Step 7
Placing Orders
Understanding the Checkout Process
Your customers will usually begin at your home page. Sometimes they will land on a category or product detail page if they came from a search engine. These are the general steps a customer will take to place an order on your store and the pages they will typically navigate to:
- Category pages/Search results pages (SearchResults.asp)
- Product details page (ProductDetails.asp)
- Shopping cart (ShoppingCart.asp)
1. Log in with existing email and password or
2. Click Create new account
- Create a new account or modify existing account info (AccountSettings.asp)
1. Create new email address and choose a new password
2. Enter new shipping address
3. Enter new billing address, if different from shipping address
4. Choose shipping preference for order
5. Enter credit card/payment information
- Review order then hit proceed to checkout (One-Page-checkout.asp)
- Order finished confirmation/receipt (OrderFinished.asp)
New customers should follow the above steps intuitively as they shop at your website. Returning customers will skip most of Step 6, since all their past information is saved to facilitate a quick checkout process.
Quick Phone Order Page
As the administrator, you can place orders from the front end of our store by simply following the same checkout process as your customers. You can also use the phone order page to take orders over the phone and enjoy some additional useful tools, controls and features.
Placing Orders from the Storefront
- In the admin area, click Log Out in the upper right-hand corner.
- From your store home page, add items to the cart and proceed to checkout.
- When asked to log in or create a new account, simply create a new account with the customer’s information. You’re essentially standing in for the customer. If you’ve activated anonymous checkout, you won’t have to create a new account, but you’ll still have to provide an email address on the checkout page.
Placing Orders with the Phone Orders Page
In the admin area, click
Orders >> Phone Orders.
For New Customers
Under Checkout Type in the Log In section, click the New Customer tab and enter an email and password, then click Create Account.
Items to Note
It’s possible to place an order anonymously from this page by clicking the Anonymous tab before filling out the order. This method won’t allow you to track the customer's email or address information, and the customer won’t be able to track the order online. Also, all anonymous orders are combined in financial reporting.
For Existing Customers
Click the Existing Customer tab, enter the customer’s ID number from the admin’s customers table, and click Log In. This will populate customer’s email address to the page and keep the order listed in the customer’s account.
To Add Products to a Phone Order
- Click Go Shopping under the Order Summary section to add products to the cart. This will take you to your store homepage.
- Once you’ve added products to the shopping cart, close the browser and return to the phone order page.
- Click your browser’s Refresh function. This will populate products added to the cart.
- Enter the customer’s shipping information, click Precalculate Tax + Shopping Rates, then choose their preferred shipping method.
- Enter the customer’s billing information and payment details, then click Place Order.
Items to Note
When taking a phone order, you are logged in as an administrator. To place an order, however, you’ll have to be logged in to the customer’s account on the phone order page.
Point of Sale System
If you conduct business as a brick-and-mortar store, you may need to use a point of sale (POS) system for quick checkouts. Fortunately, Winter ‘09 offers a built-in POS system under Orders >> Point of Sale. It assumes there will be no shipping cost, since the customer will physically pick up the item at your store location.
- Use your barcode scanner to scan each product. If you have a product without a UPC code or if you don’t have a barcode scanner, you can simply use your online store to add products to the cart.
- Collect payment in one of the following ways:
- Use your credit card terminal to swipe the customer’s credit card.
- Enter the cash value provided by the customer.
- If the customer is paying by check, you can click Proceed to Checkout to use the Change Payment button to enter the MICR check info and then Save.
- Your receipt printer quickly prints the receipt and displays the amount of change to give to the customers who pay by cash.
The following POS hardware is supported:
- Credit card swipe/magnetic stripe reader
Items to Note
An MICR check reader is not supported at this time.
To purchase hardware, you might consider the following hardware vendors:
http://pos.epson.comhttp://www.symbol.comhttp://www.waspbarcode.comYou may also want to search eBay for low-cost hardware. One of the most inexpensive credit card swipes is the Magtek Credit Card Swipe.
Installing the Hardware
Both the barcode scanner and credit card swipe hook up to any computer using the same plug as your keyboard. The barcode scanners and credit card swipes always come with a splitter to accommodate all POS devices. These devices are designed to save you time and ensure accuracy. The powerful convenience actually comes from using your ecommerce software in conjunction with this POS hardware. When using the POS System in your admin area, you’ll simply place your cursor in the UPC Code field and scan any barcode to add the product to the shopping cart.
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