The marketplace is no longer notifying developers of e-mail addresses on orders

I discovered yesterday that when developers are notified of orders in the opencart.com marketplace, the customer's e-mail address is not being included. There was no announcement from Daniel about this, so I'm not sure if it's intentional or a bug. I filed an issue on github to get his attention (since that's the quickest way he sees something usually), and hopefully it will get fixed soon.

In the meantime, if you make a purchase in the marketplace and the extension requires some type of license key, you'll need to contact the developer directly to get that. Developers have no method of knowing who customers are any more, so there's no way to reach out to customers after a purchase is made.

Hopefully this will be resolved soon, but if it's an intentional change it's going to be a pretty big headache for developers and customers alike. If the issue is a bug and gets fixed I'll delete this topic, otherwise I'll leave it here so Daniel can get some feedback about the change.

Yes, I am encountering this issue as well. When I tried to export orders in the store back-end, the email address was filled in with just a number. I doubt that it was intentional behavior, most likely it is a bug in some "minor" marketplace changes. It is a major issue we need to have it solved quickly.

OMG, they said they did it intentionally... I cannot believe it. Before these changes I issued license keys and and sent them to customer's email from that order notification. Now, it looks impossible. Does anyone experience similar problems?

Yes, apparently it's intentional. Here is the e-mail for anyone that didn't see it:

Update on the API callback email field

This is a notification to let all the developers and sellers know that we have taken the necessary steps and removed the API callback field.
Therefore, all sellers can use the support system to follow up with buyers. We encourage sellers as well to communicate with buyers through the Opencart forum. This will definitely grow the community and build a strong relationship between developers and clients.
We thank you so much for your continuous support and we are working very hard to improve the Opencart platform.

All the best,
Opencart

This is an incredibly weird thing to send out --- they're making it HARDER for sellers and buyers to communicate, but then say it will "build the relationship". How exactly? And communicate with buyers through the forum...how? Am I just supposed to make a post with someone's marketplace username and say, "Hey, contact me if you see this!"

They also say that sellers can "use the support system" to follow up with buyers. That isn't even possible. Sellers have no way to communicate with buyers until they initiate an inquiry through the opencart.com support system. Buyers that do not know about this change will end up waiting days for license keys, and sellers will have no way to reach out to them.

Daniel basically offered no explanation on github, so I've asked him for his reasons on this. Assuming he's not going to change his mind, this is going to be a pretty big blow to both sellers and buyers in the marketplace. I'm guessing that the goal is to try and drive more buyers to purchase from the marketplace, instead of directly from developers. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually drives MORE buyers to purchase directly from developers , given that they won't have to go through the hassle of manually e-mailing the developer to get a license key every time.

Are we still going to receive API with at least username so that we can get the license validated, otherwise it will be very hard for us to validate the order id. We need at least two unique order detail fields to validate and provide the license key.

With no email in api response, I will have to change the licensing system on my site, and will have to ask customers to enter order id and username for each order before they can add a domain and generate the license code. Although that is not too secure as many a times a customer mentions their order id on extension page comments and their username is visible there. In such cases the information can be stolen.

It is better opencart sends us the order email. That is the secure way to develop licensing system, or opencart should collect domain name before customers buys an extension, and we get the domain name in API.

This is how I currently validate the license system where customers do not receive license code from me through email, rather they generate license code after registering into my site.

https://docs.xtensions.in/license

I agree completely, this is precisely the issue. Username + order ID are the only pieces we can really use for verification now, so hopefully Daniel doesn't remove the username as well. (So far, it's still in the data array.)

As for why Daniel decided to do this, TheCartpenter posted the following in the github discussion: "I already discussed similar matter with him in the past. In order to rectify that situation, to avoid unassociated emails in the support tickets, the emails needs to be regrouped with the sellers' and buyers' automatically right from the start where no other external emails can be regrouped aside from the support team. This way, email notifications will be reduced vs. 3rd party emails on Zendesk as faster notifications could be sent between parties. Right now, I am sure it's still free-for-all which is why it can take an inconsiderable time before buyers / sellers can both receive their response - including follow-ups."

