An Online Store allows you to sell fixed-price items, such as school spirit wear, to your supporters. It can also be used to collect Pre-Orders for annual sales of garden plants, Christmas trees, cookie dough, citrus fruit, or any other items your organization traditionally sells. Online Stores are set up using the Fundraising Campaign feature. This allows your supporters to make purchases without logging in or creating an account on your site.
Best Practices and Tips
If you’re selling only a handful of items, using the Classic template provides the simplest order form. (But also limits you to a single image for each item.)
If you plan to showcase many items, use the online store template to create your campaign.
Upload at least one appealing image for each item in your sale. An image carousel supports the display of multiple images per item. (Only the primary image displays when using the Classic template.)
Communicate pick-up/distribution/delivery info on your site and in your campaign purchase confirmation email.
You can speed up the creation of your sales campaign by creating items in your catalog first. Additional items can be added later.
Include a cash donation option to allow your supporters to give additional funds.
Make sure guest receipts and credit card processing are set up on your site before launching your online store.
Log out of your site and walk through a test order to make sure your sales page looks and functions as intended.
As with all fundraisers, promote, promote, promote! Post a link to your campaign on your social media. If peer-to-peer sharing is appropriate, encourage your supporters to share the link with their friends and family.
Send your supporters (visible at Admin > Manage Users) an invitation to support your online store fundraising campaign. Supporters can be migrated from a previous event site or uploaded from a spreadsheet.
Things to Consider or Avoid
Store transactions create separate orders for each store/campaign on a site. These purchases remain separate from any purchases made during an auction, from the catalog, or during ticket sales.
Unless your sale is directly related to your annual auction, consider setting up a separate site for it. This will prevent the creation of duplicate user records on your auction site.
Bear in mind that Custom Fields (user defined fields) cannot be used for inventory tracking purposes. If you’re selling t-shirts with various sizes, for example, the only reliable way to track inventory is to set up each size as a separate item: Spirit Tee - Lg, Spirit Tee - Med, Spirit Tee - Sm.
Be aware that items are temporarily removed from inventory as soon as they are placed in a cart. If an order is not completed within 30 minutes, the item is returned to inventory, but will continue to display in the order. If the buyer returns later to complete the order, the transaction will proceed as expected as long as inventory is still available. If not, a message will inform the buyer that the item is no longer available.
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