The entire ordering process is customizable. This tutorial will show you how you can edit each step of the process. Please feel free to use the links below to navigate to the part(s) of the ordering process you'd like to edit/customize.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The pictures in this tutorial are from one of our website templates. Your website probably won't look exactly the same, but the same principles apply.
- "BOOK NOW" BUTTON (ALSO KNOWN AS "CTA" OR "CALL TO ACTION")
- MINIMUM ADVANCE NOTICE REQUIRED FOR ONLINE BOOKING
- ORDERING MODE
- REORGANIZING CATEGORIES AND ITEMS/STORE
- CUSTOMIZING CATEGORY AND ITEM WEBPAGES
- CART PAGE/UPSELLING/ADDONS
- CUSTOMER INFORMATION PAGE
- PAYMENT PAGE
- THANK YOU PAGE
"BOOK NOW" BUTTON (ALSO KNOWN AS "CTA" OR "CALL TO ACTION")
See the image below: by default, the "Book Now" button (sometimes the button says "See All" instead of "Book Now," depending on your chosen website template) directs your customers to the "Order By Date" page, where they'll be shown instructions on how to order (known as "Price Rule Text") and prompted to choose a date for their order. However, this button can direct your customers somewhere else if you prefer! For example, if you'd like for the button to show your customers your inventory, you can have the button direct your customers to the "Store" page, which will display all your Categories. Instructions for editing the Book Now Button Link are below this picture.
NOTE: the verbiage, i.e., what the Button says ("Book Now," "See All," "Check Availability," etc.), is edited in a different manner. Please reach out to Tech Support if you'd like to edit the Book Now Button verbiage.
To edit the "Book Now" button link, you can go to Admin>General Config>Misc Settings>Header Book Now Button Link, as per the picture below.
MINIMUM ADVANCE NOTICE FOR ONLINE BOOKING
See the image below: Minimum Advance for Booking determines how far out from today’s date one of your customers can schedule an order. The purpose of this setting is to give you enough time to fulfill an order. Generally, our clients do not want their customers scheduling an event on short notice, such as on the same day or the immediate next day.
You will receive a "Short Notice Message" for orders placed within a 24-hour window of today's date. To modify this message or receive text alerts, please see the following tutorial: Short Notice for Orders.
FORMATTING NOTES:
- Your entry can be formatted in hours or days (i.e. "12 hours" or "3 days").
- With entries formatted in days, the day will roll over at midnight, regardless of your business hours. For example, if your entry says "2 days" and today is a Tuesday, Thursday will be the first available date for online booking if a customer visits your website, regardless of what time it is on Tuesday when the customer visits your site. At midnight Wednesday morning, the first available day will roll over to Friday, etc.
- With entries formatted in hours, the day will roll over at the time of your first available time for an order. For example, if your entry says "16 hours" and your first available time for an order to start is 9:00 AM, that means once the clock hits 5:00 PM, the next day will show as unavailable.
- This setting is available under Admin > Order Config > Misc Order Settings (see the image below):
ORDERING MODE
See the image below: when your customers choose a date for their order, they'll be shown instructions on how to order before they choose a date. This is known as "Price Rule Text," and you can edit it at Admin>Rules>Price Rule Sets.
See the image below: by default, once your customer has chosen a date for their order, your folder will use "Time Span" ordering. This means your customers will be prompted to choose a "Party Start Time" and "Party End Time." However, some party rental company owners prefer timeslots, or maybe they just want their customer to choose a date and they deliver and pick up everything within a certain timeframe. Your ERS folder can support however you want to handle this! Please reach out to Tech Support if you'd like to set up a different ordering process other than Time Span ordering.
REORGANIZING CATEGORIES AND ITEMS/STORE
On the front end, the Store page will display all your Categories, other than Hidden Categories (see image below). You can get there by reloading the Homepage with "/store/" added to the end of the URL.
