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In B2B business, the starting point is almost always a business relationship rather than a spontaneous purchase. This raises two questions a B2C shop does not face: How does a buyer who has already logged in elsewhere get into the shop? And what may someone see and do who is not yet a customer at all? There is a function for each.

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Login via an external portal

Shop Portal With the SingleSignOn interface, the user does not log in to the shop but to a portal. There they are verified and approved. If they then follow a link from there into the shop, they are logged in automatically. Technically, it works like this: When the shop is called, the portal passes a unique identifier. The shop uses it to retrieve the email address the user logged in to the portal with. If the shop finds this address in its customer database, the user is logged in.
Two prerequisites, and both lie outside of template work:
  • The function must be activated by WEBSALE technical staff.
  • The email address and all customer data, including billing and delivery address, must be imported into the shop database beforehand. The shop does not create an account this way, it only finds one.
The identifier passed by the portal expires after two hours. After that, an old link from an email leads to the error page and not into the shop.
After you place the order, WEBSALE stores the special address of your shop in the portal. The identifier is passed as a parameter via this address.

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Step 2: Assign an error template

If something goes wrong, i.e. an invalid identifier, an unknown email address, an expired identifier or an internal error, the user lands on a page of your choice.

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Step 3: Create the error template

Create it under the assigned name in your template directory.
The way back to the portal belongs on this page. Anyone who lands here is not logged in to the shop and cannot get any further via the shop navigation. Without this link, the page is a dead end.
Reference: Section MKForumSSO

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Opening the basket only to logged-in buyers

A semi-closed shop shows its product range to everyone but only lets logged-in buyers order. There are two mutually reinforcing reasons for this:
  • Future trading partners can get an overview of the product range before deciding to work together.
  • Categories and products remain reachable for search engines and get indexed. A completely closed shop is invisible to search engines.
Login is required only when adding to the basket and in the checkout process.

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Step 1: Enable the function

Activation by WEBSALE is not required.
The check is only whether any customer is logged in at all. Anyone who is logged in may add products, everyone else may not.

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Step 2: Define the message

If someone tries anyway, for example via a direct link, the shop shows this message.
The message may contain HTML. Use this for the link to the login, otherwise the visitor knows what is missing but not where to go next.

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Step 3: Switch the buttons

The message alone is not enough. An order button that does not work anyway should not be on the page in the first place.
This bracketing belongs on all templates with an order button, i.e. not only the product detail view but also product overview pages, search results and anywhere else you offer direct ordering.
Reference: Section OrderConditions · Section NotifyMessages-Txt · ST-LoggedIn · WS-LoginLink
  • Guide: Login and registration
  • Guide: Customer account
  • Guide: Direct ordering