Opinion wanted: handling the VAT number field

[Traumflug]

In many countries, the VAT number plays a substantial role regarding tax handling. And there are hints that people don't find the field to enter this number intuitively. It's on the page where customers add/edit their address.

This is current behavior, the field is entirely hidden/removed with no company name entered, no hint on its exsistence:

New, proposed behavior is to not hide, but dim the field. This way people get aware it exists, but it's also a bit a distraction for non-company customers, of course:

With a company name entered, both look the same, field fully visible and usable.

What do you think? Is the proposed change an improvement or a step backwards?

P.S.: The change is pure JavaScript, so themes can override it easily. And please don't ask for a back office switch to change between both, there are currently more important things waiting.

[DaoKakao]

I seen something similar in some russian internet-shops, usually it implemented as a checkbox selector whether customer is an individual or legal entity, when it checked, then company-related stuff being displayed.

So, my opinion is that VAT field is something customer-confusing when he/she registers as an individual.

[nickon]

Hi, @Traumflug Greece is one of those countries. VAT number is crucial if your company want to purchase an item. I have solved this as follows. On the OPC page I have added two extra radio buttons. The one is makred as "receipt" and the other as "invoice" (there in Greece retail customers must have receipt and companies must have invoice ) the recept button is selected by default and no extra VAT, Company name etc are shown. If you select invoice then VAT, Company name are shown. In order for us to know if a customer want an invoice we use the "gift button" so when "invoice" is selected the gift button is Green in the BO. This works quite nice. There is just one problem. I haven't found a way to make the VAT Company name etc mandatory if the user selects invoice. I can give you access to a test site of us if you need to check things out.

[colorful-ant]

@Traumflug I think your suggestion is ok. The problem again is that the testing of the VAT id by another module works. For checking the VAT ID.

But I think I have seen in an earlier post by zimmer-media times that there are discrepancies with the input. If I remember it correctly there were problems with the field of the VAT ID and the normal tax number. - but I'm not sure about that now. It was a bit longer ago when I saw that.

I think it was mainly about the actual VAT id for the field. Even if it can be easily used by a person, if it is copied on the Internet by any company.

[Traumflug]

@colorful-ant The VAT number is public, there isn't much to hide. The normal tax number is not, but also not requested in this place.

@nickon I think intended behavior is to always send an invoice. Private customers get one with taxes and without VAT number, company customers get one with their number, without taxes. And then there's module vatnumber, which does the right decision depending on shop country and customer country.

@ everybody

Thanks for the opinions, I'll push this, then. Let's see how it's recognized by users. In case it's not appreciated later, it can be reverted easily. That's why we have source code version control.

[nickon]

@Traumflug For me the opc page must be with as less entries as possilbe. It does not make sense to me always show the VAT field. Have done some A/B testing in the past and the results where 40% to the hidden VAT field

[Traumflug]

Alright, I reverted this change.

However, instead of using just show() and hide(), it now uses slideDown() and slideUp(), to be more intuitive about what's going on. Before it was hardly noticeable that the list of fields got longer.

Thanks for the help!