You can reorganize the order of your Categories in the Store by going to Admin>Products>Sorting. Simply click and drag the Categories to reorder them. Your changes will save in the Control Panel as you make them, but you'll have to refresh the front end page after you've made all your changes to see them reflected there. The procedure for reorganizing Items is the same; you simply click into the Category whose Items you'd like to reorganize and click and drag them as you would with Categories. See the animation below for a demonstration of Category and Item sorting while tracking the changes on the front end.
You can change which Categories display on the front end by going to Admin>Products>Categories in the Control Panel and changing the Display setting for any Categories you'd like to show or hide on the front end.
CUSTOMIZING CATEGORY AND ITEM WEBPAGES
The webpages for your Categories and Items will automatically display the Name, Description, and other information from the Control Panel. You can edit this information for Categories at Admin>Products>Categories, and you can edit it for Items at Admin>Products>Items. Simply find the Category or Item you'd like to edit, click into it, make your changes, and click "Submit." You can then refresh the page on the front end to see your changes. See the animation below for a brief demonstration.
In the Description area, you can use the WYSIWYG editor (that stands for "What You See Is What You Get," and it refers to the word processing controls at the top of the Description area) to edit text, fonts, colors, add links, additional pictures, etc. You can learn more about how to use the WYSIWYG editor by consulting this tutorial.
You can also customize Category and Item webpages further by using our Responsive Website Editor. Simply click into the Category or Item, then click on "Edit Responsive Content," make your edits using our Responsive Webpage Editor, then, once you're ready for your changes to be visible live online, click the "Save" button. Then go to Admin>Website>Responsive Setup, find the Category or Item Webpage you just edited under "Your Web Pages" (the Path will start with "system_category" or "system_item") and click the "Active" switch to make it a Responsive webpage, which will push your changes live to the web. Then you can refresh the front end webpage to see your edits. See the animation below for a demonstration.
CART PAGE/UPSELLING/ADDONS
Once your customer has added an item to their order, your ERS folder will automatically upsell for you on the Cart webpage using Suggested Addons (see the image below for reference). You can customize your folder's upselling to more or less simulate how you upsell over the phone, so as to maximize your average ticket size. For example, once someone has added an inflatable to their order, you may suggest they add a concession machine to their order. Next, you may suggest a face painter, then tables and chairs, etc.
An Addon can be used as either a Suggested Addon or a Required Addon. You can edit your Suggested Addons and/or add new ones, etc., at Admin>Products>Addons. You can assign Addons to Items by going to Admin>Products>Items and editing either the Suggested Addon or the Required Addon field for the Items(s) you'd like to edit.
Required Addons differ from Suggested Addons in that they're not intended for upselling. They're intended to ask your customer a question to give you needed information for their order. Required Addons take precedence over Suggested Addons, but don't let that make you think you can't upsell when an Item uses a Required Addon! You can always upsell. For an in depth tutorial on how to customize and optimize your upselling, please feel free to read this tutorial and/or to watch this chapter in this video and/or to join us for an ERS Intermediate webinar training.
Required Addons differ from Suggested Addons in that they're not intended for upselling. They're intended to ask your customer a question to give you needed information for their order. For example, a common usage of Required Addons is, when a customer adds a snow cone machine to their order, to prompt them to choose a free syrup flavor. You can edit your Addons at Admin>Products>Addons. You can assign Addons to Items by going to Admin>Products>Items and editing either the Suggested Addon or the Required Addon field for the Items(s) you'd like to edit.
Required Addons take precedence over Suggested Addons, but don't let that make you think you can't upsell when an Item uses a Required Addon! You can always upsell. The trick is to attach a Suggested Addon to all the Items in the Required Addon. Continuing with the snow cone machine example, let's say you use a Required Addon to prompt your customer to choose a flavor for their free small bottle of syrup that comes with their snow cone machine rental. Let's say they have to choose between cherry, grape, and lemon lime. Those free bottles of syrup are Hidden Items. So you can attach a Suggested Addon to each of those three Hidden Items, so that once the customer has chosen their free flavor of syrup, they'll then be shown the Suggested Addon you attached to those three Hidden Items.
