Getting the most out of the Special Instructions option in your Quick Shopping Cart
Greetings,
One of the interesting parts of my job is reading through the product surveys, blog comments and talking with people about their website and business which are often one and the same for many of you. One size doesn't fit all and trying to provide a system that can accommodate unique businesses,although with a lot of commonality has really driven that point home. Another item that I have noticed is that our initial choice of name for a feature often limits it's true usage which I've seen with the template names on some of our other programs being taken literally as “only use this if you happen to be a teacher, or are getting married”
One of the options within QSC that is often overlooked is our “Special instructions” field which allows you to gather information from your customers that may not have a natural fit within the rest of your product options . While the name may not be very descriptive, or even useful, for your store it can be changed E.G If your store provides goods only to the local market, you could change this to “Delivery instructions” which let's the buyer know what information is expected of them.
How to setup this feature.
You can enable and change the description of the special instruction boxes by going to Storefront > preferences and then scroll to the bottom of the page. Amend as needed.
Where this appears:
The buyer will be asked to fill out this section on their way through checkout
Where you see the results
You will be able to retrieve this information within their order when you process it.
Thank you for your ongoing feedback and if there's any feature we have that you would like to see an entry address let me know.
John
QSC Team.
I was quite happy with QSC through setup and with the options available -- My alternate store is somewhat primitive comparatively. I sell a software product that is available via download only. I was surprise when on mon of week 2, I received a phone call from a prospective customer in Australia. He could not enter his state, postal code or telephone, all of which are required fields (I don't need any of these fields to make a sale). I was fortunate that he called me. I have redirected all my traffic to my old store. I would much rather use this store, but I need the capability to sell to international customers. If you would NOT require these fields OR change their format OR provide a free-form field for international customers OR allow me to put a message on that page to describe a workaround, I'd be ok. As it is, I can't use it.
Here are a list of other suggestions -- I entered them on the feedback page but the submit didn't complete and it cleared my entries.
Correct the spelling error on the "Can't download - a refund has been made" page (Recieving)
On the order page, provide a listing of emails sent to customer -- acknowledgement, download...
Provide more editing capabilities for customer email notifications.
Provide option to make download available immediately upon receipt of order. (I want the customer to have an unregister working copy right away -- I am not worried about theft -- I handle that by providing a key within the next day)
Provide capability to print order with credit card # and expiration for use with POS.
Provide link to order page on order notification.
Thanks,
Ben
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Greetings Ben,
Thank you for your observations and feedback. I'll address each item in the order in which they were received.
There is a work around for the internation user that wishes to download which Is as follows. Provide the shopper instructions to input your address within the address section and then if they want to provide you their address the can do so in the special instructions field within the checkout. This will only work for payment via paypal or alternate methods you accept due to the credit card gateways not accepting non US cards at this time. We are looking into ways to improve this within a future edition.
I've asked for the spelling mistook to be rectified thanks for spotting that.
We will certainly look into the instant download, aggregation of mails sent to a user and the improvements to the email content mentioned. Most of these are already within our roadmap.
We would not be able to provide the print CC information requested as this is against the industries standard practices for handling and retention of CC data.
Regards
John
QSC Team
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In reply to your work around solution for international address input... I still cannot use this trick as my store address is already international (Australia)...
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Hi John,
Thanks for your quick reply.
The workaround you suggested is, in fact, what I did with the international customer I mentioned. I'd really like to provide that message on the order screen. Any way to do that?
Glad to here you have a number of things in the works.
RE CC number. I don't understand the logic. I can do a screen print or print to pdf or I can write it down. My other store provides a data sheet for me to print with CC data.
Anyway, thanks again for your quick response.
Ben
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Greetings Ben,
Other than adding a note on the product description to do so there's not a specific location on the checkout that could be used. I'll certainly look into ways to make that more readily obvious. As to the CC retention on the other cart that's a choice that I'm afraid we can't make for reasons mentioned prior.
Regards
John
Qsc Team
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I wonder if it's possible to include an option to disable breadcrumbs? Our store is setup so that each page on our main site links directly to each product page on QSC, bypassing categories, and we'd rather not have people going to the massive product list they see when they click above - we already have a link in our product descriptions leading them back to our site.
Thanks!
