In this article you will learn the requirements to sell products on your website.
You can set up ecommerce entirely on your own, but please email [email protected] if you have questions or need assistance.
Thinkspace does not charge a fee for adding e-commerce to your website.
If you prefer an overview of ecommerce options and the main steps involved in setting up selling online, then this 15 minute video is a good place to start. Otherwise you can skip it and just read the solutions article.
There are two types of purchasing available: standard purchasing, or Memo
The easiest way to allow for transactions on your website is to turn on "Memo" checkout. A memo checkout allows a customer to say that they wish to purchase an item (or items) and they provide their contact information, but no money or payment information is exchanged at that time. The store would then need the customer to come visit the store or provide their credit card information by phone to complete the transaction.The advantage of this method of checkout is that you do not need to setup paypal or payment gateways through your website, so it is quick and easy. The disadvantage is that you will not be receiving the customer payment immediately- you will need to contact them to secure it. And this method of checkout may be confusing to some customers who are unaccustomed to Memo options. If you wish to use standard Purchasing then scroll down.
To enable Memo purchasing, log into your website's admin. Then navigate to "Settings", And "Commerce". Scroll down to the Purchase option and select "Memo". Make sure you also have "Add to Cart" checked off, and you're ready for customers to submit orders.
Make sure that you also fill in the "receipts" section below that- that is the email address that will receive purchase confirmations when a customer checks out on your website.
Also make sure that "Show Prices" is set to "Everyone" at the top of the Commerce section. Some sites do not have pricing turned on.
That is the minimum required to allow Memo checkout on your website.
If you wish to allow for standard purchasing then you will need to complete the following steps:
1) Make sure your prices are accurate for your various brands/products that you wish to sell
2) Enable payment methods for your site
3) Set up shipment methods and shipping rules
4) Set up sales tax rules
5) Pricing is showing to customers, Add to Cart is enabled, Order Receipts are being sent to your team and to customers.
6) Receipts for you and for customers
1) Before enabling ecommerce it is wise to make sure that all of the brands you wish to sell online have accurate pricing and markups. Some brands provide COST pricing to Thinkspace while others provide Retail pricing. Please review each brand and add markups where appropriate. It is also worth noting that you do not need to turn on ecommerce for all brands- you can selectively enable purchasing for some brands while not allowing it for others. You can also have some brands not show pricing. Please click here to read about setting up price rules for each brand: https://support.thinkspacehq.com/support/solutions/articles/3000073498-add-or-edit-markups-and-price-rules
2) The two most popular options for purchasing online are Paypal (which also offers payment plans) or using a credit card directly. If you can offer both then that will accommodate the widest range of customers. In order to enable Paypal standard checkout you only need to log into the admin and go to "Settings, Commerce". Then put in your email address in this field:
If you want to accept credit card payments as well then you need to set up a Payment Gateway, which can be done through authorize.net. To set that up, please first contact your Merchant Account that you use for credit card payments in-store and let them know you plan to sell online with authorize.net. Then contact authorize.net via this link and set up Payment Gateway Only: https://www.authorize.net/sign-up/pricing.html. That will allow you to use your in-store credit card merchant for online purchases. Once you have that setup we just need a few account details. If you go with Authorize.net, we will need your API Login ID and Transaction Key. You can find instructions on how to find this information here. Please input that information into the admin under Settings, Commerce:
3) Next you need to set up shipping rules and shipping methods. Shipment Methods can be found under Shop, Order Shipment Methods. Once in there you can create multiple options, such as UPS Ground, FedEx 2Day, USPS Priority Mail, etc. You may also specify the carrier if you wish. After setting up the shipping methods you need to set up the Shipping Rules, which can be found under Shop, Order Shipment Rules. For each shipping method you need to specify what the minimum purchase is, and the maximum purchase is. Giving customers options can be a good idea, and rewarding large purchases with free shipping is common. Be careful not to lose money on offering cheap or free shipping on low price point items.
4) Tax rules are necessary for most ecommerce websites now. You should research what the tax rules are for your state and county- some may require a simple single percentage, while others may require a large number of tax rates. Click on Shop, Tax Rates to edit that information. If your state or country require you to add a large number of tax rates then we recommend reading this article about adding them in bulk: https://support.thinkspacehq.com/support/solutions/articles/3000078331-adding-tax-codes-in-bulk-for-ecommerce
5) Once you have completed all of those steps, you need to make sure that you are showing pricing to customers, that they can add to cart, and that Purchasing is available. All 3 of those options can be found under Settings, Commerce:
6) When an item is purchased, an automatic email will be sent from the Thinkspace system to the email that you specify so that you can fulfill it. An email is also sent to the customer letting them know that you received their order. To specify which email (or emails) those are sent to/from, go to Settings, Commerce, and scroll down to Receipts. "To Email" will be the email that receives the purchase confirmation on your end. The "From Email" is the email address that the customer will see the confirmation come from. These can be the same, or different.
Payment notes: This section is optional, but you may also add notes for the payment section of the checkout process. This is particularly useful (and recommended)for memo carts. You can read how to edit that here.