So the workflow for upselling with Items that use Required Addons is:
- Customer adds original Item to their cart>
- Required Addon prompts customer to choose another Item>
- The Item the customer chose via the Required Addon upsells using a Suggested Addon
You can refer to the picture below if you like, and you can click here for a detailed tutorial on Suggested and Required Addons.
If you like, you can add a Cart Step to your Cart page. A Cart Step adds customer contact information to the Cart page that your customer must fill out in order to proceed with their order. If you do not use a Cart Step, your customers will be prompted to give you their contact information on the next webpage, the Customer Information Page. If you'd like to add a Cart Step to your ordering process, you can reach out to Tech Support. You can customize the Cart Step Instruction phrase if you like at Admin>Order Config>Misc Order Settings>Cart Step Instruction. By default the phrase says "Please fill out this form before checking out". You can see the picture below for reference.
CUSTOMER INFORMATION PAGE
The Customer Information Page collects your customer's contact information, as well as any additional information you need for orders. The entire page can be customized; see the table of contents and picture below for reference and see below that for instructions on how to edit each part of the page. You can use the table of contents to navigate to the part(s) of the page you're interested in editing.
- CONTACT INFO/EVENT INFO
- REFERENCES
- SETUP SURFACES
- ORDER OPTIONS (TOP & BOTTOM)
- REMINDERS
- MENU HEADERS
CONTACT INFORMATION/EVENT INFORMATION
You can edit all these fields according to their:
- Display text (for example, Street Address can say Billing Address if you prefer)
- Order (for example, you can move Phone above Email if you like)
- Requirement status (for example, the Mobile phone field can be not required if you prefer)*
- Existence on the page (for example, you can get rid of the Company Name field if you like)*
*: There are a few fields that must be present and required on this page, as they give you essential information to complete the order and take a credit card payment. The following fields are always required:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Street Address (billing and event)
- City (billing and event)
- State (billing and event)
- Zip Code (billing and event)
You can also add additional fields. Available fields include:
- Secondary Email
- Work Phone
- Fax
- Birth Date
- Alternate Contact Name
To edit the display text, order, requirement status, or existence of any fields in this grouping, and/or to add additional fields, please reach out to Tech Support and describe what changes you'd like to make.
REFERENCES
You can edit the choices in this dropdown menu at Admin>Order Config>References. The display phrase by default says "How Did You Hear of Us?", but you can edit that if you like by reaching out to Tech Support. However, the menu heading only has room for about 30 characters, including spaces, so it's best to keep the phrase brief.
SETUP SURFACES
The choices in this dropdown menu can be edited at Admin>Order Config>Setup Surfaces. Here, you can also establish a global Setup Surface Fee if you like for any or all of the entries in this menu in the Cost field. For example, if you'd like to charge a $25 fee for orders set up on Concrete/Asphalt, you'd simply type "25" into the Cost field under Concrete/Asphalt. Keep in mind that Setup Surface Fees established here will be a one-time fee for the order, charged once only regardless of how many Items are in the order. If you'd like to charge a Setup Surface Fee for each Item in the order, you can establish the charge for each Item by going to Admin>Products>Items and editing the Setup Fee field for each Item to which you'd like to add the fee(s). Pro tip: the Customize button, Menu Heading Reordering, Menu Searching, and Spreadsheet Mode are helpful for making mass edits. You can read this tutorial for further information.
Setup Surfaces works hand in hand with Surface Load Options to add additional needed items to the Load Sheets for your orders. For example, if a customer adds a water slide to their order and the order is being set up on grass, you can use Surface Load Options to automatically add 8 stakes, 2 blowers, 2 extension cords, etc., to the Load Sheet, so your drivers don't forget those additional items at the warehouse. You can read this tutorial for further information on Surface Load Options.
