BrainStorming: Handling Orders in BO

[wakabayashi]

I want to start a new discussion about order handling in the backoffice. I am basically talking about the overview list and the detail page (AdminOrders Controller). For me this is one of the most important parts of thirtybees. Merchants need to handle orders in an efficient way. That's our daily business!

As you can guess, I am not 100% happy with the system right now. It lacks some features and is not really flexible. I want to use this topic, to discuss the different needs. If many merchants are fighting with the same problems, it should be added/changed in upcoming versions like 1.1.x. This topic could lead to a crowdfunding project later on. Let's get concrete:

High priority

• Changing carrier of an order: We could (and probably will) talk a lot about order editing here. I want to be concrete here. We have a lot of customers who orders and some minutes later write an e-mail: "oh please change my shipping to express". Well then you are kind of fucked up with the current system. It must be possible, to change the carrier at least until the products are shipped. It also would be wishful, to be flexible, in editing the cost of a carrier.

• Delete an order: I have read in the past: "this is not allowed in europe". I don't know. Here (in switzerland) its allowed. It's not about deleting a correct order. In Dreamland you won't use this feature, but Ecommerce is not Dreamland. Case 1: Some funny guys are just placing test/fake orders. "oh lets test their checkout". Suddenly you have an order from [email protected]. You wanna get rid of these... Case 2: Customers places an order. Five minutes later the same customer places another order. We as a merchant merge the two orders into one. Then I would like to delete the other one. For second case cancel is probably ok too, but not for the first one.

• Products Returns: There is a feature for returning products. In our case it often happens like that: customer just sends the product back without using any FrontOffice feature. If he sends everything back, it works quite good, to just cancel the order. But if he only returns some items, it gets tricky. Too tricky. I can't regenerate the invoice in that case. In don't know if the returning handling should be improved or if a more advanced order editing is better!?

Some more Ideas:

• Flexible Overview List: In this forum we often see posts like "how to add shippingmethod or city to order list". Maybe it would be great, to make this list flexible. Let the merchants decide, which columns should show up. This concept could be also interesting for other lists like products or customer. Also the filter options could be better. Imagine you could filter multiple status, wouldnt that be nice?

• Multiple Tracking Numbers: Not much to say. Sometimes you have multiple packages for a single order. Unfortunately you can't add multiple tracking codes to an order.

• Email Handling: Some emails are just hardcoded. I would like to be more flexible, when an email goes out to the customers. Example 1: if a customer orders and lowers two stock under zero, he will get an email. Do I want that? Maybe, but maybe not. Example 2: if a merchant adds an order trough backoffice. He maybe wants to avoid, that the customer gets the email.

I am sure, that not all these examples are relevant for you. Which are, which aren't? Which did I forget?

[Baarssen]

At the moment i use an order handlings module which fits all my needs, i can change everything i want. Only 30 dollars, but i already had for a 1000 dollars fun from it :) I only dont know if its fully compatible with thirtybees but we will soon know when my mainshop is being migrated

[wakabayashi]

I know about this module. But I think we should rely on PS module for that. It also adds just completly new Controllers as far as I can see.

[lesley]

I have a question with a case in point. Say I have a shop that sells widgets and I take payment with paypal and stripe. Then I have two shipping methods, free and express. If a user calls and wants to change to express, but it increases the order total by $10, what do I do?

[wakabayashi]

I don't know how this is handled in practice, since we dont use paypal payments. I guess you ask him, to send $10 to your paypal account!?

[vincentdenkspel]

@baarssen said in BrainStorming: Handling Orders in BO:

order handlings module

What is the name of the module ?

[lesley]

These things are where the complexity comes in tbh. Most shops do collect money on order, so things like that have to be taken into account.

[wakabayashi]

But how are they handling, if somebody sends products back? What if somebody writes an email "I have chosen the wrong product please change it to"?

[lesley]

I think they cancel the order and remake it.

[wakabayashi]

In both cases? I mean a case, when somebody sends only 2/10 items back...

[lesley]

Returns are a rarer event in the US and the non EU world, since the buyer pays shipping both ways.

