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There may be times when you need to process an order for your customer manually rather than having them navigate through your store to place the order. The reason could be that the customer has visited your brick and mortar store or perhaps they are having trouble accessing your site due to random Internet connectivity issues. Whatever the reason, you can process the order for your customer manually directly from the Online Store Manager itself. We call this feature a "Phone Order."
Important
By default, you will see the Single Page version of the Phone Order section when accessing the Phone Order page. This article is regarding the multiple page version for legacy merchants. Both of these will accomplish the same result.
To place a Phone Order:
Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager and, using the left-hand navigation menu:
- Go to Orders >Phone Order
- Select your customer by either searching for an existing customer record, or creating a new one
Click on the Customer's Name to proceed
- After the customer is selected, click continue (on the bottom right) to proceed to the item screens
- Select the order items. You can also add new products and search for individual items as needed
Tip
Next to the search bar on the item selection page, you will also see a "Browse Store" link that will allow you to add items from your store front. You can also view items that were previously purchased by the selected customer as well as add a new product directly from the Online Store Manager interface.
- Once the item is added, you can add more items (by clicking on the "Items" tab or otherwise review the order as necessary. You can also place a manual discount on the order or use an existing Gift Certificate or Promotion code on the order.*
*Note
Please be aware of the following when using the manual discount feature. When adding a manual discount to the order, it will be added to the overall order as an individual line item. In other words, if you create a 10% discount on the order, the invoice will log the product(s) ordered as well as the individual discount as its own separate item (with a negative price since it is a discount). Unfortunately, some carriers may factor this individual line item in the shipping calculation and cause an unnecessary increase in the total shipping amount.
To avoid this possibility it is usually best to create discounts on phone orders using the coupon code field instead.
- Select the shipping options available and click "Continue" to proceed
- Enter the billing method and then click Checkout to place order.
- The invoice's Referrer detail will show the order as a Phone Order.
Once the order is placed, an invoice is created as usual. In essence, a phone order is no different than an order placed on your site's store front. However, without having to do the normal navigation, it may be more efficient for you as a merchant.
Custom Prices
Shift4Shop also allows you to set custom prices on items when placing a phone order. As you add items to the phone order, you can set the price manually to be a discounted (or increased) price as needed before completing the order.
This option is not automatically enabled but you can enable it with the following steps:
- Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager
- Using the left hand navigation menu, go to Settings >General >Store Settings
- Once there, click on the "General" tab
Within this page, you will see a series of checkboxes and settings. Look towards the bottom of the page's left hand area and you will see a section labeled "Other Options."
- Place a mark in the checkbox labeled "Allow Phone Orders Custom Prices"
- Click "Save" at the top right of the page to commit your changes.
With this setting enabled, the price display on the products (when placing a phone order) will be featured as an open text field which will allow you to edit the price of the item as needed. You can then complete the phone order and it will honor this custom price for the item(s) on the order. (Subsequent phone orders will revert back to the item's default price after completing the altered phone order.)
Additional Information
Please be aware that the custom price function will only work on Phone Orders and only when placing them from the Online Store Manager interface. If you try to use the previously mentioned "Browse Store" link, it will not be allowed if you are using the Phone orders Custom Price setting.
Also, be aware that promotional discounts set with either of the "Excluded Items" option settings (in the promotion rules) will not work with phone orders when the custom price setting is enabled.
Also note that the Discount function only works on the phone order interface. It will not apply to the order using the browse store link either. For discounts on Phone Orders that you'd like the customer to complete on the store, please consider using the Apply Coupon option instead.
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