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Greetings Andrew,
Thank your for our recent question with regards to the breadcrumbs they are an integral part of the store display and currently not an option for display/ non display. We can certainly look into including a feature of that nature in a future build.
Regards
John
QSC team
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Hello,
I agree, we absolutely need a way to remove item navigation in the case that we want customers to do all their shopping on the referring site, rather than in the shopping cart site. There are 2 additional things we need in order to do this - disable the breadcrumbs, and remove or customize the "continue shopping" link on the viewcart.sc page. I have come up with a javascript solution to do this, but I think it would be great if you could offer additional options under "menu customization" to allow this. P.S. - Is it ok to post the javascript here to help others, or would it break some kind of end user agreement?
Thanks,
John
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John,
There's a chance that the blog would "eat" the JS but that's not the biggest issue. Not breaking any agreement that I can think of but that being said anyone using such changes would possibly look to us to them support them. What I don't mind doing is taking a look at the change and if it's useful and posting it as an article. If it doesn't come through I'll send you my email to send it along.
Regards
QSC team.
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I am a "newbie" here and only within the past few months associated with GoDaddy. GoDaddy has been so responsive to my needs for assistance and guidance. Now, I'm about one RCH away from launching my site but have JUST ONE MORE THING to do. It seems that has been my mantra for the past three weeks...just one more thing.
I digress. I also would like to disable the OUR PRODUCTS link back to the Product Category Pages wihtin the QSC. I have a main site that where my customers can get a more complete description of my products and their selling points. Whenever you can get to allow us to customize the links, the more responsive the QSC will become to a great majority of us. Thanks
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Greetings Larry,
Thank you for your feedback and suggestions on ways to make the navigation on the cart more usable for yourself and others. I've taken note of your prior comments and they certainly make sense for people with existing sites / content that they don't want to recreate within the cart. This may be what you are looking for in relation to the "our products" link.
There's an option to turn this off under Storefront > Preferences > Show category list on sidebar. Which should remove the link If I've gotten this wrong apologies I'm doing this from memory at present.
Regards
John
QSC team.
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John
Thanks. You made the complex simple!!
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I still thing customization is way to limited. I hate templates, and always prefer do use my own designs. I think you should consider heading in this direction for more advanced designers and developers.
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Greetings,
Thank you for our feedback on this item and Ideally I would love to have the best of both world's were templates were a perfect fit for most users with minor customization yet we could open up the output to be fully styled/ integrated by those with more talent in that arena. Further customization is within our roadmap and the end goal is likely to be close to the model mentioned above.
Regards
John
Qsc Team
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that is encouraging to hear. Over all, I think the product is good. Simple to add categories, products etc. I don't know how hard it would to implement a more flexible customization system, but I think it would be idealistic to implement it the same way that you implement storefront header, footer and menu customization.... (with available variables, but access to the html and styles...)
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Hi, I am going to be selling some products on my website through affiliate programs, where I have to link the product that I want to sell directly to the actual sellers website. I don't see a good place where I could set up products like this on my store and then have them link to the real sellers website when someone wants to purchase the products and clicks on it to add to shopping cart. Is there a place or workaround where I could re-direct my customers to other websites when they want to purchase a particular item? Or, do I have to just set this sort of situation up on my website and not in the store. Thank you.
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Greetings Janet,
The specific workflow doens't exist at present and I'm not sure we've had such a request prior. If the goal is to have people click on the page to
I believe that you could accommodate this within the program descriptions html, though there's no display only option that would remove our purchase button it could be confusing. However there's another place you could try this.
What you could do is to convert one of our default static pages to display all of those affiliate links and then customize the menu to a suitable name within the storefront "menu customization"
Regards
John
QSC team
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Is there any way to display the special instructions on the invoice? So that a PO# or shipping requests show up on the invoice?
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Greetings Gary,
Here's how you can surface that information within the Invoice. Go into your Storefront tab, then to preferences and check the box "display special instructions". When someone fills in that information it will display on the printed/ previewed invoice. If they leave the field blank then we don't print the line at all .
Regards
John
QSC Blog.
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Greetings.
Maybe I'm missing this but is there a way to ad personalization to each item sold without having the customer write it out in the "Special Instructions". An example would be a custom name on a jersy.
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Greetings,
You're not missing anything I'm afraid. The special instructions section is currently the way we handle such requests though the addition of per product personalization is a request we've added to our roadmap for future inclusion. You can change the name of the "Special instructions" section to better reflect the intended usage.
