closing shop

[gpzzone]

Hi,

What methods do people use to advise customers that the shop is closed due to holidays - yet still capable of accepting orders? (Ready to be processed when I return)

I have a number of landing pages (from portals) which will catch most customers and advise them that any orders placed won't be processed for a few days. But anyone with the page bookmarked will be unaware of the closure.

I could rename actinic's index.html, and slap a new index.html into the root directory explaining that the shop's closed, and when any orders will be processed etc. At least that way everyone routing into the shop will be exposed to the advisory page.

The obvious problem with this I guess would be that anyone hitting the home button in the catalogue whilst shopping would be returned to the new (advisory) index page, rather than the actinic main page.

I'm probably missing a trick and would appreciate everyone's opinion.

Thanks in advance

[pinbrook]

use the header and footer to place a message on every page

[Paul Bulpit]

I can't answer the question directly - I find that the internet is 24/7 and a world away from how I did business before. Therefore I would say, have a holiday by all means but leave reliable staff behind to look after the orders.

You're between a rock & a hard place - not so long ago I had no holidays at all and they didn't interest me as I had a business to run, and enjoyed it. A couple of years on, I can afford a property in the sun & go there several times a year as a result of putting my business online. So stick with it, son, way to go!

My suggestion is to change the 'url for completed checkout' page to say "Thank you for your valued order, but due to my well-deserved annual holiday, please expect delivery in 7-14-21 days".

By then you will have the order & the customer will have to wait.

Any advance warning is likely to put the punters off placing an order at all.




Sorry, Jo, I don't agree - capture the business, then deal with the cancellation emails when you get back! Many of the customers will accept that - not every mail-order outlet delivers 'NextDay'.

Paul

[Jan]

Perhaps you could not take payment and then put a note in the order received email?

Regards,

[gpzzone]

My suggestion is to change the 'url for completed checkout' page to say "Thank you for your valued order, but due to my well-deserved annual holiday, please expect delivery in 7-14-21 days".

By then you will have the order & the customer will have to wait.

Any advance warning is likely to put the punters off placing an order at all.

Paul

Good advice Paul - I like your style.

The difficulty is I am the staff!

I pride myself in being an honest broker, and would never dream of attempting any form of deception on my customers - you'll only rip them off once.

So your approach and idea fits the bill perfectly - let them go shopping but give them the opt out when their basket is full, rather than deter them from filling it in the first place.

Now - How do I change the checkout url.

[webgirl]

Good advice Paul - I like your style.

The difficulty is I am the staff!

I pride myself in being an honest broker, and would never dream of attempting any form of deception on my customers - you'll only rip them off once.

I understand

Until this year we too were in this situation. Meant that for 8 years we never went away for more than a long weekend for fear of alienating our customers. This year we have taken staff on and had a whole weeks holiday-lovely. Keep on looking after your customers and you will get to that stage eventually.

Katie

[guccij]

You could change your checkout terms and conditions to say that orders will not be despatched until xyz date, and make them tick the accept t &cs before checkout. This gives those that want, the chance to pull out before payment. You could also add it to your home page, footers and headers as suggested previously and of course to your shipping page (if you have one).

[Paul Bulpit]

Sorry for the delay, nipped over to Tenerife for the weekend. Hot & no rain.

Now - How do I change the checkout url.

It's in (v7) Design | Options | Miscellaneous where you set the url, leading to an html page that you've already prepared.

would never dream of attempting any form of deception on my customers - you'll only rip them off once.

It's not a rip off, tell them like it is. I think you'd be surprised, many UK web-punters do indeed realise that they are dealing with small businesses (& I can show lots of personal examples, ranging from 'that's OK I don't mind' to 'I'm worried I put my card into a fraudulent site, can you confirm')!

Also, depending upon your business, how many return, anyway?

[EDIT]
1 - OK having looked, in your case it's probably a tight-knit community.
2 - in that case, this is probably even more relevant.
[/EDIT]

Now at this moment in time I can't explain/remember how I did it, but look at my site (in my profile) and on the right hand side, third panel down (probably off the screen as I don't want to emphasise it) you'll see a message advising of the expected delivery date. This message changes automatically at 3pm every day to allow for a cut-off time for shipping.

I reckon, with a bit of help from an expert (Norman, may be), you could set up a similar message that will count down the despatch date in terms of 'days until my return to full operations'.

That way, as your holiday comes to an end, at least the customers that you think you will be upsetting, won't have to wait so long!

Paul

[Rich Brady]

We are a childrens clothing site and regularly take holidays

Lucky buggers...

Great solution though, I think I'll pass that on to my clients

[RuralWeb]

Edit the order recieved email to show the estimated delivery date - that way they have it on hard copy.

[Buzby]

We have just done this and had very good sales whilst closed.

On the side bar of every page we have a graphic which is just white and is 150 x 1 in size which links to a marketing page. as the graphic is so small it is not clicked whilst not in use.

Upon closing we just drop a larger image 150 x 150 in its place. We do not even have to upload actinic, just ftp the image in.

The image usually says 10% Off every order, click for more info. Once clicked the page then explains that we are closed and that they will receive a 10% discount off their order if they are happy to wait. This message is also in the cart and order received e-mail.

We had very good sales whilst closed and did not have one complaint.

Kind regards

Jason

[george]

No security implications announcing that you are closed for a holiday for a week?


Not be better to say you are closed for stock checking, a refit or something?


Just a thought.

[sazoo]

I forgot to mention that the solution I provided only worked on version 8 upwards but I think most people are on either 8 or 9 by now.

Sazoo