So it sounds like sellers might get access to the customer's e-mail address once they revise the system. Until then, we're stuck with the current situation.

This will create a lot of trouble both for the seller and buyers. At least they should have been informed about this decision and should give 1 to 3 months' time to the seller so that sellers can take necessary steps to the licensing system.

The current OpenCart support system lacks so many necessary features in terms of license validation and it is so hectic for the seller to manually check the details of the purchase every time we provide support to the buyers. Also, the opencart support system is not organized well.

So the latest is: Order notification emails are being sent to sellers, however, the trigger URL is not fired anymore. I think they originally provided the trigger URL so that sellers can integrate the ordering flow with their systems, for some important things like license. Now they have stopped it without giving any reasons, without communicating, without giving an alternative, and without giving any notice period. This is unprofessional behavior.
And if sending unwanted emails by the developer is concerned, he can still implement the trigger using the email piping. So what have Opencart gained exactly?

There was a lengthy discussion happening on GNU/GPL that wasn't really related to the issue of the missing e-mail addresses on order notifications, so I split that discussion into its own topic:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=226085

however, the trigger URL is not fired anymore

I'm still getting the data array via URL, it's just missing the "email" parameter. Are you saying that you're not getting the data array at all? You might want to add some logging, because from what I can tell, the URLs are still working.

Johnathan wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 02, 2021 12:28 am

however, the trigger URL is not fired anymore

I'm still getting the data array via URL, it's just missing the "email" parameter. Are you saying that you're not getting the data array at all? You might want to add some logging, because from what I can tell, the URLs are still working.

well may be, and due to email missing the code is not working anymore so I am not able to see anything as of now.

Based on the decision of removing the email callback API. We are working on everything to make all support go through the support system that we use. A client will be notified from our side and they will contact the developer using the support system. The follow up on the purchases will all be dome through the support system. We are also working on how developers list the extensions on the Opencart marketplace as many are using redirects to their websites.

Ben@OpenCart wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:18 pm

A client will be notified from our side and they will contact the developer using the support system.

So sellers won't be able to initiate contact with the purchaser? We'll have to wait until they contact us for any type of license key generation?

Johnathan wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 02, 2021 9:57 pm

So sellers won't be able to initiate contact with the purchaser? We'll have to wait until they contact us for any type of license key generation?

Yes I think so, sellers were never able to add customer in ticket I think .

Ben@OpenCart wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:18 pm

Based on the decision of removing the email callback API. We are working on everything to make all support go through the support system that we use. A client will be notified from our side and they will contact the developer using the support system. The follow up on the purchases will all be dome through the support system. We are also working on how developers list the extensions on the Opencart marketplace as many are using redirects to their websites.

Also, please ensure the following.
1. 1 license = 1 domain, and the customer is not installing and asking for support for all the domains he wants to use. There should be some validation.
2. Ensure the customer is not able to download the updates once his support or license period is over.
3. Add another price field for renewal.

The good thing right now is that we as developers should focus on working closely with clients through the opencart support system. It seems working really well as now i follow up with them and also the opencart staff are interacting with us.

adilmoreno wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 12, 2021 6:51 am

The good thing right now is that we as developers should focus on working closely with clients through the opencart support system. It seems working really well as now i follow up with them and also the opencart staff are interacting with us.

How is it good? I personally prefer to stay away from OC support system because it's a blast from the past. As others already said, removing email address only makes things worse. I used to add customers to my own database by email, which helped me organize things and check licenses. Now I have to do everything manually, because I still can get an email from default new purchase notification or sale info in my account. Once again OpenCart owners proved that they don't care about developers at all and never listen to community. No matter what developers say, it is always ignored.