Getting Started
To download and run Cart Control you must first create an account or login if you
already have an account.
Upon successful login you need to click the
"Download and Install" link from the Download page.
Once the setup is completed, the Cart Control application will run automatically. Setup will also add a
link to your desktop and in the Start menu (Start > All Programs > Alloken, LLC > Cart Control)
that you can use to run Cart Control in the furture.
Logging In
The first thing you'll see is the login window:
Enter the username and password you used to register Cart Control then click the
"Login" button. If you forget your password you can click the "Lost Password?" link
which will step you through the process of creating a new password.
The Main Window
After the Cart Control application has verified your account you will see the main window.
The first time you use Cart Control you will see a Welcome Screen in front of the main window.
This screen can be turned off using the check box in the lower left corner of the window, or by using
the Help|Show welcome at startup menu item.
The main Cart Control window is shown below.
The main window of Cart Control is where you enter the ISBN, Max Price, and Quantity information
for each textbook you wish to shop for.
Creating a Book List
You may load a comma separated value (.CSV) file containing any number of different textbooks,
or you may enter the data by hand directly into the book list on the left hand side of the main window.
To open an existing .CSV file, use the File > Open... menu item. A valid .CSV file can be
created using any text editor (such as notepad.exe), or can be exported from a spreadsheet, and
should consist of 3 columns of data separated by commas. Each line should contain information
about one title only, and all fields are necessary. The first column should contain the ISBN
of the textbook, the second column the number of copies needed for that title, and the third column
the maximum price you are willing to pay for each copy (not including shipping). Note that the order
of these columns differs from the order in which they appear in the on-screen list.
If you wish, Cart Control can attempt to suggest a maximum price for any or all of the titles in your list.
For any titles that you want Cart Control to calculate the maximum price, set the maximum price to zero
and click the 'Suggest Max Prices' button. Books purchased through our affiliates are non-returnable just like
books purchased from students at buyback. For this reason, Alloken suggests a maximum price set at a normal
buyback price minus the standard Amazon shipping price of $3.99. Cart Control assumes a 50% buyback price, and
so will suggest a maximum price of 50% of the list price of the book minus the estimated shipping cost. For
example, if the list price of a particular textbook is $100, Cart Control would suggest a maximum price of
$100 * 0.5 - $3.99 = $46.01. For some books a list price is unavailable, or the market price is much lower
than the list price. In these cases Cart Control will not suggest a maximum price and so will leave the
maximum price field at zero. In these cases you must determine a maximum price on your own.
Note that Cart Control will not add books with a zero maximum price to your cart.
Building Carts
Once you are satisfied with the book list, click the 'Build Carts' button to create one or more carts
containing the specified books. Amazon allows a maximum of fifty titles per cart, so if your list
contains more than fifty titles we may create multiple carts. Another factor regarding cart size is the
purchasing process of your credit card company. Due to fraud alerts, some credit card companies may not
allow you to purchase a large number of individual items in bulk. Contact your credit card company if
you experience problems. Once Cart Control has finished building the carts they will be displayed in the
list on the right-hand-side of the screen.
In the above screenshot one row is shown representing the single cart that was built. If you click the
'Click to visit retailer' link you are taken to the Amazon.com website where you can complete your
purchase of that cart. The total, excluding shipping, is also shown for each cart. If you click the small
plus sign to the left of the cart link, the cart row expands to show the contents of the cart.
This view allows you to see the seller, price, and description for each book that has been added to the
cart. If you want to remove a book from the cart you must do that during the purchase process at the
Amazon.com website.
You may find that not all the books in your list have been added to a cart. This can occur for one
of several reasons. We may not have been able to find the book at or below the maximum price you specified.
The description of the books that were available may have included one or more stop words. The seller of
a book may have been listed in the stop sellers list. The seller of a book may not have had a high enough
seller rating. For details on stop words, the stop sellers list, and specifying a minimum seller rating, see
Setting Preferences
You may make changes to the list of books or your preferences and rebuild your carts by clicking the 'Build Carts'
button again. This creates an entirely new set of carts. Since the books available at any retailer may change
by the second, carts can change from one button push to the next. Remember that actual carts are not made at
the retailer's site until you follow the cart link. This means that between the time Cart Control prepares the
list of books to be added to the cart and when you follow the cart link to the retailer's site, the books
available might change and not all books may therefore appear in the final cart. For this reason you should
follow the cart link to the retailers site promptly after building the cart list.
The preferences dialog allows you to control which books may get added to a cart. You do not need to set the
preferences, the defaults are sufficient to start using Cart Control.
The preferences provide three ways to control which books get added to a cart: stop words, the stop sellers list,
and the minimum seller rating.
Stop Words
The stop words list is used to filter books based on the seller's description of the book. Any book whose
description contains one or more of the stop words will not be added to a cart. For example, if the word
"water" is in the stop word list and the book description contains the phrase "water damage", that book
will not be added to a cart. Note that the comparison is not case sensitive ("water" and "Water" are the same),
and that parts of words in the description will also be matched. For example, a description containing the
word "Waterfall" would be excluded by the stop word "water". You can add new words by clicking the top
row of the "Stop Words" list (click to the right of the plus sign), typing in the word and hitting enter.
You can delete words by clicking in the margin to the left of the word and hitting the delete button on your
keyboard.
Stop Sellers
The stop sellers list is used to filter books based on the seller's name. To exclude books by a seller, include
the exact name of the seller as it appears on Amazon.com. Books sold by the sellers included in this list will
never be added to a cart. The seller name is also case-insensitive. You can add new sellers to the list by clicking
the top row of the "Stop Sellers" list (click to the right of the plus sign), typing in the name of the seller
and hitting enter. You can delete sellers by clicking in the margin to the left of the word and hitting the delete
button on your keyboard.
Seller Ratings
You can also filter books based on the rating of the seller. The seller's rating on Amazon.com is converter from
zero to five stars to a percentage rating (4-stars = 80%). You can specifiy a minimum seller rating by selecting
the "Use minimum seller rating" checkbox and entering a minimum percentage rating in the small edit box below the
checkbox. Any books being sold by a seller whose rating is below this value will not be added to your carts. The
ratings are given by various web sites in reponse to customer feedback. Alloken can't guarantee any reseller's
performance, but you can minimize risk by sticking with high ratings.
Your preferences are saved when you click the OK button to close the preferences dialog and will be used whenever you
run Cart Control. You can return all values to there initial defaults by clicking the 'Reset to defaults' button.
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