Pre Ordering In V8

[BrianHill]

We want to be able to take orders on products that will be released for sale next year. Can anyone recommend the best way of doing this inV8

[leehack]

ITEM WILL NOT BE RELEASED FOR SALE UNTIL MARCH 17TH 2008, HOWEVER YOU CAN PRE-ORDER YOURS TODAY. YOUR ITEM WILL BE DESPATCHED AS SOON AS IT COMES INTO STOCK.

[BrianHill]

Thanks - but its not the wording I wanted but the setup, ie do you do it by activating customer accounts, how do you keep a record of the preorder if payment hasn't been taken?

[leehack]

Can you not leave the order in "pending" and process as when the product comes live? By going to Actinic each and every day you will always see it there and besides once these items come into stock, it must jog a memory to send those out that have been pre-ordered. You can take payment and still leave it in the "to do" list on Actinic, so you do not lose track of it.

[BrianHill]

The point is we don't want to take the payment up front

[chris ashdown]

How about setting it up as normal plus the clear wording and label it as a "Deposit for" and charge a small 10% deposit, which you take now and offer them a reduction in the end price of £xx when the product is released

When you get to a week or so from the date change over the site to full price and tell the early customers the goods will be out x date and you will be taking the remaing money upon dispatch

Send out the goods and manually sort out the pre orders and charge their cards (you can do this with protx but not sure on other psp's)

Orders will remain in the pending till delivery date

[BrianHill]

Thats sounds better - thanks

[leehack]

Brian

I understand it can be frustrating not getting the answer you are after, however to aid in getting this you need to provide as much info as possible. You gave one line of text and from that you are expecting everyone to understand your full situation. You may as well spend the time detailing this in your first post as it is only equivalent to having to answer "thats not what we want" in future posts.

In case you are not aware, there are lots of different was of processing orders, some of which do not involve taking any money at that stage. A shop i designed works exactly like this, the details are taken securely and then the client processes the money as and when he is ready to send it out. Because of this his orders always stay in pending and can be viewed very easily at any time.

If your payments are fully processed online, then i personally have no idea what to suggest apart from what Chris has mentioned. This has a nice advantage that there is a deposit taking which should aid in removing the "oh i don't want that now scenario".

[BrianHill]

Any other advice you want to give

[leehack]

Yes, remember that most people that try and help you in here are doing it out of their own time and NOT Actinic staff. Most of us have bought the software, just like you and try collectively to build a community where we all help each other.

[RuralWeb]

Any other advice you want to give

You will want help in the future so dont bite the hand that feeds you.