B&H shopping cart, cookies, and more

Pamela · April 6, 2007

***mod edit: this was split from the B&H deal code thread, as a somewhat useful tangent***

photobug wrote:

OK, I answered my own question ... this morning I cycled through a few codes and got lucky and ran across this one ... code psjan07026 for this lens (at $1599).

And of course, free shipping for NAPP members ;-).

Im not happy with BH photo right now, I had a camera body and lens in my shopping cart with the discount code- and they must have emptied my cart.

I have been saving for this for a while, now I wont be able to even get it for that price. Why on earth would they empty the cart?
The body alone went up $50 .
:dunno

esc2476 · April 6, 2007

My guess would be that the shopping cart expires after a set amount of time.

Pamela · April 6, 2007

esc2476 wrote:

My guess would be that the shopping cart expires after a set amount of time.

I thought the same thing, so every few days or so I would go back to cart and check it.

DoctorIt · April 6, 2007

Pamela wrote:

I thought the same thing, so every few days or so I would go back to cart and check it.

They're also not accepting orders right now, it's Passover break for them.

rather than the cart, they have a wishlist option that I've used in the past for keeping track of stuff.

Hindsight · April 6, 2007

Pamela wrote:

Im not happy with BH photo right now, I had a camera body and lens in my shopping cart with the discount code- and they must have emptied my cart.

I have been saving for this for a while, now I wont be able to even get it for that price. Why on earth would they empty the cart?
The body alone went up $50 .

Just playing devils advocate here, but if you put stuff in a cart at Bob's Photo and came back in a month would you expect to still get it at that price? On the other hand, I didn't know you could do that at all at B&H, and will definitely do so in the future.

photobug · April 6, 2007

esc2476 wrote:

My guess would be that the shopping cart expires after a set amount of time.

It does ... everyone except Amazon seems to empty shopping carts way too soon for my taste. So of course Amazon ends up with more of my business...

David_S85 · April 7, 2007

A shopping cart is nothing more that a cookie stored locally on your machine. They can and do expire. Most are 30 days. You can look at the expiration date with your browser's tools options. Look for a filename with (usually) the company's or website's name and a .txt extension.

photobug · April 7, 2007

David_S85 wrote:

A shopping cart is nothing more that a cookie stored locally on your machine. They can and do expire. Most are 30 days.

Right -- but a shopping cart at Amazon is not just a cookie on your machine; it's different, it's kept at Amazon. It has a very, very long expiration period (if it expires at all). I've kept items in my Amazon shopping cart (or saved portion of the shopping cart) for probably a year without loss.

David_S85 · April 7, 2007

Still, their history of your purchases at home base is tied to your account by looking for the presence of an active cookie on your machine. Remove the cookie, and they can't greet you by name upon main page visit until you log in. Its cookie driven either way (and possibly also kept in the .log file elsewhere as a hidden file).

Remember though, the main difference between places like B&H and Amazon is that Amazon, Google and Yahoo are all vying to rule the Earth and turn us into mindless zombie slaves.

Mike Lane · April 7, 2007

David_S85 wrote:

Remember though, the main difference between places like B&H and Amazon is that Amazon, Google and Yahoo are all vying to rule the Earth and turn us into mindless zombie slaves.

I for one welcome our new internet overlords.

Andy · April 7, 2007

Pamela wrote:

***mod edit: this was split from the B&H deal code thread, as a somewhat useful tangent***

Im not happy with BH photo right now, I had a camera body and lens in my shopping cart with the discount code- and they must have emptied my cart.

I have been saving for this for a while, now I wont be able to even get it for that price. Why on earth would they empty the cart?
The body alone went up $50 .

Oh just wait till Passover holidays are over, and see what happens.

If you have trouble, write to them, and tell them what happened. I've never, ever not known them to do the right thing. They're good people. The best in the photography retail world, period.

RandySmugMug · April 7, 2007

Pamela wrote:

***mod edit: this was split from the B&H deal code thread, as a somewhat useful tangent***

Im not happy with BH photo right now, I had a camera body and lens in my shopping cart with the discount code- and they must have emptied my cart.

I have been saving for this for a while, now I wont be able to even get it for that price. Why on earth would they empty the cart?
The body alone went up $50 .

that is normal for the cart...use the wish list, items stay there indef

Terrence · April 7, 2007

If you are relying on a shopping cart to lock in a discounted price, you better find out how long the cart contents will be maintained. Comparing how B&H works to Amazon makes no sense. They are different companies with different policies. Just because they sell on the Internet does not mean they all use the same rules.

Like Andy said, give 'em a call after the holidays are over and I bet you'll be satisfied with their response.

