Customer can't use same email for more than 1 membership

[MikeM]

I got the emember working on my site, but have a small problem. I am selling my software products, and delivering through the membership plugin, but if a customer comes back and buys a second software, they can’t create a user account with the same email or login they used the first time.

Is there a way to fix this so they can do this and then have access to more than 1 membership with the same credentials?

Also when doing a paypal refund, the customer is removed from estore, but are still active in emember. Do I have to de-activate them manually?

Thanks.

MikeM

[amin007]

This is a WordPress requirement that every email in the system have to be unique for every user. Why, do the member need to have multiple accounts? If I see what you are trying to do then I can maybe suggest a way to achieve this.

When I first designed it, the membership payments were only meant to be via subscription payments (usually membership site mean subscription payment). Later I added the option to pay via “Buy Now” button for a once off membership fee. The refund API for the “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” button haven’t been hooked to the membership one. Only the subscription payments are hooked so when someone cancels a subscription it will automatically deactivate the member account.

[MikeM]

I have a number of software products and am using the membership plugin for delivering them. That way when I do an upgrade, all the purchaser needs to do is login and download the latest version.

The problem occurs when a customer buys software A and then later comes back and buys software B. They can’t use their email to login to get software B and can’t create a new account with the same email. So they would need a second email for that. And then if they buy software C later, they are in more trouble cause now they need a third email address.

Maybe I am trying to use it for something for which it wasn’t designed.

Thanks.

MikeM

[amin007]

The idea of a different membership account on a per product basis sounds a little wrong. even if you could register multiple membership account with the same email address it still means the member have to maintain 10 different accounts if they purchased 10 products. I don’t know… maybe it’s necessary for your case but I think there is a better way to do it.

You could make it so customers can only purchase from you if they are a member (even if it’s free membership)? All it does is makes them register an account. Now, when they makes normal product purchase via eStore the purchase record will be there.

You could then display a purchase history on a page… so when this member log in he can see all the products he purchased. (I have recently added this purchase history display option). You can learn all about it here:

How to Display a Member’s Purchase History

I am sure with a bit of tweak we can make it so the member can click a link or a button in the purchase history which lets them download that product too?

This way every member has one central location where all of their purchases are nicely listed.

[MikeM]

Yes, exactly. I don’t want a customer to have 10 different memberships. I want them to be able to access all their purchases through 1 membership, but this can’t seem to be done right now. They should be able to make their first purchase, create their account, and have access to the first software. Then when they buy a second software, when they log into their account, that download page should be available to them, as well as the one for their first purchase.

I just did a test buy now and the product for the customer changed to the one they just purchased and they have lost access to the first one. So at this point, I am stuck with trying to do something I can’t

MikeM

[amin007]

“this can’t seem to be done right now” – why not? You just have to protect the “Buy” buttons so only members can see it and purchase it. You can use the section protection feature of eMember to only protect the “Buy” buttons or protect the entire post (it’s upto you) but let the visitors know that they have to be a member and be logged in to be able to purchase (hiding the buttons will ensure this).

Now, you can charge the customers to become a member or let them join free. Once a visitor becomes a member they can see all the “Buy” buttons and make purchase. Every purchase they make will be recorded and can be viewed from the “Purchase History” page.

The only modification you will need is let the member download the purchased product from the “Purchase history” page but this shouldn’t be that hard of a customization.

[MikeM]

Your scenario may work, but the first problem is getting people to buy in the first place and forcing them to join may make that first sale even harder. As you know, customers are lazy, so unless they are dying to get my software, they may not take that step and will move on to something easier for them.

I did a test buy while being logged in, and the only thing that changed was I could download the second product, but now I couldn’t download the first. Is there no way to just add what ever membership they purchase to their account so they would now have access to 2 memberships, or 3, or however many they bought? This would be the more ideal way.

Thanks.

MikeM

[amin007]

Remember, we have the unique email address requirement in the eMember because of the fact that WordPress requires this. So, if you are not using the “WordPress user integration” feature of eMember then technically you should be able to take out the unique email address check from eMember’s registration form and it will let a customer have multiple membership with one email.

To do this I think you only need to remove the following code from the “” function in the “eMember_misc_functions.php” file:

else if(email_exists($_POST['aemail'])||emember_email_exists($_POST['aemail']))

{

$output .= eMember_reg_form();

$output .= '<span style="color:red">'.EMEMBER_EMAIL_TAKEN.'</span>';

}

Once you go down this page you can never use the “WordPress User Integration” feature as things will fail miserably as WordPress do not like the idea of different user account with same email.

[MikeM]

This post is a little old, but I still need customers to be able to access more than 1 membership at a time to download different software products they purchase. In wishlist member, the second or third product membership just gets added to the customers current one under the same registration. If they purchase product A, then later purchase product B, they are given access to both. And as you indicate earlier, they do not get a new membership account for each product, just access to each membership. Is this possible?

Otherwise, you said customers could download from the purchase history page. Can you tell me how to make that possible.

Thanks.

Mike Murphy

[amin007]

We have added a new feature to eMember to allow one member to be part of multiple memberships. This feature is still being tested so you will need to wait a few days before getting a new build.

[Author]

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