Managing your orders

Your orders are gathered in Orders › Orders list, under three tabs:

• Pending: all your orders in progress, whether they're new, being prepared, or already handed to the carrier.
• Closed: orders that have reached the customer or been collected by them.
• Canceled: orders cancelled, by you or by the customer.

Every incoming order lands automatically in the Pending tab. It's then up to you to move its status along, from the Status column of the table:

• Pending: the order has been confirmed and paid for by the customer.
• Processed: the order has been prepared and handed to the carrier.
• Delivered, or Finished for an order collected through Click & Collect: the customer has their order. The wording follows the delivery method chosen at purchase, and the two sit side by side in the same list.
• Canceled: you or the customer cancelled the order.

The Pending tab and the Pending status are not the same thing, even though they share a name. The tab gathers everything in progress, including orders already moved to Processed; the status covers only orders that haven't been prepared yet.

An order's detail also tells you which channel your customer arrived through. Its acquisition channels block carries two lines, first interaction and last interaction, each with its date, its source, its medium and its campaign.

That double reading is what makes the information usable: the first contact tells you what recruits, the last one tells you what triggers the purchase. They're rarely the same campaigns.

Order handling calls for precision and regularity, whether you're on your own or in a team.

• Track the number of orders to ship, so you don't get overwhelmed.
• Handle each order quickly, but without rushing.
• Avoid delays, whose repercussions show directly in revenue.
• Look after your strategic customers.

Those habits assume you have the back office to hand, which describes a shopkeeper's day rather badly. In the kitchen, in the shop, in the stockroom, nobody goes back to sit in front of a screen for every incoming order.

Shop Companion is the mobile app that answers that. Your orders arrive there in real time, grouped by day, with the collection slot when you offer them.

You'll find the same three tabs as in the back office, so nobody has two systems to learn. Opening an order gives the full detail, and the status is changed from that same screen.

Your stock can be corrected on the spot too, at the moment you notice the shortfall rather than at the end of the day.

That's also what makes tracking workable with several people: whoever prepares the order isn't necessarily the person with back office access, and they no longer need to be.

Emails and push notifications go out automatically at each stage of the process:

• when the order is confirmed
• when it's processed
• when it's cancelled

The processing message exists in three versions, one per delivery method: carrier, Click & Collect and local delivery by postcode. You're announcing a dispatch, a collection or a drop-off, which don't call for the same words.

These notifications can't be switched off, but their content can be edited. So you can customize them entirely and put them in your shop's colors.

Their texts are edited in Settings › Email templates for the emails, and in Settings › Push template for the notifications. Both screens cover the same order events.

Remember the tokens, which let you address each customer by name.

Here's an example email to inspire you.

When a customer starts an order without completing it, it's recorded in Orders › Abandoned orders.

Three points so you read that list correctly. An order only enters it if the customer started the payment: a basket filled and then left aside doesn't appear. The payment session expires after an hour. And the screen shows the last two months.

A very large share of online shop visitors never reach the end of the purchase journey. It's frustrating, precisely because those people were interested and close to concluding.

The most common reasons for abandoning:

• they compared your prices with your competitors'
• the shipping costs held them back
• they're still thinking about it

None of those three reasons is a final refusal, and that's what justifies following up.

The Abandoned Orders Recovery extension lets you send, from that list, an email, a push notification, or both.

The messages attached to those actions can be customized, and it's strongly recommended that you do.

The subject line. It's what decides whether the message is opened, so take care with it.

• Personalize it for the customer, with their name for instance.
• Refer to at least one product from their basket. It takes longer to prepare, but it's what separates a follow-up from an automated message.

The content. This advice applies mainly to email, the push notification being much shorter.

• Recap the basket, with the list of products and the order total.
• Add a button that clearly takes the customer back to their basket.

The timing. There's no fixed rule. Some follow up within the minute, others wait several days. Lean on the information in your back office to decide: the customer's purchase frequency, the value of their basket. Experience will sharpen your judgment.

The two examples below show that the right rhythm depends entirely on the business.

A clothing shop. At Léonie Apparel, the abandoned order comes from a loyal customer who has ordered several times before. So she knows our prices and our shipping costs: we conclude that she's still hesitating, or that she didn't have time to finish.

First follow-up the same day, by push notification, for its speed and its visibility.

If nothing moves, second follow-up the next day, by email this time. The content is fuller and recaps the whole order, which can revive the impulse.

A third and final follow-up comes after that if necessary.

A restaurant. The setting changes completely: the selling window is very short, since the customer was ordering their next meal.

So we send a recap email and a more direct push notification about 30 minutes after the abandonment.

Then a second push follow-up an hour later.

Three days in one case, one hour in the other. The deciding factor isn't the value of the basket, it's how long the need lives.