see a My Stuff link. I clicked on Bookmarks and Watches. There was nothing there. But there was a My Stuff link on that page. I clicked it and found my Video Link. I let it play while fixing up a snack.

I think it was all pretty smooth. And I gave up 2 and a half Canadian bucks for the cause.

Evangelize!

I think we are learning two really important things:

#1:  when the login or signup is complete, the user needs to end up back at their purchase.  

#2:  when the purchase is complete, and the login/signup is complete, the user should be able to click on "my stuff" and see their stuff.  


Anything else?