Regards
John
QBC Team
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I really need more shipping options. I give my customers free standard shipping with orders of $75+, but I want them to be able to upgrade for a small fee (at checkout) or add postal insurance if they want to. We do not guarantee shipments if they do not purchase insurance, but the only way we currently have to offer insurance is from a category on our homepage. Most customers completely disregard that category, and we've already had to replace one shipment (to keep customer happy) after being damaged by USPS. They said they did NOT see our disclaimer (since it does not appear at time of check out).
Next concern: PayPal has given PayPal and Virtual Terminal subscribers (of which I am one) a new requirement for utilizing their service. As of 1/1/08, we are required to have our return policies POSTED for customer review at the time of checkout. I suppose they've had one too many disputes and charge backs, but I now (as do all other Quick Shopping Cart users) HAVE to be able to place this information to appear at time of checkout in order to remain in good standing with PayPal.
Is there any way to add additional shipping methods for customers to select and messages for our customers to READ at the time of checkout? This are really needed.
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Hi Stacey
Thanks for the feedback on the shipping options. It is on our longer term roadmap to expand shipping options. The only suggestions that I have at the moment for messages for the customer to read is to have a link to a message in the product detail page or a link in the footer of the invoice page.
Thanks also for raising the issue about PayPal. We have made an inquiry to our PayPal rep to see what the story is. At first glance reading their technical documentation is looks like its not an issue for us as our integration is not PayPal Pro or VT (which is what is suggested in the documentation) but we are confirming with PayPal.
Thanks for the contribution,
Rob.
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I am definitely looking forward to product personalization in the future (i.e. "special instructions" for each product) as I offer custom engraving for each product.
I have a question about the options. Currently, while you can create several sets of options (i.e. Color, Size, etc), and re-order the item choices within each option set, there seems to be no way to actually re-order the option sets (i.e. list Size before Color) without deleting it and re-entering everything in (which means re-doing it on all product pages). The reason being, it appears that whatever the order is that the options are in on the Options page is the order that they appear in for each product. I would love to see a way to re-arrange the options order either on a global or on a per-product basis. I'd take either at this point!
Also, I love the product option pricing, but I would love even more to see an option to set the pricing for a given option across ALL products, rather than having to individually type in the price addition each time. Say my size "XL" is always $2 more, I'd like to apply that across all products instead of manually typing it in for every single product page that uses that option.
Overall I am very pleased! Would love to see these features though.
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Greetings Rachel,
Thanks for the continued feedback. We'll take that into consideration , most of the requests already exist in our roadmap though I do like the addition of a common attribute having a common price , e.g your XL example. Presently I'm not sure about the option since I believe you are correct I'll play with this more to see if there's a better way we can do this. ( obviously starting out with your suggestion.)
Regards
John
QSC team
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HI, I just puchased QSC, and I notice when you enable "pay with credit card" that a key information is not collected through the process. A CVV (security code on the back of the credit card) is a must to comply with today's merchant policies. With only credit card number and expiration date information most merchant wont allow to process on non-face to face transactions and/or will expose you to a big risk and liabilities. Is it possible for you to add a field where the customer can input this important information?
Thanks,
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Hi Fabio
If you are using a payment gateway, the CVV value is captured and passed on to the gateway. If you are using POS the CVV value is not captured as it is against Payment Card Industry regulations to store the CVV value in QSC.
Regards
Rob
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John, is there any way to have "special Instructions" or memo boxes be added as an option? I am trying to figure out a way for my customer to be able to easily type in requested dates of stay for my vacation rentals. I would need total of 3 special instructions boxes in that case, and it would make my customers feel better if the dates were requested in the BEGINNING of the order or reservation process instead of at the end!
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Hi Nicky
Unfortunately we do not have that ability right now to insert text boxes.
You may be able to work around it in the case of needing dates by creating 6 options for the product for check-in and check-out month, day, year, and then the shopper selects from the drop downs. It is rudimentary, but it would capture the information.
Regards
Rob
QSC Team
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I've been tickled witless with GoDaddy and QSC! I realize that EVERYone has their little idiosyncrasies that they really would like to see GoDaddy address, but with the increasing frequency of credit card fraud consumers have begun to demand more stringent laws. Banks deal with credit card fraud by simply charging back the merchants - and costing us millions every year.