[wakabayashi]

Yeah but that doesn't mean it's not important for tb. I believe almost every merchants needs to handle it. Some often, some others rarely. I just checked google shortly. Ofc Paypal and Credit Cards are becoming more and more popular. But still a lot of countries know classical payment systems: https://ecommercenews.eu/online-payment-methods-europe/ If you sum them (Invoice, Bank Transfer, COD, Cash on Delivery) up, it becomes a serious market share.

I wouldn't see, how editable features, could harm merchants, who only use paypal!? Do I miss something?

[lesley]

Its not that it is not important, its that we need to come up with a solution that includes as many use cases as possible.

[wakabayashi]

yeah I agree with that. That is the purpose of this thread. Since I only have my view. Others should bring in their view ;)

[Kleijn36]

@lesley said in BrainStorming: Handling Orders in BO:

I have a question with a case in point. Say I have a shop that sells widgets and I take payment with paypal and stripe. Then I have two shipping methods, free and express. If a user calls and wants to change to express, but it increases the order total by $10, what do I do?

In Europe it is not allowed to edit an already send invoice from an order. When we can make in "Order/New Order" negative Quantity in products it will be possible. For example the customer want to change Quantity from 5 to 4, order new product and change shipping. product 1 -1 -14.99 New product 1 7,99 Shipping Cost -1 -4.99 (make product) Expres 1 8.99 (make product) Total .........

New invoice

[wakabayashi]

@Kleijn36 Sir I live in Europe ;) Not sure if I understood you correct: so you cancel the old order and make a new one?

[Kleijn36]

@wakabayashi No, i send a new invoice to the customer with a product name "Changed Delivery Option" with the exta cost. Just an extra invoice for the extra cost. Negative Quantity in product i prefer.

[wakabayashi]

And how are you generating this new invoice in tb? Actually we use this ugly trick too, but wouldn't it be much better to have the option, to change carrier? Is your invoice attached to the order email? And from that point on, you are legally no more allowed to change anything?

[Kleijn36]

Yes the invoice is attached to the order e-mail. Sending the invoice after order is shipped or is delivered gives us more flexibility and less invoices. When an order has changed there need to be sent a confimation mail to the customer with a payment request.

[Baarssen]

When someone ads something to an order, i change the order, and also the invoice and send a payment request for the amount which has to be payed, or i return the money which has been paid to much. I never had problems with it and i have had already 5 times tax control in the past 20 years. If the payments and invoices are correct they only say to me: officially its not allowed but its correct.

If it should be a problem i should cancel the order, make a new one and see if the customer has to pay extra or refund. It only happens a few times a month so no big problem.

@vincentdenkspel this is the module

[wakabayashi]

@Baarssen I guess you change the order basically trough your module, right? For example the carrier change. Which functions of this module do you need (because they aren't working in the core of tb)?

[Kleijn36]

@Baarssen if the module is fully compatible with thirtybees this will do it for me. Only thing i prefer is sending invoice (from TB) when order cannot be changed and is completed/shipped.

[30knees]

@wakabayashi I like all your suggested improvements. I think deleting an order would be on top of my list. It's also legally possible to do so in Europe. And in some cases it is actually a legal requirement to do so. We also have to differentiate between invoices and orders - invoices need to be kept and cannot be changed, orders can be.

@lesley said in BrainStorming: Handling Orders in BO:

I have a question with a case in point. Say I have a shop that sells widgets and I take payment with paypal and stripe. Then I have two shipping methods, free and express. If a user calls and wants to change to express, but it increases the order total by $10, what do I do?

It depends: If the invoice hasn't already been generated/sent to the customer, you can adjust the order and generate the initial invoice. If the invoice has already been generated/sent to the customer, you'd likely generate a new invoice for the USD10. Typically, shops shouldn't generate the invoice until they ship. What they would send out before the ship, if they want to send something out, is a pro forma invoice.

[MockoB]

@30knees I recently bought module for deleting orders and it was less than 30 euro. On the advertise the author claims it deletes all database entries. I'm not capable to tell if it does, but it deletes the orders from the list for sure :) and it is legally selling module on ps addons store.

[datakick]

@mockob it's actually quite easy to delete order - simply open order, and in page url replace vieworder to deleteorder