Adding new items to an existing order

[Greenmind]

I've put this in the V9 section because although I'm using V8 I intend to upgrade shortly.

Just wondered if there was an efficient way of dealing with those occasions when a customer contacts me to say they forgot something when they made the order. They ordered X and Y and they just remembered they also need a Z. I get this quite a lot.

As it is I have to add it manually and then phone them up to get their payment details. They don't want to make another online order because they don't want to pay the shipping twice.

I just had an idea. I was looking at doing something with coupon codes but.. I'm thinking I could add a shipping option of 'add to order' that doesn't incur a shipping charge.

Does anyone have a set process for dealing with this. Perhaps it's obvious and I'm missing something, in which case I apologise profusely.

[animal dreams]

We used to get this too, but now happens very rarely. I guess it's partially down to your market.

You could try putting a message in the shopping cart to ask if they would like something else. But you need to avoid putting any barriers to checkout otherwise you will get abandoned carts!

Also I would advise against a free shipping option as some customers will use this for their initial order which will give you a worse headache.

[plantsforshade]

Hi

It is possible to make the shipping amount shopper editable, tick the box in I think business settings (not on my actinic pc) and then tell the customer to put through another order and zero the shipping.

Regards

Nigel

[Rich Brady]

If you're upgrading to V9 and use Actinic Payments as your PSP you can add a line to an existing order within Actinic and process payment without contacting the customer for more details.

[Greenmind]

Thanks for your replies.

Alan. I don't think the message in the cart would help because it's often the sort of thing you realise later - ventilation supplies. They realise they need something else as they are doing the job.

I've gone with the free shipping option temporarily.

Nigel. That's a good idea, but the temptation to decide their own shipping charge may be too much. They might just lower it and I may not notice. I figure I'm more likely to notice if there's been no shipping paid.

Rich. Yes I may go with that. It sounds ideal - it would make my life a lot easier. What I get is a short 'please add to order' email or a phonecall from someone in a hurry saying 'Please add X and charge to the same card. Thanks. Goodbye' and I have to say 'Hang on, I'll need your details again', which they get fed up with.

I'm using Paypal Payments Pro at the moment, but will have a look at Actinic Payments. Does it accept all the cards? Of course the fee percentage will also be an issue.

I'm assuming that when someone makes an online order their payment details are then held on my system somewhere. ??

Will I be able to keep Paypal - around 20% of orders are paid using it.

[martinkay]

I also get a lot of this "oh can you also add xyz" after the initial order has come through. Fortunately I have always had my prices inclusive of shipping (to the UK anyway) so if they want something else they just order again and are not being hit with another shipping charge (well they are, but it's invisible and not broken out separately). It doesn't put up mental barriers to customers to prevent them coming back the next day and ordering more either. If shipping was extra they'd think "darn it that'll cost me an extra £4.95, wish I'd thought of it yesterday". My personal view is, at the end of the day, I'm an on-line-only shop, so until teleportation is invented how else can I unite the customer with their goods other than using some sort of postal system, which will have a cost associated, therefore the cost should be in the price displayed and not tacked on as a surprise right at the end.

Previously I was using Actinic SSL and processing cards manually, so in any case when I had the customers' card details it was no sweat to add something extra and charge the same card. Now I have gone over to Netbanx as a PSP so everything comes through into Actinic paid up front, so this approach now works even better because otherwise I'd have to ask the customer to supply card details over the phone for me to process the extra amount via a virtual terminal.