Why does QSC NOT have a place on POS Check Out for a customer to enter the three-digit security code from the back of their credit card? This leaves ALL QSC POS merchants incredibly vulnerable to credit card fraud - and in a position where we cannot even argue if a customer CLAIMS their card was charged without permission. Since this is such a BASIC need (QSC is the only merchant service I've seen that does not require it) I certainly hope this is something QSC addresses very, very soon. Like, BEFORE I end up eating a $3000 fraudulent charge! :)
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Hi Stacey
You and many others ask this question. The answer is simple: Payment Card Industry regulations do not allow us to store the CVV value along with the credit card number in a database. If you want to capture the CVV value, you need to use a payment gateway.
Regards
Rob
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Any chance we could have several "special Instructions" options and/or have the capability to put special instruction boxes in the order area, at the top of the order form?
Please???
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Hi Nicky
Thanks for the suggestion, we are limited to the single box at this point. We have this, plus requests for text boxes in the product description area that meet the similar end goal. Its not on the immediate horizon for feature development, but it is captured in our longer term roadmap.
Thanks for the contribution,
Rob
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I'm working on customizing our shopping cart to sell 'photography services', not products. During the check out process I need a form that will allow our clients to enter the street address and other information about the properties we photograph. The area for 'shipping information' would be an ideal spot to capture this property address info. We don't need shipping information since we'll never be sending products to our customers. Any recommendations?
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Greetings Mark,
I don't think there's a neat way to do this.By letting the user know to use the shipping address for the location they wish photographed would need to be in the item description or present on the header / footer customization to remind them to do so. I'm afraid it's just not that flexible to accommodate such a path presently. It really would come down to them either filling it into the custom text area otherwise.
Regards
John
QSC Team
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I am currently setting up my store and with the product that i am currently selling i have pdf files of literature that need to be displayed How would i go about putting this on the site?
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Greetings Jeremy,
I would need to know a bit more about the end goal here. I think you want is for the items to be shown alongside the product for sale so people can read them to make the purchasing decision that being the case QSC doesn't have a separate file area for supporting documentation at this time . The files would need to be stored within another hosting account and then linked to from the product description on each itekm You may already have free hosting available to you from your Godaddy account. If this is what you are looking to achieve we can get you an example of how this would work.
Regards
John
QSC Team.
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Why in the hell don't you have a forum for the QSC customers??? I have a new question everyday! I don't want to wait 2 days for a reply! Plus you guys could spend more time making the QSC's better and less time answering questions that we could help each other on, without your help! Makes ZERO sense! It's in the future plan! Thats a joke! Just do it!!!! Tell Bobby to do it! and quit worrying about Danica, don't worry she didn't win again!
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Greetings,
Some reasons we don't yet have a forum? The 24-7 support by Email and Phone should be able to clear up items that refer to the current application. The wait times on the phone are low and I'm pretty sure our mail response beats out the two day turnaround time. That being said I'm all in favor of a user forum ( no matter who does it) where people with QSC can discuss their findings, tips and workarounds. I'll then steal them and post them to the blog, kidding. I'm working on this I'll post on this in a planned future comment in this post.
Regards
John
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Does anyone know if there is a way to rearrange the order of your checkout pages? I want my payment method to come before my shipping method since I offer COD and there is no shipping involved with that. When shipping method comes first, it will give a false total amount to the customer.
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Greetings,
Thank you for the question regarding the checkout page order. Presently this order is not configurable by the store owners. Other than drawing attention to this in either the header or footer this information could be added to the extended product descriptions. I'll take a look into this example and see if we can improve upon this in a future version.
Regards
John
QSC Team
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How do I test inegration of paypal with QSC?
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Greetings,
Sorry for the delay in replying. The only way to test the Paypal integration is to perform a real purchase with that in place. You can certainly tell if the correct items are going into the cart by making test purchases but not following through on the actual payment section. This is a robust part of our program and really the only way we've seen it go "wrong" is if a user adds in an email address that's not been set up for Paypal or the purchaser doesn't realize that they need to go to paypal by clicking on the graphic on the invoice screen to finish their transaction.
If there's a specific workflow that you would like more info on let me know and I'll see if I can give you a more precise response.
Regards
John
QSC team.
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