Ric Grupe · April 7, 2007

Just research and put it in a wish list. I just searched and the price was the same ($1599)

kdog · April 7, 2007

David_S85 wrote:

A shopping cart is nothing more that a cookie stored locally on your machine. They can and do expire. Most are 30 days. You can look at the expiration date with your browser's tools options. Look for a filename with (usually) the company's or website's name and a .txt extension.

Sorry, but this isn't true at all. A shopping cart is information that's stored in the vendor's database and associated with a user account. Implementing a shopping cart as a browser cookie would be a remarkably bad idea because it would tie your shopping cart to a single computer (and a single browser installation within that computer.) There are also practical problems in that cookies have a maximum size, and your shopping cart might exceed that size.

Cookies are most often used in eCommerce as a way to maintain session information so that your login persists between page views. These days, another technique called URL rewriting is used as an alternative technique to maintain sessions. So you can happily shop on either B&H or Amazon on a browser that has cookies completely disabled.

The reason shopping carts time out is a policy decision by the vendor. Shopping carts occupy server space and it's reasonable for a vendor to clean up abandoned shopping carts to reclaim server space. Plus, it's unreasonable to expect a vendor to honor a particular price on an item forever.

Cheers,
-joel

Pamela · April 7, 2007

Andy wrote:

Oh just wait till Passover holidays are over, and see what happens.

If you have trouble, write to them, and tell them what happened. I've never, ever not known them to do the right thing. They're good people. The best in the photography retail world, period.

Andy

I know your right.
I have been working so hard to save for these items.

To set the record straight-

BH Photo is a very good company to do business with.
I have been buying from them since 1992.
Not once have I had any problems with them.
As a matter of fact they are the only company I buy from.
I dont want others to think differently, I was blowing off steam.:D

henryp · April 11, 2007

Pamela wrote:

Im not happy with BH photo right now, I had a camera body and lens in my shopping cart with the discount code- and they must have emptied my cart.

I am sorry we irked you. Let me know (via email) what you're after and I'll see if I can reconstitute the order for you w/codes.

dogwood · April 11, 2007

Andy wrote:

Oh just wait till Passover holidays are over, and see what happens.

If you have trouble, write to them, and tell them what happened. I've never, ever not known them to do the right thing. They're good people. The best in the photography retail world, period.

Yeah, I think the post just above this validates Andy's claim!

Just have to echo-- it's amazing these days when a company can not only hold their own against amazon and the other internet overlords, but can still do it better and with real-life people who participate in forums. Dgrin isn't the only forum I've seen Henry helping folks out. Haven't ever seen amazon do that though...

chopsky · April 11, 2007

dogwood wrote:

Yeah, I think the post just above this validates Andy's claim!

Just have to echo-- it's amazing these days when a company can not only hold their own against amazon and the other internet overlords, but can still do it better and with real-life people who participate in forums. Dgrin isn't the only forum I've seen Henry helping folks out. Haven't ever seen amazon do that though...

I just bought my dSLR kit from B&H a couple weeks ago.
Went to the store to see exactly what I wanted and what I was getting, ordered it online and had it shipped to the address I would be at in California.
Overall I was fairly satisfied with the experience. Everything went off without a hitch.
My only complaint would be the store experience itself. Whilst the store is absolutely incredible, the help I received was sub-par.
The salesman seemed to care less for me or my sale. It's a VERY good thing that I went in with a good idea of what I wanted. Trying to get his opinion on my purchase was like sucking water from a stone, and the whole time I dealt with him, he was speaking to other people and doing other things around him (i.e. not giving me much attention).

Other than that, I was satisfied with the B&H experience.

Cheers

brandofamily · April 11, 2007

Henry... sorry to hi-jack this thread, but I had another irk-ish incident...
I posted over at Fred Miranda.com
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/526215
here's my post...

"So as you probably know B&H was closed for holidays. I check the site and it shows the Nikon 18-200 vr "IN STOCK" again during the holiday. So I load up my cart and wait... they reopen at 8:45 pm last night for internet orders so I pounce seconds after they reopen. In less than 60 seconds, more like 30 seconds, I hit the complete order button. And I get the red screen... "Item out of stock, Item has been removed from your cart."
What the....???"

Any thoughts...

Pamela · April 11, 2007

henryp wrote:

I am sorry we irked you. Let me know (via email) what you're after and I'll see if I can reconstitute the order for you w/codes.

I just got back from Driving 500 miles in a 24 hr period to find this reply.

OMG - Im so embarrassed!

Henry
Im at a loss for words. I was a little steamed at the time .
I have typed a paragraph 4 times and erased every one of them. I dont
know what to say. I never thought about you seeing this. And needing sleep doesnt help my thoughts.

One thing before I go and get some sleep
I take care of all photography at work including ordering equipment
and never have had one problem with a order ( including ordering xmas gifts for employees). What a great success rate!

Thank you Henry

B&H shopping cart, cookies, and more

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