ORDER OPTIONS TOP & BOTTOM
Order Options generate questions and/or statements on the Customer Info Page* which your customers will have to read and answer via either a dropdown menu or an open-ended text field. You can edit them at Admin>Order Config>Order Options.
Any Order Option that is in the Group of Top or Bottom and is set to Display>Yes will show up on the Customer Information Page. To edit the text of the Order Option, you can edit the Description area. If you'd like your customers to answer the Order Option by typing their response into a text field, you can leave the Options field blank. If you'd like your customers to choose from a dropdown menu, you can add/edit the dropdown menu choices by filling out the Options field. To edit the dropdown menu choices, you can edit the name fields under Options. You can have as many choices in the dropdown as you like; simply click Add More until you have as many as you need. You can reorder the choices in the dropdown by clicking and dragging the row using the little blue and white cross icon to the left of the Options. If you'd like any of the dropdown menu choices to trigger a fee, you can enter it in the cost field next to the corresponding name. You can refer to the picture below, and you can click here for a detailed tutorial on Order Options.
*Order Options can also be used for other purposes. You can click here for the full Order Options tutorial.
REMINDERS
Reminders generate a statement your customers will have to read and agree to by checking a checkbox on the Customer Information Page*. You can edit them at Admin>Order Config>Reminders.
You can edit the statement text in the Contents field. Leave Display on Checkout set to yes and leave it in the Group of Reminders to make sure it shows up on the Customer Information Page.
*Reminders can also be used for other purposes. You can click here for the full Reminders tutorial.
MENU HEADERS
By default, the Menu Headers will display as Contact and Billing Information, Event Information, and Additional Information. You can change the display text of the Menu Headers and/or delete some of them, and/or add new ones if you like. Keep in mind that each header will create a new column and will affect the layout of the webpage on both desktop and mobile view. It's generally best practice to have at least three Menu Headers for this reason, and to try to arrange the fields on this page in such a way that the desktop view looks more or less symmetrical (the columns stack in mobile view, so that's not as much of an issue). For reference, you can look at the picture at the beginning of this chapter and notice how the three columns are more or less the same height.
To edit the display text and/or quantity of Menu Headers, please feel free to reach out to Tech Support and describe the changes you'd like to make.
PAYMENT PAGE
The Payment Page is where your customers will submit their credit card or gift card deposit to finalize their order. The text on the page, as well as the image that says "We accept Visa, American Express, Discover, MasterCard" are editable. You can edit the text itself, the formatting, the color, the font, etc., and you can add images, videos, links, bulleted lists, etc. You can edit the Payment Page at Admin>Documents>General Documents>Payment Header. You also have some control over how the Adjustments display on this page (i.e., where it says "Min Payment Req'd," etc.). You can read this tutorial to learn more about how to edit the Adjustments display on this page.
When you first start out with ERS, Submit without Payment is an available Payment Type, so that you can test. However, unless you instruct us otherwise, when you're ready to take your website live on the web, Tech Support will help you remove Submit without Payment as a Payment Type on the front end, so your customers will be required to pay their deposit with either a credit card or a gift card in order to finish booking their order.
You can refer to the image below, and you can click here to read a detailed tutorial on how to edit Documents.
THANK YOU PAGE
The Thank You Page displays after your customer has submitted their deposit payment and thus finalized their order. You can edit the text, formatting, color, font, etc., at Admin>Documents>General Documents>Thank You Page. You can refer to the picture below, and you can click here to read a detailed tutorial on how to edit Documents.
IMPORTANT NOTE: don't remove the text in the Thank You Page that says "[area:store.receipt]". That is known as a Merge Field, and it generates the part of the Thank You Page that has the Items and Adjustments you see on this page. You can click here for a detailed tutorial on Merge Fields.
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