Customer Online Storefront
This article will show the customer's side of the customer online storefront.
Topics in this article include
- Embedding the storefront on your website
- Select Date
- Category and adding to cart
- Suggested items
- Check out Process
Embedding the storefront on your website
Before your customer submits a reservation through your website, you want to make sure your Essentials storefront is embedded into your current website. Please see our Embedding Customer Online Storefront document for instructions on how to do this.
You will likely have a "Rentals" (or something similar) button that your customer will click to go to your storefront. If you have a pop-up message set up in your configurations, this message will automatically pop up when your customer enters the storefront for the first time. They can close it out and will not see the message again within the same visit. If they refresh their browser or log out and back in, the message will pop up again. Please see our Online Storefront document to see how to set this up.
Select Dates
From here, they will enter the dates they need their items and click Confirm Dates. A front-end configuration defaults the reservation time and return time pulldown selections to 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, or 60-minute increments.
Note: If your storefront is configured to ‘Event First’, your customer must select the dates before they can view or choose any items.
Note: Depending on your front-end configuration settings, the start and due times fields may be hidden. Please see our Online Storefront Configuration document to learn more about how to set up your front-end configurations.
Category and adding to cart
Once the customer confirms their dates, they will select the items they need by entering that particular item in the search field or clicking on a certain category in the list to the left or in the center of the page where their item might be.
Once they find their first item, they will click Add to Cart or select the item to get more details such as color, size, or any other descriptions listed.
Once the customer adds the item to the cart, they can change their quantities by clicking the "+" or "-" sign that appears.
As the customer adds more items, they will see the quantity in their cart change.
If you have suggested items attached to the main item, the customer will see Choose Options instead of Add to Cart. This will allow them to see what items are suggested to go with the main item and how many are available. This is a great tool to increase your sales. Plus, it makes it easier for customers to find multiple things they might need and search less.
When the customer clicks Choose Options, they will see all the related suggested products you linked to this item.
If there are items that automatically come with the item, either at an additional or discounted rate, they will see a section in which they must choose one. If you have more than four choices the customer can choose from, they will see a drop-down instead of a list.
They will click on the drop-down and select the additional item they want to go with the main item.
Once they select their additional item, it will appear in their selection.
When the customer changes the quantity of the main item, the additional items will automatically adjust accordingly.
Once they have all their items and quantities added to their cart, customers can click on their cart to view their items.
From here, not only can the customer see their items and quantities, but they can still add more quantities, continue shopping, or get estimates. They can verify their dates, too.
If you have custom questions or special requests required for the customer to complete, they will need to complete these fields before they can click Get Estimate. Please see our Custom Questions document to learn more about setting these up. If you have coupons set up and allow your customers to enter them on the storefront, there will be a field for them to enter the coupon code.
Once the customer has confirmed everything on the order and is ready to Get Estimate, they will be taken to the next screen where they create an account. They will complete all the required fields and any custom customer questions you may have set up. If you have allowed Guest Checkout, they will also have the option to only fill out the guest checkout fields required.
Note: If the customer is a returning customer and has an account created, they will click the "I already have an account" link and sign in using their previously created credentials.
Before the customer can continue, they can select if they want to be included in any of your marketing emails (optional) and check that they are not a robot (required).
Once the necessary options are checked, the customer will click Delivery/Pickup Information to go to the next screen.
This will allow them to review their order once more and verify their address and any other fields that were completed. Once everything is verified and correct, the customer will click Delivery/Pick Up Information once more.
If you allow the customer to add a delivery\pick up address, this is where they will either select from a pre-defined delivery location (please see our Adding New Delivery/General Locations document), use their own address, or enter a new address. They will also enter any delivery and/or pickup instructions and click Order for Delivery.
Note: If the customer will be picking up the items from your store, they will click Order for In-Store Pickup.
They will verify one more time the ordered items, ordered by and the delivery address. If the delivery address or instructions are incorrect, this is where the customer can Edit Delivery.
If everything is correct, the customer will click Save and Continue to get to the confirmation page.
Note: If you are set up to collect credit card payments, the customer will be required to enter their card information and pay before they get to the confirmation page. If you have the e-Signature add-on feature and have your configuration settings set to where the customer is required to pay and sign from the storefront, the customer will need to pay and sign before they get to the confirmation page.
Once the customer has completed the reservation online, if you have set it up in Notification settings to receive an email anytime an online order has been created, you will receive the email once the customer has completed the order. This will also show on your Dashboard and Workbench within your Essentials account.