AEDI Online Shop beta – Issues with WooCommerce

We have transitioned our website’s online shop, AEDI Online Shop, from the alpha phase to the beta phase.

Here are the changes made during the transition from alpha to beta:

• Adjustment of design and layout
• Automatic issuance of post-order emails (invoice/receipt)
• Provision of delivery note, order form, and receipt in PDF format (if requested)
• Support for emails and PDF documents in both Japanese and English
• Restriction of payment method to Stripe (original) instead of WooPayments (Stripe Express)
• Addition of Amazon Pay as a payment method (February 21, 2024)

Two issues arose during the transition to the beta phase.

1. Some customers may not receive emails after placing an order.
2. In the WordPress admin interface within WooCommerce, customer names are not displayed in the Japanese surname-first name order.

The first issue concerns the possibility that customers may not receive emails after placing an order.

Despite configuring WooCommerce email settings, such as sending an “Order Processing” email automatically when a customer places an order and manually changing the status to “Completed” to trigger a “Order Completed” email, some cases experienced non-delivery of emails even with these settings in place.

The solution to this problem was found in the WooCommerce email settings page, where it was suggested to install the “WP Mail Logging” plugin. However, this plugin, while keeping email logs, does not directly address the issue. Instead, installing the “WP Mail SMTP” plugin, as recommended within WP Mail Logging, resolved the problem. The WP Mail SMTP plugin customizes email sending in WordPress using SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), enhancing reliability over the standard WordPress email functionality. Using SMTP reduces the likelihood of WordPress emails being marked as spam on some servers.

Below are the settings configured for WP Mail SMTP by our company. Please note that the email address, SMTP host, SMTP port, SMTP username, and password are placeholders.

• Sender Email Address: info@example.com
• Force From Email: Off
• Sender Name: Example Inc.
• Force From Path: Off
• Mailer: Other SMTP
• SMTP Host: smtp.example.com
• Encryption: SSL
• SMTP Port: 123
• Automate TLS: On
• Authentication: On
• SMTP Username: info@example.com
• SMTP Password: P@ssw0rd

However, even with WP Mail SMTP installed, there were instances where emails were not sent. In such cases, reviewing the logs and manually changing the order status allowed us to resend the emails.

The second issue involves the incorrect display of customer names in the WordPress admin interface within WooCommerce, where the customer’s first name is listed before their last name, contrary to the Japanese surname-first name order.

When inquired about this issue on January 18, 2024, in the WordPress.org WooCommerce plugin forum, it was stated that supporting code customization is not possible due to policy. Instead, we were directed to the WooCommerce Community Slack’s #developers channel, where, as of January 24, 2024, no response has been received. A previous inquiry with Stripe via phone suggested that this is a WordPress issue.

Research also revealed a similar question in the forum of the “Japanized For WooCommerce” plugin, a plugin for localizing WooCommerce in Japanese. The answer indicated that it’s a WordPress core issue, and currently, the default behavior of WordPress. We may have to patiently wait for a WordPress update to address this.

We plan to continue researching this matter. In the meantime, when exporting data from WooCommerce, we will modify the outputted spreadsheet to correct the order of names as needed.

If you have a solution or know how to resolve this issue after reading this article, please feel free to contact us. Thank you in advance.

The preparation for the online shop is complete.

Now, onto creating products.

We understand it might seem odd that there are no products yet, but we are determined to work hard and create them!